The Winamp media player was developed to run on Microsoft Windows operating systems. The last stable release of the software was released about three years ago on April 26, 2023. If you need a native Linux alternative to Winamp, Audacious is a free and open-source audio player that has a GTK-based interfrace (GTKUI),but which can also be configured with a Winamp-like interface and which supports Winamp 2 skins, i.e., Winamp .wsz files (a type of ZIP archive file). You can also migrate Winamp playlists into Audacious; it supports the standard .m3u and .m3u8 playlist formats, though you will need to modify the Windows-style file paths to be Linux-style file paths. To use Winamp playlists on a Linux system, such as an Ubuntu system, you can take the following steps.

1. Locate your Winamp playlists, which are .m3u or .m3u8 files typically located in C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Winamp\Plugins\ml\playlists where username is the relevant username. You can view the contents of that directory from a command prompt window using the command dir %appdata%\Winamp\plugins\ml\playlists since %appdata% is an environment variable pointing to the account's AppData\Roaming directory.

   A list of the playlists is contained in the playlists XML file. In that file, which can be viewed in a text editor such as the Windows Notepad, you will see data like the following:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-16"?>
   <playlists playlists="35">
   <playlist filename="plf8064.m3u8" title="Moonzic (Top Favorite Mix)" id="{8B45286F-9CF9-4A14-9045-F27EDC1ED72B}" songs="217" seconds="0"/>

   The first line above shows the version of XML in use is 1.0 and the character encoding is UTF-16. The next lines shows that, in this case, there are 35 playlists. The next line shows the filename of 1 of the 35 playlists and the title for the playlist in Winamp.

2. If the music files, e.g., the .mp3 files referenced in the playlists are not accessible from the Linux system, copy them to a location that is accessible from the Linux system. If you preserve a similar folder structure, if you need to copy or move the files, editing the playlists files will be easier. E.g., if the Winamp playlists contain paths like:

   C:\Users\Alice\Music\Artist\Album\song.mp3

   You could have a similar folder structure on Linux like the following:

   /home/alice/Music/Artist/Album/song.mp3

3. Edit the playlists files. You could use a global find and replace function in a text editor or you could update all of the files at once with sed (short for stream editor), which you can run from a Terminal window. Sed will likely already be present on a Linux system. You can verify that by using the which command, i.e., which sed, which will show you the location of the program, if it is present. Sed is also available for Microsoft Windows systems at sed for Windows. A sed command like the one below, if executed from the directory where the playlist files are located, could be made to make the needed changes if the the Windows and Linux file paths were like the ones above.

   sed -i 's|C:\\Users\\Alice|/home/alice|g; s|\\|/|g' *.m3u8

   • The -i tells sed to edit files in place, i.e., to make the changes to the specified file rather than create a new file.
   • The commands sed will use are enclosed in single quotes.
   • The s at the beginning of the command instructs sed to perform a substitution. The vertical bar is being used to separate the old string from the new replacement string. Another character could be used, such as a colon, etc.
   • The string to be replaced, C:\\Users\\Alice is placed within the first pair of vertical bars. Each backslash must be preceded by another backslash because the backslash character has a special meaning — it is an escape character. If you have a period in the replacement string, you should also precede it with a backslash, since the period (.) has a special meaning in a regular expression, also. The replacement string is enclosed within the second set of vertical bars.
   • The g that follows the 4th vertical bar indicates it is a "global" replacement operation, i.e., it should occur everywhere the original string occurs in the file.
   • The semicolon separates the first command from a second one, which indicates any backslashes in the file should be replaced with forward slashes. I.e., the backslashes that occur later in each line should also be replaced.
   • The *.m3u8 indicates that the sed commands should be applied to all .m3u files in the directory.
4. After updating the .m3u8 files, within Audacious, click on Playlist and select Import.
5. Navigate to the location of the playlist then select one by clicking on it and then click on the Import button.
6. The playlist name, e.g., plf68B in the example below, will match the filename for the .m3u/.m3u8 file. You can rename it to match the name for the playlist in Winamp by opening the Winamp playlists.xml file, which will be in the same directory as the playlist .m3u8 files, in a text editor or web browser and looking for the corresponding entry, e.g.:

   <playlist filename="plf68B.m3u8" title="Disney Classic Tunes" id="{AAD2A93E-93E9-442B-B24C-88D0BFBB4607}" songs="44" seconds="8231"/>

   Right-click on the playlist name in Audacious and choose Rename.

[ More Info ]

[/software/audio_video/Audacious] permanent link

Advanced Diary is a journaling/diary application for Microsoft Windows systems developed by CSoftLab. It stores the location of the currently active datbase in the Windows registry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Databases in the key Database0. You can query the value from a command prompt using the reg query command reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Databases" /v Database0. You can change the value from a command-line interface (CLI) using the reg add command.

C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Databases" /v Database0

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Databases
    Database0    REG_SZ    Protocol=Local*Database=C:\Users\Alice\Documents\Advanced Diary\diary.dndb


C:\>

It stores the settings for automatic backups at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options. The default option settings when no automatic backup has been set are shown below.

C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options" | find "AutoBackup"
    AutoBackup    REG_DWORD    0x0
    AutoBackupPath    REG_SZ
    AutoBackupMode    REG_DWORD    0x0
    AutoBackupTime    REG_BINARY    4F5555555555D53F

C:\>

You can change the backup settings in the program by selecting Tools, then Options, then Backup from the Advanced Diary menu bar.

The registry settings when automatic backups have been turned on with a backup location specified and the default backup options left in place, e.g., every day, are shown below.

C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options" | find "AutoBackup"
    AutoBackup    REG_DWORD    0x1
    AutoBackupPath    REG_SZ    P:\alice\Advanced Diary Backups\
    AutoBackupMode    REG_DWORD    0x0
    AutoBackupTime    REG_BINARY    4F5555555555D53F

C:\>

When you turn on the backup option, the next time you start the program you will see a AutoBackup window prompting you to OK a backup. if you leave the "Confirm before running AutoBackup" option checked.

The "AutoSave" option is stored in the registry at AutoSave under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options. The default value is zero. With "AutoSave entry ever 5 minutes" turned on the value will be "1" as shown below.

C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options" /v AutoSave

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options
    AutoSave    REG_DWORD    0x1


C:\>

The value in minutes for the interval at which automatic saves are performed is stored in the AutoSaveInterval key. The key that controls whether the user is prompted to confirm backups is stored in the BackupConfirmation key. A value of "0" indicates that confirmation is not required.

C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options" /v AutoSaveInterval

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options
    AutoSaveInterval    REG_DWORD    0x5


C:\>reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options" /v BackupConfirmation

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\CSoftLab\Advanced Diary\Options
    BackupConfirmation    REG_DWORD    0x0


C:\>

Related articles:

1. Obtaining a command prompt in Windows 11
   Date: August 14, 2023
2. Remotely Enabling Remote Desktop Protocol From the Command Line
   Date: April 11, 2009
3. Checking Microsoft Windows proxy server settings
   Date: January 7, 2015

[/os/windows/software/journaling/AdvDiary] permanent link

You can view the current name of a system running a Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) using the hostname command in a PowerShell or command prompt window. You can change the name of the host by opening a PowerShell window with administrator privileges by choosing "Run as administrator" when opening the window and then using the PowerShell command Rename-Computer -NewName "name" where name is the new name you wish to assign to the system. Note: names must be 15 or fewer characters due to NetBIOS limitations and should only use standard alphanumeric characters, i.e, A-Z, 0-9, and hyphens (-). Spaces and most special characters are invalid and will cause an error.

PS C:\Windows\system32> hostname
DESKTOP-PNS32H3
PS C:\Windows\system32> Rename-Computer -NewName "Jamestown"
WARNING: The changes will take effect after you restart the computer DESKTOP-PNS32H3.
PS C:\Windows\system32>

You will need to reboot to have the new name go into effect; you can add the -Restart option to the command to restart automatically. E.g., Rename-Computer -NewName "TheNewName" -Restart.

To join a Windows domain from a command-line interface (CLI), you can issue the command Add-Computer -DomainName "YourDomainName" -Credential (Get-Credential) -Restart — replace YourDomainName with the name of the Windows domain. If you don't want to automatically reboot, omit the -Restart option.

