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Replacement for Pinta?
by Steve Mynott 10 Nov '21

10 Nov '21

Has anyone any suggestions for a very simple image editor? I just want something to add text to screenshots which supports multiple layers. I've used Pinta in the past but since they changed the icons in the tools menu & used dark mode it takes me too long to edit since I have to search for "what does the text tool look like"? And the snap version doesn't seem stable. -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> rsa3072/629FBB91565E591955B5876A79CEFAA4450EBD50

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Does anyone here use sshuttle?
by Chris Green 09 Nov '21

09 Nov '21

I've been trying to use sshuttle but I simply can't get anywhere. I have it installed and can run it but it just outputs loads of waffle and leaves me with no command prompt so I can't see how I can possibly do anything. I'm probably doing something stupid or not doing something vital but I can't find any tutorials that actually say 'type this' and then you will have a working sshuttle VPN. So, does anyone here use it, or has anyone here played with it? -- Chris Green

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OT: Mail forwarding and junk folders
by Mark Rogers 21 Oct '21

21 Oct '21

Several family members have domains (mostly at 123-Reg) and use email forwarding for xxx@<their domain> to their personal addresses (eg at Gmail, Virgin, BT, whatever). Increasingly they're finding that mail sent *from* their domain addresses is ending in recipient junk folders. How they send varies: my dad used Thunderbird on Ubuntu (so maybe not entirely OT!), my wife sends via Gmail, others I'm not sure but probably thinks like Outlook/Outlook Express (or whatever it is these days). They'll be using the SMTP settings of their ISP or personal mail provider (eg my wife will be sending via Gmail using her own domain set up as an alias). Since I have several people with issues - and especially since one of them is my wife! - I want to take a fresh look at all of this and get things right. I'm guessing that this is going to involve SPF, DKIM, DMARC stuff that I don't really understand but have succeeded in setting up before. It feels like something that must be a sufficiently common issue that there would be plenty of help out there but it's one of those issues where I can't see the wood for the trees in any search I try, so I'm hoping someone here might have some pointers? The more that can be done server-side the better as that reduces the need for me to help lots of people configure lots of different clients. If I need to move domains from 123-Reg that's not out of the question - indeed I have plans to do that to somewhere I can control DNS, mail forwarding, etc via APIs anyway. -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Backups and encrypted disks
by Peter 13 Oct '21

13 Oct '21

I'm thinking of moving to an encrypted home partition when setting up a new computer. Its a completely new machine. I'm a bit puzzled how to proceed. I've looked at tutorials on how to use fscrypt and encryptfs but they are quite complicated and probably beyond my ability to carry out error free. So finally it seems the simplest approved way is to create an encrypted home partition on the new machine, then take a backup of home and use it to restore to that partition. This would have the great merit of being very safe, the only thing one could mess up would be the new partition, or worst case the backup. I can do a partition backup easily enough to an external hard drive using clonezilla. So I boot the new machine, connect the external with honme on it via usb... and then what? Do I just copy all the files? Will that preserve the desktop and the links on it? Or is there some way of restoring the partition itself to the encrypted partition? Should have started out with full device encryption of course, but that was more years ago than I like to think! Peter

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Any iptables experts here, I need something explained
by Chris Green 11 Oct '21

11 Oct '21

I have a script I wrote a while ago to enable my laptop to become a WiFi hotspot which connects via a proxy to give me the ability to be 'in the UK' when I'm overseas. The script uses redsocks and some iptables stuff so that HTTP and HTTPS connections to the laptop get forwarded across to the proxy server. So, ssh provides the tunnel to a server in the UK:- ssh -fTnN -D 1080 chris(a)cheddar.halon.org.uk ... and redsocks connects all socks5 requests on port 12345 through to port 1080 to connect to the remote server (portion of redsocks configuration) :- redsocks { /* `local_ip' defaults to 127.0.0.1 for security reasons, * use 0.0.0.0 if you want to listen on every interface. * `local_*' are used as port to redirect to. */ local_ip = 0.0.0.0; local_port = 12345; // `ip' and `port' are IP and tcp-port of proxy-server // You can also use hostname instead of IP, only one (random) // address of multihomed host will be used. ip = 127.0.0.1; port = 1080; // known types: socks4, socks5, http-connect, http-relay type = socks5; } What I can't understand is the iptables bits at the end of the script (I presumably copied it from somewhere!):- sudo iptables -F sudo iptables -t nat -F sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -s 10.42.0.0/24 -p tcp -j REDIRECT --to-ports 12345 The first line I understand (I think), it clears out any existing iptables settings. Then the second line appears to do the same thing, does the second line actually do anything rather than a clear out of part of what the first line has already done? The third line is what confuses me, it seems to me as if, firstly it's the wrong way round and secondly there should be more needed to make it all work as intended. The intent of the whole thing is that WiFi clients (e.g. my kindle lookalike, or my phone) can connect to the laptop (which is acting as WiFi server) and have their HTTP/HTTPS requests sent through to the proxy. It reads to me as if requests *from* the 10.42.0.0/24 network get redirected but that's all wrong. The LAN with the laptop on it is 192.168.0.0/16 (or is it 192.168.0.0/8) and that line is only supposed to do things to 'a packet that creates a new connection'. However it did all work OK when I first tried it and probably still does if I get it configured right. What I'm confused about is that 10.42.0.0/24 IP, where does that come from? Is it the local LAN's or something else? -- Chris Green