Add-Computer -DomainName "ad.example.com" -Credential (Get-Credential) -Restart

cmdlet Get-Credential at command pipeline postion 1
Supply values for the following parameters:
Credential

You will see a "Windows PowerShell credential request" window open where you can provide a user name and password for an account in the domain administrators group. The system will automatically reboot if you have added the -Restart parameter.

[/os/windows/PowerShell] permanent link

To determine the IP address of a Microsoft Windows system from a command-line interface (CLI) you can open a command prompt window and use the ipconfig command ipconfig /all. If you only need the IPv4 address you can pipe the output into find or findstr. Alternatively, you can use a netsh command.

C:\>ipconfig /all | find "IPv4 Address"
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.8(Preferred)

C:\>ipconfig | findstr /C:"IPv4"
   IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.8

C:\>netsh interface ip show addresses

Configuration for interface "Ethernet"
    DHCP enabled:                         Yes
    IP Address:                           192.168.0.8
    Subnet Prefix:                        192.168.0.0/24 (mask 255.255.255.0)
    Default Gateway:                      192.168.0.1
    Gateway Metric:                       0
    InterfaceMetric:                      25

Configuration for interface "Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1"
    DHCP enabled:                         No
    IP Address:                           127.0.0.1
    Subnet Prefix:                        127.0.0.0/8 (mask 255.0.0.0)
    InterfaceMetric:                      75


C:\>

You can also use a PowerShell cmdlet to view the IP address.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4


IPAddress         : 192.168.0.8
InterfaceIndex    : 5
InterfaceAlias    : Ethernet
AddressFamily     : IPv4
Type              : Unicast
PrefixLength      : 24
PrefixOrigin      : Dhcp
SuffixOrigin      : Dhcp
AddressState      : Preferred
ValidLifetime     : 15:58:12
PreferredLifetime : 15:58:12
SkipAsSource      : False
PolicyStore       : ActiveStore

IPAddress         : 127.0.0.1
InterfaceIndex    : 1
InterfaceAlias    : Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1
AddressFamily     : IPv4
Type              : Unicast
PrefixLength      : 8
PrefixOrigin      : WellKnown
SuffixOrigin      : WellKnown
AddressState      : Preferred
ValidLifetime     : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
PreferredLifetime : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
SkipAsSource      : False
PolicyStore       : ActiveStore



PS C:\>

You can get a more concise version showing the interface and address with Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 |Select-Object InterfaceAlias, IPAddress.

PS C:\> Get-NetIPAddress -AddressFamily IPv4 | Select-Object InterfaceAlias, IPAddress

InterfaceAlias              IPAddress
--------------              ---------
Ethernet                    192.168.0.8
Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 127.0.0.1


PS C:\>

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/PowerShell] permanent link

1. Shut down the VM
2. With the VM selected, click on Settings, then General, then select Features. Change the Shared Clipboard setting from Disabled to Bidirectional then click on OK.
3. Start the VM.
4. In the running VM, click on Devices then select Shared Clipboard . Make sure it is set to Bidirectional.
5. Select Devices then Insert GUest Additions CD image....
6. When you see the "VirtualBox - Question" window with the message "Do you wish to download this disk image file fromt he Internet?", click on Download.
7. If you see a window asking you to confirm the VirtualBox Guest Additions disk image file followed by the URL for the download, e.g., https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/7.2.6/VBoxGuestAdditions_7.2.6.iso, click on Download.
8. You should then see a window informing you that the VirtualBox Guest Additions disk image file has been successfully downloaded and saved locally. The download location is ~/.config/VirtualBox/VBoxGuestAdditions_x.y.z where x.y.z is the version of the ISO file, e.g. VBoxGuestAdditions_7.2.6.iso. You will be asked "Do you wish to continue with Guest Additions installation?" Click on Continue.
9. Open the Windows File Explorer, then navigate to "CD Drive (D:) VirtualBox Guest Additions" in the left pane and with it selected, in the right pane, right-click on VBoxWindowsAdditions and select "Run as administrator". When asked if you wish to allow the program to make changes", click on "Yes".
10. You will then see a "Welcome to the Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions Setup" window which will inform you "It is recommended that you close all other applications before starting Setup. This will make it possible to update relevant system files without haviging to reboot your computer." Close any applications you are running in the Windows VM and then click on Next.
11. At the next window you can "Choose Install Location". Unless you need to change the location, just click on Next.
12. The next window is one where you can "Choose Components". You can click on Install to proceed with the default options. The space required is 675.0 KB.
13. At the next window you will be informed "Your computer must be restarted in order to complete the installation of Oracle VirtualBox Guest Additions..." and asked "Do you want to reboot now?" You can click on Finish to immediately reboot. Once you have rebooted, you should be able to copy and paste between the host and guest operating systems. You should also see the "VirtualBox Guest Additions Service" and "VirtualBox Guest Additions Tray Application" processes running if you bring up the Windows Task Manager.

[/os/virtualbox] permanent link

To install Discord on an Ubuntu Linux system, you can install it as a Snap package through Ubuntu's App Center.

At the install screen, I saw the message below:

Snaps are confined, as such Discord may be unable to perform some of the tasks it typically does when unconfined. This may result in the system log getting spammed with apparmor errors. Granting access to the system-observe interface when in the snap will enable the features, and thus reduce the logging.

snap connect discord:system-observe

AppArmor is a Linux kernel security module that provides system administrators the capability to restrict the access programs have to the system on which they run.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

If you would like to use the Python programming language on a Microsoft Windows system, one way to install Python software is to use the Windows Package Manager, aka winget. Open a command prompt and enter the command winget install python. After the software is installed, you can view information on the Python package with the command winget show python.

You can then type python in a command prompt window to open the Python interpreter where you can enter commands. E.g., in the example below it is being used as a calculator. You can exit the program by typing exit(). You can run Python scripts from the command prompt window using commands in the form python example.py.

Related articles:

1. Obtaining a command prompt in Windows 11
   Date: August 14, 2023
2. Obtaining a command prompt in Windows 10
   Date: February 18, 2017
3. WinPython - Python for Microsoft Windows
   Date: May 13, 2018
4. Installing new packages for WinPython
   Date: May 18, 2018

[/languages/python] permanent link

My wife had been using DVDFab 13 under Microsoft Windows 11 and wanted to continue to use it for ripping DVDs after we converted her desktop PC to Ubuntu Linux. DVDFab 13 seemed to be working fine after I installed it using Wine until after I updated Wine to version 11.0 (you can see which version of Wine is present by issuing the command wine --version in a Terminal window). When I tried to run DVDFab afterwards, though, I saw the message “A debugger has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”

When I queried ChatGPT about the issue, it replied “This error is usually not caused by an actual debugger running on Ubuntu. DVDFab contains anti-debugging / anti-tamper checks, and under Wine or Proton those checks can sometimes incorrectly conclude that a debugger is attached.” It also stated that, for DVDFab 13 specifically, there is an issue when trying to run the program on later versions of Wine with the problem appearing with version 10.3 or later. The problem occurs on newer versions, even when no debugger is running. I decided to install the application under Bottles, which I had previously installed on the system with Flatpak, to see if the problem might not occur if I tried to run the application under Bottles, but the problem still occurred. I.e., I saw the "A debugger has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.” message. It took me a considerable amount of time to resolve the problem, but I was finally able to fix the issue by disabling DXVK and VKD3D in the settings for the DVDFab bottle.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu/DVDFab] permanent link

To see the Flatpaks installed on a Linux system, you can issue the command flatpak list in a terminal window. To remove a Flatpak from a system, find the Application ID of the software by issuing the command flatpak list --app. Once you have the Application ID, you can uninstall the Flatpak with the command flatpak uninstall AppID where AppID is the relevant Application ID. To remove all of the application's local settings and configuration files, add the --delete-data option. E.g., to remove the Bottles Flatpak, I could use the command flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.usebottles.bottles.

alice@Wonderland:~$ flatpak list
Name             Application ID              Version Branch       Installation
Bottles          com.usebottles.bottles      63.2    stable       system
i386             …sktop.Platform.Compat.i386         25.08        system
Mesa             …esktop.Platform.GL.default 26.0.6  25.08        system
Mesa (Extra)     …esktop.Platform.GL.default 26.0.6  25.08-extra  system
nvidia-580-159-… …tform.GL.nvidia-580-159-03         1.4          system
Mesa             …ktop.Platform.GL32.default 26.0.6  25.08        system
Mesa (Extra)     …ktop.Platform.GL32.default 26.0.6  25.08-extra  system
nvidia-580-159-… …orm.GL32.nvidia-580-159-03         1.4          system
Nvidia VAAPI dr… …ktop.Platform.VAAPI.nvidia         25.08        system
Codecs Extra Ex… …ktop.Platform.codecs-extra         25.08-extra  system
i386             …Platform.codecs_extra.i386         25.08-extra  system
GNOME Applicati… org.gnome.Platform                  49           system
Yaru Gtk Theme   org.gtk.Gtk3theme.Yaru              3.22         system
gecko            org.winehq.Wine.gecko               stable-25.08 system
mono             org.winehq.Wine.mono                stable-25.08 system
alice@Wonderland:~$ flatpak list --app
Name        Application ID             Version     Branch     Installation
Bottles     com.usebottles.bottles     63.2        stable     system
alice@Wonderland:~$ flatpak uninstall --delete-data com.usebottles.bottles


        ID                                    Branch         Op
 1. [-] com.usebottles.bottles                stable         r
 2. [-] com.usebottles.bottles.Locale         stable         r

Uninstall complete.
Delete data for com.usebottles.bottles? [y/n]: y
alice@Wonderland:~$

A Flatpack may required shared "runtimes" components. When you delete the application, those runtimes can become "orphaned", but still occupy space on the system. You can, optionally, use the command flatpak uninstall --unused afterwards, if that is a concern.

[/os/unix/linux] permanent link

The file command can be used on a Linux system to determine what type of data a file holds, e.g., file Untitled.png. You can determine the media type, aka MIME type, by using the --mime-type option for the file command. E.g., file --mime-type Untitled.png. You can determine which application is the default application for opening files of that file type using the xdg-mime command — the xdg-mime program is a command line tool that can be used to determine what application handles a particular file type. E.g., xdg-mime query default image/png — you need to specify the filetype in the "minor/major" format that xdg-mime expects, which is what you see in the output of the file --mime-type command.

$ file Documents/Untitled.png
Documents/Untitled.png: PNG image data, 597 x 113, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
$ file Documents/tea.html
Documents/tea.html: ASCII text, with very long lines (6229)
$ file --mime-type Documents/Untitled.png
Documents/Untitled.png: image/png
$ xdg-mime query default image/png
org.gnome.Loupe.desktop
$ file --mime-type Documents/Cocoa-Lead.odt
Documents/Cocoa-Lead.odt: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
$ xdg-mime query default application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
libreoffice-writer.desktop
$

The default file manager for Ubuntu Linux is GNOME Files. You can make another application the default file manager, if you like. Some alternatives are Thunar, Nemo, Krusader, or Dolphin. You can determine which application is the default file manager with the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory. You can set the default file manager with the command xdg-mime default fmgr.desktop where fmgr is the filemanager you wish to use.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

I have a Google Pixel 9 phone which uses the Android operating system. Though I have been happy with the phone, I find its autocorrection feature to be awful. When I'm typing in the Google Keep Notes application and in text messages, the autocorrection feature will replace correctly spelled English words with other words that are unrelated to what I'm trying to write. Often the replacement word leads to a sentence making no sense or giving it a meaning I don't intend. I consider the Google autocorrection feature to be far more of an annoyance than a help. The feature can be turned off by the following steps:

1. Drag your finger down from the top of the screen until you see a menu of options.
2. Tap on the gear icon at the bottom, right-hand corner of the screen to get to the settings menu.
3. Tap System.
4. Tap Keyboard under Interaction.
5. Tap On-screen keyboard.
6. Tap Gboard.
7. Tap Corrections & suggestions.
8. Tap Turn off autocorrect.
9. When you've changed the setting you can exit from the options selection.

[ More Info ]

[/os/android] permanent link

My wife and I have been using the Microsoft Windows desktop versions of CLZ's database programs for managing book, comic, and movie collections for many years. We've found the Collectorz database programs to be well-designed and very useful, but we've encountered some issues getting the programs to work correctly on her Ubuntu Linux system, though I would note that the software was developed for Microsoft Windows operating systems and the company doesn't indicate they are supported under Linux. One problem we encountered is that after installing the programs under Wine, when she opened one of the programs, e.g., Movie Collector, and then minimized it or switched to another application with Alt-Tab, she was unable to switch back to the Collectorz program. Alt-Tab would not work nor would the Super key plus Tab key combination. There would be a small window at the upper, left-hand corner of the screen indicating the program was running, but clicking on it would not allow her to enlarge the window to work in the application again and there didn't appear to be any way to enlarge or maximize the window.

I was able to resolve the problem with minimizing the application or switching from it without re-creating a problem opening files by checking the Emulate a virtual desktop option under the Graphics tab for winecfg instead.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine/collectorz] permanent link

I had installed MakeMKV from source files on an Ubuntu Linux system . It had been working then, but when I tried to run the program today, I saw the message "Application failed to initialize NO_ANSWER_FROM_MAKEMKVCON".

I had updated the operating system and other applications on the system in the intervening months, so I knew it was possible that the upgrade changed or removed libraries that makemkvcon depends on. I had upgraded the operating system from Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) to 26.04 LTS (Resolute Racoon). The error means the MakeMKV graphical user interface (GUI) can't communicate with its backend console process, makemkvcon. I.e., the GUI is waiting for a response from makemkvcon and that process isn't starting or is crashing, possibly because of a missing required dependency such as a missing or changed library file. To try to determine if that was the case and, if so, which library might be associated with the problem, I ran makemkvcon from a terminal window.

alice@Wonderland:~$ which makemkvcon
/usr/bin/makemkvcon
alice@Wonderland:~$ makemkvcon
makemkvcon: error while loading shared libraries: libavcodec.so.61: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
alice@Wonderland:~$

I was able to resolve the problem by reinstalling MakeMKV from the source files. When I did that and re-registered the application, it started normally.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu/MakeMKV] permanent link

My wife was dissatisfied with the default file manager, GNOME Files, aka Nautilus, on her Ubuntu Linux desktop system. You can determine the default file manager from a terminal window by issuing the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory, which will show you what application opers directories.

$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory
org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
$

You can also check on whether one of several common file managers, such as Nautilus, Thunar, Dolphin, or Nemo, which is a fork of Nautilus, is currently running with ps aux | grep -E 'nautilus|thunar|dolphin|nemo'. I saw that I had previously installed the Krusader file manager when I checked for file manager desktop entries with grep -l "inode/directory" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop.

$ grep -l "inode/directory" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.gnome.baobab.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.kde.krusader.desktop
$

But I didn't think the Krusader interface would appeal to her as she wanted a file manager that provided an interface more similar to the one for the Windows Fle Explorer that she had on her Windows 11 system, so I issued the command sudo apt update and then sudo apt install thunar, which installed thunar 4.20.7 — after installation, you can check the version of Thunar with thunar --version. I then made Thunar the default file manager with xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory. If you run the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory, you should see thunar listed when it has been made the default handler for directories.

$ xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory
$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory
thunar.desktop
$

I then unpinned the GNOME Files (Nautilus) app by right-clicking on the icon for it and selecting Unpin. I then pressed the Super key along with the "A" key, and typed thunar in the "Type to search" filed and then right-clicked on thunar when I saw it returned and selected "Pin to Dock" so she could open it the way she was opening GNOME Files.

To make the left pane of the Thunar window act like Explorer on Microsoft Windows operating systems, I configured it to expand a directory to show subdirectories if she clicked on it. To do so, I changed Thunar's sidebar style from the default "Shortcuts" to "Tree, which can be done by selecting View, then Side Pane and then selecting Tree, which changes the left pane to provide an expandable directory tree. As with the Windows File Explorer, you can toggle the display of hidden files. I turned that option on by pressing the Ctrl and H keys simultaneously — the option can be toggled off again by using the same key combination.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine/collectorz] permanent link

A couple of days ago, when my wife tried to play Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam on her Ubuntu Linux system, when she clicked on "Play" it would appear that the game was going to start, but it never did. When I checked on whether the executable program for the game, ddv.exe, was running using the ps command and piping its output through grep with ps -aux | grep -i 'ddv.exe' | grep -v grep in a Terminal window, I could see it ran briefly, but when I reissued the command a few moments later, it was no longer running. To troubleshoot the problem, I closed Steam and then killed all running instances of it with pkill command, i.e., pkill Steam, in a Terminal window. The system has a NVIDIA Quadro P2000 and the problem seems to have been an issue related to Vulkan graphics software on the system. When I upgraded the operating system and rebooted, the problem disappeared.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

Drawing is a simple raster image editor for Linux systems that is similar to Microsoft Paint. The program is free and open-source software (FOSS) released under the GNU General Public License, version 3. It is available as a Snap package for the GNOME desktop on Ubuntu and other Linux systems and on Ubuntu systems can be installed by opening the App Center and searcing for Drawing.