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Nextcloud Pi?
by Phil Thane 01 Oct '21

01 Oct '21

Hi, Anyone else running Nextcloud server on a R Pi? After faffing about with Rasbian and other distros and installing MySQL and Nextcloud someone eventually recommended Nextcloud Pi which works like a charm. The only issue I have is upgrading. The Nextcloud dashboard has various upgrade options and those for upgrading apps work OK but trying to upgrade Nextcloud Pi itself doesn't work, it faiils with a dpkg error: /E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem./ Only snag is as far as I can see there is no terminal screen in Nextcloud's dash options. So I tried to SSH into it from my desktop and neither my normal user login, nor the admin login work via SSH, I just get 'permission refused'. Any suggestions? BTW the server runs 'headless' in my shed so adding keyboard, mouse and screen is very much the last resort! -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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dodgy site, or not?
by Phil Thane 12 Sep '21

12 Sep '21

Hi, Not strictly a Linux question, but I'm having a problem signing up to a video stream. Here's a link to a legit Youtube page for a band I follow: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz-l3vco5OX-s6flw3qFEz12QdasXdy9S They played a gig at the O2 10 days ago and there's a link to a recording of the live stream, then it gets weird. The link goes to 'Eventlist' but the sign-up redirects to one of many sign-up pages with funny spelling all ending in 'Z' eg Bookphaz, Shapezonez and others I've forgotten. They seem genuine (I've searched for comments and not found bad ones) but I get a message ' Your card has been decline' (note lack of 'd' on declined). There are UK phone numbers for support but they redirect to someone far away with no clue. Tried last week and again this evening. The advice is try again later. Tried both FF and Chromium (on Mint) with same results. Has anyone come across this or similar? (BTW my card has about £4k credit on it and I've used it recently with no problem.) -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Skype error messages
by Bev Nicolson 09 Sep '21

09 Sep '21

If I try to refresh the Update manager, I get an error message for Skype. See post image link.(I should've c+p'd this from Terminal, so sorry about that.) I've tried one solution suggested online to delete the signature key but it didn't work. https://i.postimg.cc/Qx3yrdbH/skype-puzzle1.png Ideas? Bev. (Cinnamon 19.1.)

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Open With
by Peter 18 Aug '21

18 Aug '21

I'm having two issues which may be related. Using Dolphin file manager, 'open with' will open the app selected from the dropdown list. Using PCManfm, which I prefer and normally use, clicking on the app has no effect. Any idea how to change that and make it open the selected app? In Libre Office, it used to be possible to compose a document and then do 'send as', for instance a Word file or a pdf. Libre Office now no longer finds the email application, and I haven't discovered where to set this. Any idea? This is Debian and Fluxbox, but I don't think it can be a function of Fluxbox since it works fine with Dolphin running in it. Peter

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News item - Pine time watch!
by Bev Nicolson 15 Aug '21

15 Aug '21

https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/ In case people are interested. Someone posted about it elsewhere. Bev

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Boot menu
by Bev Nicolson 12 Aug '21

12 Aug '21

Now googling to find out what to press to get to the boot menu usually brings up suggestions to hit the shift key. I keep trying this but am not having any joy. Esc doesn't get me far either. Do I simply need to keep trying or are there any other options? Does it make a difference that I'm using a laptop? I get 10/11 seconds till the Mint logo appears if that's any help. It's all rather frustrating. Thanks in advance. Bev

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Re: [ALUG] Kill or close process?
by Bev Nicolson 05 Aug '21

05 Aug '21

Just tried something like that and couldn't figure out which was the PID number. It gave me: 4347 0.0 0.0 14436 1100 pts/0 S+ 16.27 0.00 grep -- color=aux to firefox Firefox was in red. Keen to try this isf Terminla is still up and running. Bev On 25/07/2021 13:16, phil(a)pthane.co.uk wrote: > I can never remember get commands so I usually do ps ux to find the PID of the > app I want to kill then kill -9 (PID Number). > > > > Sent from Android device > > On 25 Jul 2021 11:32, Bev Nicolson <lumos(a)gmx.co.uk> wrote: > > Me again. While Mint remain wobbly, it frequently claims that (ie) > Firefox is running but not responding. > > I've tried > > $ kill $(ps -x | grep firefox | a > > and nothing happened. Got the same message. > > killall firefox > > > has usually worked in the past but not now. > > > So what do I do? > > Bev > > _______________________________________________ > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > http://www.alug.org.uk/ > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > Unsubscribe? See message headers or the web site above! > >