To create an arrow in the Drawing application, take the following steps:

1. With the file containing the image you wish to edit open, click on the line tool on the menu bar on the left side of the Drawing window.

   

2. Click on Line options, which you will find at the bottom of the window, and select simple arrow.

   

3. You can adjust the width of the line and arrowhead by changing the value of the number you see to the left of Line options by clicking on the plus or minus buttons (the value is in pixels) or you can type the number you want in the field. With the color you wish for the arrow selected (you will see the color in a square near the lower, left-corner of the window, click at a point where you wish the back end of the arrow to be located and, while holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse pointer upwards to where you wish the arrow to end. Then release the mouse button. You should then have a line with an arrowhead at the end.

   

[/software/graphics/drawing] permanent link

A user reported that she could not access her email from her Windows 11 system, which she normally would do by clicking on a shortcut on her desktop which would open the Microsoft Edge browser to the webpage where she could log into her email account on outlook.com. When I clicked on the shortcut, I saw a blank, white area appear above the taskbar. I found statements online about opening Microsoft Edge in a restricted "Safe Mode" that disables extensions and custom settings, by starting it in InPrivate mode by openng the Windows Run dialog, which you can do by pressing the Windows key and the "R" key. Then type msedge --inprivate in the Run dialog window and then pressng Enter (I wasn't certain whether there should be one dash or two before "inprivate" since I found both listed when I searched online for a method to open the browser in safe mode). However, with either option, Edge still crashed shortly after opening with a blank, white window. I was able to correct the problem by repairing the application, which can be done through the following steps:

1. Type settings in the Windows "Type here to search" field and press Enter.
2. When you see Settings returned, click on it.
3. Select Apps.
4. Select Apps & features.
5. Scroll down through the list of applications until you see Microsoft Edge and then select it and click on Modify.

   

6. Provide the credentials for an administrator account when prompted for a userid and password.
7. Click on Repair.

   

[/network/web/browser/edge] permanent link

My wife had been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley under Windows 11. When I installed Ubuntu 25.10, I installed Wine, then Steam as a Snap package, and then installed Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam. She was able to use the Cloud Save option to log into the game with all of the progress she had made under Windows. She needed to switch back to Windows for a while and didn't switch back to Ubuntu for several weeks. When I started Steam and Disney Dreamlight Valley again under Ubuntu and then tried the Cloud Save option, it did not work with the message below displayed when I was prompted to provide login credentials:

Login Error

Cannot connect to online services. Continue playing in offline mode

If I entered the wrong password, I got a response indicating that the system was able to check the credentials, which I presumed were being checked on a remote server. And I was able to successfully use the change password option, which sent a password reset code to my wife's email address. I was able to resolve the problem by uninstalling Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam and then reinstalling it.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

My wife has been using Filename Magic Pro for Windows for many years; she has version 1.00, which still appears to be the latest version. The software "offers robust functionality for batch renaming files within folders. It streamlines the process for organizing large collections of documents, music, or images." I transitioned her desktop PC from Microsoft Windows 11 to Ubuntu Linux 25.10 and installed Wine so that she could run Windows applications that she might want to still use on the Ubuntu system. I was able to install Filename Magic Pro and use it without any problems on the Ubuntu system. If you choose to have the program create a desktop shortcut during the installation, you will see two shortcuts on the desktop, Filename Magic Pro.desktop and Filename Magic Pro.lnk. If you right-click on Filename Magic Pro.desktop and choose Allow Launching, you can then double-click on the shortcut to start the application. You can delete the Filename Magic Pro.lnk by right-clicking on it and choosing Move to Trash.

When you start the program, if it is unregistered, you will see a countdown timer that counts down from 15.

You can wait to the countdown gets to zero or just close the countdown window to proceed, which will then lead to the display of the window below.

There is a "click here to purchase" link, but that no longer works; if you click on it, you will see a HTTP 404 error indicating the page no longer exists. But if you previously purchased a license as we had, you can transfer it from an old system to a new system or, in our case, from Windows to Linux by exporting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\L5 Software Group registry keys, which you can do with the Windows registry editor, RegEdit, or you can download or copy this L5SoftwareGroup.reg file and edit it with a text editor, such as Windows Notepad and replace the AppRegKey Xs with your license key (be sure to save it with just the .reg extension and not a .txt file extension tacked on). You can add the registry keys to the registry used by Wine by opening a Terminal window and running the command wine regedit filename.reg where filename is the name of the .reg file.

jim@Wonderland:~$ wine regedit ~/Downloads/L5SoftwareGroup.reg 
jim@Wonderland:~$ 

When you then open the program, you won't see the countdown timer and can just click on OK. You can press Alt-Tab afterwards to get to the main Filename Magic Pro window.

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

I installed Wine on an Ubuntu Linux system to be able to run Microsoft Windows applications on it. I installed Sumatra PDF to view PDF and EPUB files. When I double-clicked on EPUB files in the Wine File Explorer window, which you can run by issuing the command wine explorer in a Terminal window, or wine explorer &, if you wish to open it and immediately return to the shell prompt, I saw an Error window which stated "There is no Windows program configured to open this type of file." If I double-clicked on a PDF file, it would open in the GNOME Document Viewer application. I was able to set the default application for opening those files under Wine with the following steps:

1. From the Bash prompt in a Terminal window, run the Wine registry editor program to modify the Windows Registry with wine regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.epub and set (Default) = epubfile. If you don't see a .epub entry, right-click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and choose New. You can press the F5 key or choose View and Refresh to refresh the display to show the new entry in alphabetical order.
3. If you then click on the .epub entry, you will see (Default) under Name, REG_SZ under Type, and (value not set) under Data.
4. Double-click on the entry and then type epubfile in the Value data field and then click on OK.
5. Then navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\epubfile\shell\open\command, if it exists. If there is no epubfile entry you can create one by right-clicking on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and selecting New and Key giving the new key a name of epubfile. Then double-click on the (Default) entry under the new key and type EPUB Document in the Value data field. Then right-click on the epubfile key and choose New and Key and type shell for the name. Right-click on shell and create a new, open beneath it. Then right-click on open and create a new key, command beneath open.
6. Then right click on the command key and choose New then String Value.
7. Double-click on the new (Default) entry under command and then type the location and file name for the application that you wish to use to open .epub files within double quotes followed by a space and then "%1", e.g. "C:\Program Files\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "%1", if you wish to open the files with Sumatra PDF and you installed it so that it is accessible to all users of the system. Or use "C:\users\username\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe " "%1", where username is the relevant username, if you chose to install it just for the current user when you installed it.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

Collectorz now appears to be focusing on their mobile and web-based products for managing book collections, but they also provide a desktop Book Collector desktop application for systems running Microsoft Windows, though I don't even see a link for it on the homepage of their website nor do I see one in their sitemap webpage. However, if you are using the desktop product and need to update your Book Collector database if the location of cover images, thumbnails, list item images, templates, and/or local files for entries already in the datbase, you can take the steps below. You can specify the directories for new entries by clicking on Tools, Options, Folders to set the directories Book Collector should use by default.

Inside the Book Collector program, click on Tools then select Update File Links. In the Update File Links window you can "choose the kind of files you would like to repair". I left the default value of All Types, but you can also select Front Cover, Back Cover, Pick List Image, Pick List Template Image, Local File, or Backdrop. When you click on Next Step, you can choose to have the program automatically update the old folder to the new folder or you can choose to do it manually. With the automatic option, you can "Select a base folder and let the program find the missing files automatically" while with the manual option you can "Use a find and replace action to manually fix your file paths". For the "Choose folder where to find files", browse to the appropriate directory where the files are now located. Check the box next to "Include subfolders", if that is appropriate, and then click on Next step. The program will then show a "Finding best matches for missing files" window with a progress bar as it updated links.

At the next step, Step 4, you can see the resulting file paths and click on the Update File Links button to finalize the changes. You will then see the number of file links that will be updated and asked if you are sure to proceed. I saw a window with a message that Book Collector was not responding, but I chose "Wait" several times and it finally completed. When all the links are updated, you should see a window informing you of the number of file links updated. If you updated the location for the images for books already in the database, you should now see the images appear for book entries.

If you just need to update the links for a particular kind of files, e.g., the local files, or the location of those files differs from the location of other files, e.g., if they are on a different drive than the images, etc., at Step 1 where you "choose the kind of files you would like to repair", you can choose that file type instead of "All Types".

I was able to use the above steps when transitioning my wife's desktop computer from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, after I installed Book Collector under Wine, to specify the new location of image and local files.

[ More Info ]

[/software/database/collectorz] permanent link

I needed to eject a optical disc drive tray from a command-line interface (CLI) on a system running Microsoft Windows 11 so that I could insert a DVD in the drive. That can be done using the Powershell command powershell (New-Object -ComObject WMPlayer.OCX.7).cdromCollection.item(0).Eject(), which will eject the tray of the first optical drive found by Windows Media Player's COM object.

PS C:\> powershell (New-Object -ComObject WMPlayer.OCX.7).cdromCollection.item(0).Eject()
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Install the latest PowerShell for new features and improvements! https://aka.ms/PSWindows

PS C:\>

[/os/windows/PowerShell] permanent link

I downloaded a YouTube video on a Ubuntu Linux with yt-dlp. When I tried to view the downloaded WebM file with the default video application, Videos, also known as Totem, which is an application for playing videos that is provided with Ubuntu, I saw the message below:

When I opened the video with VLC, which I had previously installed, I heard audio, but no video was displayed. I checked to see if the Nvidia driver was up-to-date since the system had an Nvidia graphics card, but they were up-to-date. You can check that by clicking on the Show Apps button at the lower-right-hand corner of the screen Ubuntu desktop. Then type Software Updates in the "Type to search" field. Click on Software & Updates and then click on the Additional Drivers.

To resolve the problem, I added the following line to the /etc/environment file with a text editor:

GDK_GL=gles

When I rebooted the system, I was then able to view the video with the default Videos application, though when I tried playing it in VLC I could hear audio, but did not see video.

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

When I tried to play a YouTube video I downloaded as a WebM file using yt-dlp on an Ubuntu Linux system in the VLC media player application, I could hear the audio, but no video was shown. I tried opening a few other .webm videos and found I was able to view the video in some, but not others, though I was able to view the video and hear the audio in all the .mp4 and .mkv files. I tried changing the video output setting from "Automatic" to "OpenGL video output" and then "XVideo output (XCB)", which you can do by clicking on Tools, then Preferences, then Video, and then selecting those options from the dropdown list next to Output, but neither of those options resolved the problem, so I reset Output to Automatic. I was able to resolve the problem by taking the following steps, though:

1. In the VLC program, click on Tools and then select Preferences.
2. Click on Input/Codecs and change the hardware-accelerated decoding setting by clicking on the downward arrowhead next to Automatic, which will be the setting if the default setting is in effect.
3. Change the setting to Disable and then click on Save.

When I checked the Codec information for the file where I could not view the video before disabling the hardware-accelerated decoding setting, which you can do by opening an audiovisual (AV) file in VLC and then selecting Tools and Codec Information, I saw the video codec was AOMedia's AV1 Video (av01). When I checked the video codec for another WebM file where the video wasn't visible in VLC, I saw it was also the AOMedia's AV1 Video (av01) codec. Checking the video codec for .webm files where I could view the video, I saw Google/ON2's VP9 Video (VP90) for some and H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10) (avc1) for another.

Note: you can also determine the codecs used in a file using the mediainfo utility, which you can install on an Ubuntu system with sudo apt-get install mediainfo. You can check on whether it is already installed using the command which mediainfo, which would show the location of the mediainfo executable file if the application was installed, or you can use dpkg -s mediainfo, which will show details on the mediainfo package if it is installed.

[/software/audio_video/VLC] permanent link

Another method that can be used for MP4 files, as well as the above file types is the Concat Demuxer method, if the files use the same codecs and parameters, such as resolution, framerate, etc. If the files have the same characteristics, you can use a command of the form:

ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i inputFileList.txt -c copy output.mp4

[ More Info ]

[/video/ffmpeg] permanent link

FFmpeg provides a suite of command-line interface tools for working with audio and video files. It is free and open-source software that is available for a variety of operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS. If you wish to use it on a Microsoft Windows system, you can install it with the Windows Package Manager known as winget by opening a command prompt window and issuing the command winget install "FFmpeg (Essentials Build)".

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.26100.7623]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\System32>winget install "FFmpeg (Essentials Build)"
Found FFmpeg (Essentials Build) [Gyan.FFmpeg.Essentials] Version 8.0.1
This application is licensed to you by its owner.
Microsoft is not responsible for, nor does it grant any licenses to, third-party packages.
Downloading https://github.com/GyanD/codexffmpeg/releases/download/8.0.1/ffmpeg-8.0.1-essentials_build.zip
  ██████████████████████████████   101 MB /  101 MB
Successfully verified installer hash
Extracting archive...
Successfully extracted archive
Starting package install...
Command line alias added: "ffmpeg"
Command line alias added: "ffplay"
Command line alias added: "ffprobe"
Path environment variable modified; restart your shell to use the new value.
Successfully installed

C:\Windows\System32>

If you need to trim the beginning of a video file, such as a .mp4 file, you can do so using a command of the form ffmpeg -ss hh:mm:ss -i input.mp4 -c copy output.mp4 where you specify the point you wish the video to start in the form hh:mm:ss for hours, minutes, and seconds with -ss and input.mp4 is the file you wish to trim and output.mp4 is the name you wish to give to the trimmed file. E.g., if I have a video file, REC-0001-A.mp4, where I wish to discard audio and video up to the 3 minutes and 34 seconds mark in the file, I can use ffmpeg -ss 00:03:34 -i REC-0001-A.mp4 -c copy output1.mp4 to create a new file, output1.mp4, that omits the first 3 minutes and 33 seconds from the input file. Using the -c copy option copies the video/audio streams directly, which is fast but can be less accurate on keyframes.

[ More Info ]

[/video/ffmpeg] permanent link

1. Open the program and then click on the gear icon near the top, right side of the window.

   

2. Choose Tools and Options.

   

3. Uncheck the option for "Automatically start the app when I log on to Windows" under the Personal options to prevent the program from restarting automatically upon a login to the system, then click on OK to apply the change after unchecking that option.

   

[/os/windows/software] permanent link

The Firefox web browser does not have the capability to save the contents of a webpage to a single file, such as an MHTML file, which is a web archive file format that allows one to save the HTML code, images etc. on a webpage into a single file. Though the capability is absent from Firefox, you can add the functionality of saving a page to a single file by installing Save Page WE, an add-on for Firefox by DW-dev. The extension provides the capability to "Save a complete web page (as currently displayed) as a single HTML file that can be opened in any browser. Save a single page, multiple selected pages or a list of page URLs. Automate saving from command line." The saved file is not an MHTML file, or one of the other common web archiving file formats, but it is a single HTML file that Firefox and other browsers can read. Save Page WE is implemented using the WebExtensions API and is available for both Firefox and Chrome with identical functions and user interfaces.

When you start the installation process, you will see a list of the permissions required by the extension:

• Access your data for all websites
• Download files and read and modify the browser's download history
• Display notifications to you
• Access browser tabs
• Access browser activity during navigation

Click on the Add button to add the extension. You should then see the message "Save Page WE was added. Update permissions and data preferences any time in the extension settings." You also have the option to pin the extension to the toolbar.

Select the option to pin the extension to the toolbar, which will result in an icon of a 3.5" floppy disk appearing on the toolbar. You can click on that icon to save the page displayed in the current browser tab.