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hevin a fie out (again)
by mick 02 Aug '21

02 Aug '21

All I am clearing some old junk (again) and have found that I have a load of old (and some not so old) routers which I have replaced over the past few years with better/faster models. Before I take them all to the recycling centre I offer them here free, gratis and for nothing in case anyone fancies tinkering/reflashing or just using any of them. With the exception of two (the Asus RT-NT12E) and the Netgear WNR2200) they are all ADSL modem routers, the two exceptions are routers only and would need to be connected either to a modem or another router. (I have a split network - an outer net, a separate DMZ and an inner net. The two obvious ISP routers are included because I always ditch such things and substitute my own.) All have been factory reset by hardware button so I should not be disclosing anything sensitive by giving them away. The list is: Sky Hub (about 5 years old) Plusnet QNSC (about 3 or 4 years old) Ausus RT-N12E Technicolor TG582N Pro Netgear WNR 2200 TP Link Archer VR400 TP link AC750 Thomson Speedtouch 780W2 (this is quite a sophisticated router and incorporates VOIP capability) First come first served. All would need collection and I am happy to leave any items in our porch for collection so no need for personal contact. Mick --------------------------------------------------------------------- Mick Morgan gpg fingerprint: FC23 3338 F664 5E66 876B 72C0 0A1F E60B 5BAD D312 https://baldric.net/about-trivia ---------------------------------------------------------------------

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Kill or close process?
by Bev Nicolson 30 Jul '21

30 Jul '21

Me again. While Mint remain wobbly, it frequently claims that (ie) Firefox is running but not responding. I've tried $ kill $(ps -x | grep firefox | a and nothing happened. Got the same message. killall firefox has usually worked in the past but not now. So what do I do? Bev

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replacement laptop
by Phil Thane 28 Jul '21

28 Jul '21

While I was struggling with low water and debris in the Ashton canal some b*****d got into my canal boat and nicked my laptop. I think my insurance will pay up but the laptop was unusual and currently out of stock due to CPU shortage so a 'like-for-like' replacement will be impossible. It was a Pinebook Pro, AMD64 running Manjaro imported from the US. I imagine it's value in the backstreet pubs of Manchester is about £fuck-all so it's probably adding to the debris in the Ashton by now. After VAT and delivery it cost me just under £300 so I need a replacement in that ball park capable of running Linux. I guess the options are a Chromebook and a lot of buggering about removing Chrome or a basic Windows machine. But apparently recent cheap laptops come with Windows Home (S) and the (S) is some kind of security system to keep you tied into Windows and Office 365 and paying an annual Windows tax. Any advice on what to look out for, and what to avoid? At this price nothing powerful obviously but I want a decent desktop environment (probably KDE but not that bothered), LIbreOffice, Gimp, Firefox, Thunderbird. If it can run those, look not to shabby and weigh not too much while having a decent battery, it'll do. -- Phil Thane www.pthane.co.uk Tweet @pthane 01767 449759 07582 750607

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Mint wobbly
by Bev Nicolson 23 Jul '21

23 Jul '21

Not really sure what's up. A couple of times my laptop has frozen. Either the program won't respond or won't launch. I've had to do a fsck check each time to get back in or I'd be stuck in initramfs, unable to log in again. (My phone had not packed up so I was able to google this info.) Anyone got any ideas? Bev. (Cinnamon Mint 19.1 with all updates.)

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uMatrix and Firefox
by Peter 22 Jul '21

22 Jul '21

Hi everyone, thought this might be useful to someone. Suddenly Firefox stopped connecting to any sites. At the same time, email worked fine and all the other browsers worked fine. So I disabled all the extensions, and it now connected. Turned them back on one at a time, and so discovered that uMatrix was the problem. Played with all the uMatrix preferences and settings to no avail. Found various explanations and suggestions, none of which worked for me. Turned out that installing the latest version from github fixed it. I think it probably is just due to having changed the sources of the blocking lists, in assets. uMatrix I find really useful - proper detailed control of what's going on. Sorry that he has decided to stop updating it, but this latest version seems to work fine, for now. Debian stable, so mine is a few releases behind the latest Firefox. Peter On Thu, 22 Jul 2021 12:00:02 +0100 main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk wrote: > Send main mailing list submissions to > main(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > https://lists.alug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/main > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > main-request(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > You can reach the person managing the list at > main-owner(a)lists.alug.org.uk > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of main digest..."