You can also save a page by hitting the Alt+A key combination (you can cancel the saving of a page with At+C). The file format is HTML rather than MHTML, so the file extension used by SavePageWE is .html, which Firefox can open — if you try to open a file with the .mhtml extension, Firefox will prompt you to use another application to open the file.

Anyone who wishes to have the ability to save a webpage as a single file added to Firefox, can add their voice to the post at Add native Web Archive File support to Firefox, including MHTML, MAFF, and Webarchive...

References

1. How to save a webpage as .mhtml with Firefox?
   Last updated: September 15, 2024
   superuser
2. Add native Web Archive File support to Firefox, including MHTML, MAFF, and Webarchive...
   Date: August 15, 2023
   By: JohnBoyTheGreat
   moz://a Connect

[ More Info ]

[/network/web/browser/firefox/addons] permanent link

Microsoft Windows 8 introduced a feature called Fast Startup. The feature was a variation of hibernate mode, but when enabled would close all running programs and log the user out before hibernating. This feature would result in a user being able to log in more quickly when a system is powered back on after a shutdown. There may be cases where use of this feature is not desirable, however. E.g., if the user wants to boot the system into Linux, but still access data on the Windows boot drive. To turn fast startup off, you can take the following steps:

1. Type Control Panel in the Windows Search field at the bottom of the screen.
2. Click on System and Security.
3. Click on Change what the power buttons do under Power Options.
4. Click on Change settings that are currently unavailable. If prompted for administrator credentials, provide those for an administrator account.
5. Uncheck the check box next to "Turn on fast startup (recommended)".
6. Click on Save changes. You can then close the window.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows] permanent link

Then from the Behavior tab, I changed the setting from Follow System to Always, which resulted in the scrollbar appearing where it had been missing, but I could not scroll back any further than the text that had been appearing in the tab before I changed the settiing and that remained the same whenever I issued another command and text moved upwards, so that I could no longer see it or scroll back to see it, so I closed the tab.

When I opened another tab, the scrollbar was there and operated as expected.

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

From a CD, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 under Wine, so that my wife could edit her Microsoft Publisher files on an Ubuntu Linux system. I also installed Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. All three seemed to be working OK when I checked them after the installation completed. I was able to open the programs from the File Explorer by issuing the command wine explorer from a shell prompt in a Terminal window and then navigating to the directory, C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12, where the applications were located. I could also start Publisher by issuing the command below in a Terminal window:

wine "/home/alice@Wonderland/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office12/MSPUB.EXE"

To make it easer for my wife to open Publisher, though, I created a shortcut on her Ubuntu desktop. To create a shortcut you can take the following steps:

Open a Terminal window and create a new .desktop file on your desktop. You can use the nano editor or another text editor to create the file. E.g., nano ~/Desktop/AppName.desktop.

You then need to have lines like the following ones in the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Name of Your Application
Exec=wine "/home/username/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/AppName/app.exe"
Type=Application
Icon=wine
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true

You need to use the absolute path the the .exe file for the program and, if the directory path contains a space, you must enclose the path within quotes. Also, you need to replace username with your username on the system. For Publisher, I could use the following lines:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Publisher
Exec=wine "/home/alice@Wonderland/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Office/Office12/MSPUB.EXE"
Type=Application
Icon=wine
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=true

If you use the nano text editor, you can hit Ctrl+X, the Y, then Enter to save the file. You then need to make the shortcut executable, which you can do by right-clicking on the file on the desktop, selecting Properties, and then makng sure "Executable as Program" is on. Or you can use the chmod command to make the file excutable by a command like chmod +x ~/Desktop/AppName.desktop . You then need to permit launching of the application from the shortcut by right-clicking on it and selecting Allow Launching.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

My wife was using Advanced Diary for journaling on a Microsoft Windows system, but wanted to transition to Linux, so I installed Ubuntu Linux and then, since there is no Linux version of Advanced Diary, I installed Advanced Diary under Wine. She wanted to adjust the size of the Advanced Diary window, but when she attempted to adjust the window size by clicking on the Restore Down icon at the top right side of the window (between the dash and the "X"), the Advanced Diary window became transparent and it was not possible to close it or adjust the size of the transparent box that appeared for the Advanced Diary window. So I had to open a Terminal window to determine the process ID (PID) of the Advanced Diary process with the ps and then kill that process with the kill command. I could also have used the killall command killall AdvancedDiary.exe. I tried closing and opening the program several times. The behavior was consistent — the window would become transparent whenever I tried resizing or minimizing the window. If you are using the GNOME desktop, you can use the steps below to try to resolve the problem. GNOME is the default desktop environment for Ubuntu, but you can verify it is the desktop in use by the command echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP.

Steps that may resolve the problem:

1. Run winecfg in a Terminal window.

2. In the Wine configuration window, click on the Graphics tab.
3. Toggle the settings for "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows" and "Allow the window manager to control the windows" one by one to see if one of those settings change the behavior. When I toggled off "Allow the window manager to decorate the windows", I now no longer saw the icons to adjust the size of the window or minimize the window at the top of the Wine window for Advanced Diary, but when I clicked where I expected them to appear, the window became transparent again. I toggled the setting back on and then toggled off the "Allow the window manager to control the windows" setting. That resolved the problem. I then closed the window and reopened Advanced Diary and toggled that setting on again, also, so that both settings were checked. I could still adjust the window size as expected. I closed and reopened the application several times and was still able to adjust the window size, so just toggling the "Allow the window manager to control the windows" setting off and then back on seemed to resolve the problem.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

1. Type services in the Windows Search field. You should see it returned by the search utility. Click on "Run as administrator" and provide the login credentials for an account that has adminisrator privileges.
2. When the Services window opens, scroll down until you see Windows Audio.
3. Right-click on the entry and choose "Restart".
4. When the status for the service returns to "Running", you can close the Services window.

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows] permanent link

Sendmail is an email server application that is available for many operating systems. It will listen on TCP port 25 for connections from other mail servers that use the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol for email transmissions. As a message submission agent (MSA), another common port it listens on is TCP port 587 for email transmissions from users' email clients. On a Linux system you can use the netstat or ss commands to determine if a system is listening for connections on a particular port. When I checked a Sendmail server to determine whether it was listening on port 587, I could see that it was not listening on that port, though that was needed.

# netstat -an | grep 587
# ss -ln | grep ":587 "
#

When I searched /etc/mail/sendmail.mc for RELAY_MAILER_ARGS, I saw the following lines, which are needed to have Sendmail listen for email transmissions from users on TCP port 587, were already present and were not commented out:

define(`RELAY_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')
define(`ESMTP_MAILER_ARGS', `TCP $h 587')

When I searched for DAEMON_OPTIONS, I saw the following:

dnl # The following causes sendmail to additionally listen to port 587 for
dnl # mail from MUAs that authenticate. Roaming users who can't reach their
dnl # preferred sendmail daemon due to port 25 being blocked or redirected find
dnl # this useful.
dnl #
dnl DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=submission, Name=MSA, M=Ea')dnl

I removed the dnl from the begining of the line so that I then had the line below, instead:

DAEMON_OPTIONS(`Port=submission, Name=MSA, M=Ea')dnl

I then rebuilt /etc/sendmail/mc and restarted the Sendmail service.

# m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
# service sendmail restart
Redirecting to /bin/systemctl restart  sendmail.service
#

I could then see that the system was listening for connections on port 587.

[ More Info ]

[/network/email/sendmail] permanent link

I needed to install Advanced Diary on an Ubuntu Linux system. for someone who had been using the program for journaling on a Microsoft Windows system. I had previously installed Wine, a program that allows one to run Windows applications on Linux, macOS, and FreeBSD systems. I used AdvDiary.sh, which contains the following lines, to install Advanced Diary:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -e

if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  echo "Usage: $0 AdvancedDiarySetup.exe"
  exit 1
fi

INSTALLER="$(realpath "$1")"
PREFIX="$HOME/.wine-advdiary"

echo "Creating 32-bit Wine prefix..."
export WINEPREFIX="$PREFIX"
export WINEARCH=win32
winecfg -v win7 >/dev/null 2>&1 || true

echo "Installing required components (gdiplus, corefonts)..."
winetricks -q gdiplus corefonts

echo "Forcing native GDI+..."
cat > "$PREFIX/user.reg" <<'EOF'
[Software\\Wine\\DllOverrides]
"gdiplus"="native"
EOF

echo "Running Advanced Diary installer..."
wine "$INSTALLER"

echo
echo "✔ Installation complete"
echo "Run with:"
echo "WINEPREFIX=$PREFIX wine \"$PREFIX/drive_c/Program Files/Advanced Diary/Diary.exe\""

To run it, you need to assign "execute" permission to the file, which can be done in a Terminal window with chmod + x filename or chmod a+x filename to make a file executable by all users or chmod u+x filename to make it executable by just the owner of the file, i.e., the user.

alice@Wonderland:~/Downloads$ chmod u+x install-advanced-diary.sh 
alice@Wonderland:~/Downloads$ 

When I ran the shell script .sh file, I realized I hadn't installed Winetricks beforehand, so I installed it with sudo apt install winetricks after running the script. I then reran the installation script for Advanced Diary. The installation completed successfully — I selected the option to have the program opened automatically at the conclusion of the installation — and it appeared to open normally (I had to press Enter in the terminal window to return to the shell prompt).

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/wine] permanent link

If you need to determine if a drive in a Microsoft Windows system or connected to it via USB is BitLocker encrypted, you can use the manage-bde utility. To use the program, open a command prompt window with administrator privileges and then issue the command manage-bde -status to see the status of all drives. To see just the status of one drive, e.g., C:, you could use manage-bde -status C:.

C:\Windows\System32>manage-bde -status c:
BitLocker Drive Encryption: Configuration Tool version 10.0.26100
Copyright (C) 2013 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Volume C: [Windows]
[OS Volume]

    Size:                 14826.87 GB
    BitLocker Version:    None
    Conversion Status:    Fully Decrypted
    Percentage Encrypted: 0.0%
    Encryption Method:    None
    Protection Status:    Protection Off
    Lock Status:          Unlocked
    Identification Field: None
    Key Protectors:       None Found


C:\Windows\System32>

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[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

You can run the Big Fish Games Game Manager on an Ubuntu Linux system under Steam. You can install Steam as a Snap package from the Ubuntu App Center.

Steps:

1. Download the Big Fish Games App (Game Manager) for PC
2. In Steam on the Ubuntu system, click on Add a Game, which is at the lower, left-hand corner of the Steam window, then select Add a Non-Steam Game, then browse to where you downloaded the .exe installer for the game manager, click on it, and then click on Add Selected Programs.
3. You should then see the Big Fish Game Manager in the "Uncategorized" list of games at the left side of the Steam window, e.g., you may see bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe listed. Right-click on it and then select Properties, then Compatibility, and then, from the drop-down list that becomes available, select Proton Experimental or the latest stable version — I selected Proton Experimental.
4. You can then close the Compatibility window by clicking on the "X" at the upper, right-hand corner.
5. Then with the Big Fish Game Manager selected in the Uncategorized list, click on the Play button to launch the Big Fish Game Manager Setup and agree to the License Agreement when you see it appear.

When I started the install process, the installation appeared to hang at "Execute: C:\Program Files (x86)\bfglient\epoch.exe". When I clicked on the title bar for the window, I saw "About Wine", so it appeared to be using Wine, which I had previously installed on the Ubuntu system. But I waited and eventually the installation succeeded, though I think it took over 15 minutes. I closed the window and then went back to the Steam window, I saw bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe was still there. This time when I clicked on it, the Big Fish window where I could sign in to Big Fish Games opened fairly quickly.

Note: if the window goes blank or displays just a white background, minimize it by clicking on the "-" in the upper, right-hand corner of the Big Fish window and then switch to it again, which you can do with Alt+Tab — continue to press the Tab key while continuing to hold down the Alt key to cycle between open open windows until you get to the Big Fish window.

Initially, you will see "No games to play," but if you have already purchased games that you've played on another system, you can click on Purchase History and install them on the Linux system. When I installed the Big Fish Games Manager under Steam, I had my wife check one of her games, Aquascapes, and that ran fine. I then closed the Big Fish window and the Steam window and reopened it. Note: if you want to change the name that appears for Big Fish Games in the Uncategorized list, you can right-click on the entry, e.g., bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe, and choose Properties and then change the "Shortcut" value to something you prefer, such as "Big Fish Games". When I reopened Steam and started Big Fish Games, I saw the Aquascapes game under "My Games".

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

To access a directory that is shared from a Microsoft Windows system in a Windows domain, you can take the following steps on a Ubuntu Linux system. Note: you will need to have a package installed that provides Server Message Block (SMB) support. If the libsmclient0 package is installed, you should be able to use these steps. You can check if it is installed by opening a Terminal window and issuing the command dpkg -s libsmbclient0. If it is not installed, you can install it with sudo apt install libsmbclient0.

alice@Wonderland:~$ dpkg -s libsmbclient0
Package: libsmbclient0
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 259
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Multi-Arch: same
Source: samba
Version: 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2
Replaces: libsmbclient
Provides: libsmbclient (= 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2)
Depends: samba-libs (= 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2), libbsd0 (>= 0.0), libc6 (>= 2.38), libndr6 (>= 2:4.17.2), libtalloc2 (>= 2.0.4~git20101213), libtevent0t64 (>= 0.15.0)
Breaks: libsmbclient (<< 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2)
Description: shared library for communication with SMB/CIFS servers
 This package provides a shared library that enables client applications
 to talk to Microsoft Windows and Samba servers using the SMB/CIFS
 protocol.
Homepage: https://www.samba.org
Original-Maintainer: Debian Samba Maintainers <pkg-samba-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org>
alice@Wonderland:~$

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[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

[/network/web/browser/firefox] permanent link

If you need to list all of the accounts on an Ubuntu Linux system, there are many commands that you can use.

1. cat /etc/passwd
2. grep -oE '^[^:]+' /etc/passwd - for just the account names
3. cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd - for just the account names
4. awk -F: '{print $1}' /etc/passwd - for just the account names
5. lslogins
6. compgen -u - for just the accunt names
7. getent passwd

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

If you need to determine the amount of memory in a system that is running the Ubuntu Linux operating system (OS), you can open a Terminal window from the App Center and then use the free command. If you use the command without any options, you will see the amount of memory displayed in bytes. To display the value in a more human-friendly format, you can add the argument -h or --human, e.g., to see the value in gigabytes.

alice@firefly:~$ free -h
               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            14Gi       2.4Gi        10Gi       426Mi       2.3Gi        12Gi
Swap:          4.0Gi          0B       4.0Gi
alice@firefly:~$

Other options for the command are shown below:

jim@Serenity:~$ free --help

Usage:
 free [options]

Options:
 -b, --bytes         show output in bytes
     --kilo          show output in kilobytes
     --mega          show output in megabytes
     --giga          show output in gigabytes
     --tera          show output in terabytes
     --peta          show output in petabytes
 -k, --kibi          show output in kibibytes
 -m, --mebi          show output in mebibytes
 -g, --gibi          show output in gibibytes
     --tebi          show output in tebibytes
     --pebi          show output in pebibytes
 -h, --human         show human-readable output
     --si            use powers of 1000 not 1024
 -l, --lohi          show detailed low and high memory statistics
 -L, --line          show output on a single line
 -t, --total         show total for RAM + swap
 -v, --committed     show committed memory and commit limit
 -s N, --seconds N   repeat printing every N seconds
 -c N, --count N     repeat printing N times, then exit
 -w, --wide          wide output

     --help     display this help and exit
 -V, --version  output version information and exit

For more details see free(1).
jim@Serenity:~$ 

Note:The free command in Linux shows the total amount of installed physical memory in the total column, but this value is less than the actual hardware random-access memory (RAM) installed because the Linux kernel reserves a portion of memory for itself and for hardware devices (like video card buffers) at boot time. The total shown is the usable RAM available to the OS, not the absolute hardware total.

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[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

On a Ubuntu Linux system, you can determine which users are allowed to use the sudo command by looking at the contents of the /etc/group file. If you grep for sudo you will see which accounts on the system can use the command.

jack@firefly:~$ grep sudo /etc/group
sudo:x:27:jack,jill@ad.example.com
jack@firefly:~$ 

The above output shows that the local jack account and a Windows domain account, jill@ad.example.com, can use the command. You can see what groups a particular user belongs to with the command groups username, where username is the user's account name.

jack@firefly:~$ groups jill@ad.example.com
jill@ad.example.com : domain users@ad.example.com ra_allowmediaaccess@ad.example
.com ra_allowcomputeraccess@ad.example.com ra_allowaddinaccess@ad.example.com ra
_allowshareaccess@ad.example.com ra_allowremoteaccess@ad.example.com wssusers@ad
.example.com ra_allowvpnaccess@ad.example.com ra_allowhomepagelinks@ad.example.c
om
jack@firefly:~$ groups jack
jack : jack adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev users lpadmin
jack@firefly:~$

You can also determine if a user has sudo privilege using groups username | grep -c sudo. If the result is 0, then the user does not have that privilege. If the result is 1, inciding that the grep command found username one in the output of the groups command, then the user has that privilege.

jack@firefly:~$ groups jill@ad.example.com | grep -c sudo
1
jack@firefly:~$

You can grant a user that privilege by issuing the command sudo usermod -aG sudo username from an account that already has the capability to run the sudo command.

jack@firefly:~$ sudo usermod -aG sudo mary
[sudo: authenticate] Password:
jack@firefly:~$

You can remove a user's account from the list of those allowed to run the command using the gpasswd command, which is part of the sysutils package by issuing the command sudo gpasswd -d username sudo.

jack@firefly:~$ sudo gpasswd -d mary sudo
Removing user mary from group sudo
jack@firefly:~$ groups mary | grep -c sudo
0
jack@firefly:~$

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

Python Code:

from datetime import date

# Get today's date as a date object
today = date.today()

# Format the date into a string variable in YYMMDD format
# %y gives the two-digit year, %m gives the zero-padded month, and %d gives the # zero-padded day formatted_date_string = today.strftime("%y%m%d")

# Print the result (optional, for verification)
print(f"Today's date in YYMMDD format: {formatted_date_string}")

Steps:

• from datetime import date: This line imports the date class from the built-in datetime module, which is necessary to work with dates in Python.
• today = date.today(): This uses the today() method to get the current local date as a date object.
• today.strftime("%y%m%d"): The strftime() method is then applied to the today object to format it into a string. The format string uses specific directives:
  • %y: Represents the year without the century (e.g., 26 for 2026).
  • %m: Represents the month as a zero-padded decimal number (e.g., 02 for February).
  • %d: Represents the day of the month as a zero-padded decimal number (e.g., 15 for the 15th).

The resulting string, stored in formatted_date_string, will look like 260215 (for February 15, 2026)

[/languages/python] permanent link

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[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

OpenSSH Server for Windows 10 requires at least Windows 10 (build 1809). You can determine the build number for Windows 10 by typing winver in the Windows "Type here to search" field at the bottom of the screen or at a PowerShell prompt. Or you can use the systeminfo utility and pipe it's output into the findstr command, filtering on the line that has "OS" at the beginning of the line and also "Version" in the line.

PS C:\> systeminfo | findstr -B "OS" | findstr "Version"
OS Version:                10.0.19045 N/A Build 19045
PS C:\>

The SSH Client software may already be installed. You can determine if it is already installed by opening a PowerShell prompt and typing ssh. If it is installed, as it was on the Windows 10 Professional Version 22H2 (OS Build 19045.6466) system on which I wanted to set up the OpenSSH Server software, you will see a response like the following one:

PS C:\> ssh
usage: ssh [-46AaCfGgKkMNnqsTtVvXxYy] [-B bind_interface] [-b bind_address]
           [-c cipher_spec] [-D [bind_address:]port] [-E log_file]
           [-e escape_char] [-F configfile] [-I pkcs11] [-i identity_file]
           [-J destination] [-L address] [-l login_name] [-m mac_spec]
           [-O ctl_cmd] [-o option] [-P tag] [-p port] [-Q query_option]
           [-R address] [-S ctl_path] [-W host:port] [-w local_tun[:remote_tun]]
           destination [command [argument ...]]
PS C:\>

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/network/ssh/OpenSSH] permanent link

You can check the health of a NVM Express (NVMe) drive on an Ubuntu Linux system using the nvme-cli command-line interface (CLI) application. The description for the package is as follows:

NVMe management command line interface

nvme-cli is a NVMe management command line interface. NVM Express™ (NVMe™) is a specification defining how host software communicates with non-volatile memory across a PCI Express® (PCIe®) bus. It is the industry standard for PCIe solid state drives (SSDs) in all form factors (U.2, M.2, AIC, EDSFF).

You can install nvme-cli throught the App Center on a Ubuntu Linux system.

[ More Info ]

[/os/unix/linux/ubuntu] permanent link

https://ytdown.to/en2/
https://v6.www-y2mate.com/

Since I had WinPython, a free and open-source version of the Python programming language installed on a Windows laptop and she is using a Windows 11 system at the moment, though she wants to switch to Linux, I decided to try the yt-dlp Python program that allows one to download YouTube videos from a command-line interface (CLI).

[ More Info ]

[/video/youtube] permanent link

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[/network/web/browser/firefox] permanent link

[/financial] permanent link

dnl # The following example makes mail from this host and any additional
dnl # specified domains appear to be sent from mydomain.com
dnl #
dnl MASQUERADE_AS(`mydomain.com')dnl
dnl #
dnl # masquerade not just the headers, but the envelope as well
dnl #
dnl FEATURE(masquerade_envelope)dnl
dnl #
dnl # masquerade not just @mydomainalias.com, but @*.mydomainalias.com as well
dnl #
dnl FEATURE(masquerade_entire_domain)dnl
dnl #
dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost)dnl
dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(localhost.localdomain)dnl
dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomainalias.com)dnl
dnl MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(mydomain.lan)dnl
MAILER(smtp)dnl
MAILER(procmail)dnl
dnl MAILER(cyrusv2)dnl
MASQUERADE_DOMAIN(`verizon.net')dnl
MASQUERADE_AS(`moonpoint.com')dnl

After I edited the sendmail.mc file, I rebuilt the sendmail.cf file by restarting sendmail with the command service sendmail restart , which put the following line in sendmail.cf:

C{M}verizon.net

The person who was sending the newsletter died several years ago and I took over maintaining the membership list for the organization as well as distributing the email version of the newsletters to members. Though the account from which the newsletter is sent is intended to be used only for sending the newsletter and members are advised to send an email related to the organization to the organization's Gmail email addresses, occasionally members will reply directly to the "from" address used for the newsletter. When checking the account for that address, I found that someone with a verizon.net address had sent a reply to the account, but if I replied my reply would go not to his verizon.net address, but to his email name followed by my domain name, which would result in the email bouncing since that address would not be a valid address on my server. I corrected the problem by removing the two MASQUERADE lines in sendmail.mc that resulted in the change to the domain name part of email addresses if any email came from a verizon.net address and then restarted sendmail, which resulted in the C{M}verizon.net line being removed from sendmail.cf.

The sendmail.mc file is a human-readable macro configuration file, while the sendmail.cf file is the more complex configuration file actually used by the Sendmail message transfer agent (MTA). The .mc file serves as the source, which is processed by the m4 macro to generate the final, often uncommented sendmail.cf file used by sendmail. The command m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf can be used to rebuild the .cf configuration file after one makes changes to the sendmail.mc file, but the changes won't take effect until sendmail is restarted. Or, on many newer versions of the Linux operating system, one can simply restart sendmail and a new .cf file will be automatically generated and applied to sendmail, if any changes have been made to the .mc file

References:

1. 18.4. The sendmail.cf and sendmail.mc Files
   Linux Network Administrators Guide

Related articles:

1. Modifying the "from" domain of a message with sendmail
   Date: June 1, 2018

[/network/email/sendmail] permanent link

I installed Calibre 8.8.0 on a Ubuntu Linux system through the Ubuntu App Center (I had to filter by Debian packages rather than by Snap packages in the App Center to see Calibre packages as there isn't a Snap package for the software). But when I checked to see if that was the latest version on the Calibre website, I found the latest version is 8.16.2. Also, the Calibre Download for Linux page states "Please do not use your distribution provided calibre package, as those are often buggy/outdated. Instead use the Binary install described below." So I uninstalled the version I installed and then reinstalled the software using the command provided on that Calibre webpage, sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin - a command that can be run on any version of Linux.

[ More Info ]

[/ebook/calibre] permanent link