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Kubuntu updated nvidia drivers behind my back?
by Srdjan Todorovic 21 Jul '21

21 Jul '21

Hi all, I had an nvidia driver module update behind my back, while the system is running. I did not issue an apt-get upgrade, or enter my sudo password anywhere. Yet, launching any application that uses GLX (e.g. glxgears) gives me this: X Error of failed request: BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation) Major opcode of failed request: 151 (GLX) Minor opcode of failed request: 3 (X_GLXCreateContext) Value in failed request: 0x0 Serial number of failed request: 35 Current serial number in output stream: 36 And dmesg output is full of entries that tell me that the Nvidia client is newer than the running kernel module version. I've had this before, and the usual remedy is to reboot. It's just that I didn't (knowingly) authorise the system to do an update. Anyone know what might be doing these unattended updates? It'd be useful to know, so I can schedule the updates at the end of the day. Thanks, Srdjan

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Firefox 90 - toolbar text illegible
by Bev Nicolson 19 Jul '21

19 Jul '21

I've got a screenshot of what I mean but I'm not really sure what the best way of posting that is. The problem is this though. I updated to Firefox 90 and cannot use any dark theme now. The menu options File, Edit, View, History etc become almost the same colour as the border. I've noticed that if I want to check the progress of a download that's hard too. What have they done? I have tried switching proton off (those with context, doorhangers, enabled and modals as part of the text) but it didn't work. Firefox suggested using the troubleshooting tool. I confess I'm unconvinced how that will help. Cinnamon Mint 19. Ideas? I am using Firefox colour in the meantime, but it doesn't solve it. Bev.

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Zoom on Linux?
by Steve Mynott 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

Does anyone regularly and successfully use the Zoom app on Linux? I've had it working in the past but it's not 100%. Frequently the audio output seems to break (remote person can hear me but I can't hear them). Does anyone use the web version? I've not really had any problem with Teams just Zoom. I'd really not use any of these but its often not my choice. -- Steve Mynott <steve.mynott(a)gmail.com> cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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Audacity - now controversial
by Bev Nicolson 06 Jul '21

06 Jul '21

For info. They've changed the terms and conditions and it's really not good. https://fosspost.org/audacity-is-now-a-spyware/ Bev

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Laptops
by Michael Goddard 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

If you were in the market for a laptop, which make, model, size etc would it be, and why? Tia Michael

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Linux Mint updates issue
by Bev Nicolson 24 Jun '21

24 Jun '21

Right after I've logged in, I can update anything that needs updating, via the Update Manager. After that, I just a get a red cross in the shield and the message 'Could not refresh the list of updates.' Ideas? I've tweaked the sources list but that does nothing. Bev.

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Lets Encrypt renewals via DNS
by Mark Rogers 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

Sometimes you can't find the answer to your question on line. This is one of those examples where the answers seem plentiful but I can't get my head around them. I have a couple of domains with Lets Encrypt wildcard certificates. Creating the certs manually is easy (if a bit laborious): add the specified ._acme_callenge DNS entry and a handful of files under docroot .well-known/acme-challenge. But they can't be renewed automatically so every three months I need to go through the whole process again. Reading the docs, if my DNS is with one of the supported DNS providers (eg DigitalOcean, who I have an account with) then it can be automated via the API (the files under docroot I think can be automated with the --apache plugin?) but that's not where my DNS is. The docs suggest that I can use a CNAME but don't go beyond that. Has anyone done this, or otherwise automated wildcard certificate renewals where the DNS isn't in a supported provider? Also (probably simpler): once the certificate is created, can all the .acme-challenge files and DNS records be deleted? -- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0344 251 1450 Registered in England (0456 0902) 21 Drakes Mews, Milton Keynes, MK8 0ER

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Ubuntu upgrade disaster
by Jenny Hopkins 21 Jun '21

21 Jun '21

Hi folks, I'm attempting to upgrade from Ubuntu 18.04 -> 20.04. The 18.04 has been brought completely up to date, and has no broken packages. However, when I run " sudo do-release-upgrade -d", the system starts preparing for the upgrade then bails out. The log file shows: 2021-06-20 09:39:31,393 DEBUG Marking 'ubuntu-desktop' for upgrade 2021-06-20 09:39:31,850 DEBUG Marking 'xubuntu-core' for upgrade 2021-06-20 09:39:32,694 WARNING Can't mark 'xubuntu-core' for upgrade (E:Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.) 2021-06-20 09:39:32,694 DEBUG Marking 'xubuntu-desktop' for upgrade 2021-06-20 09:39:33,631 WARNING Can't mark 'xubuntu-desktop' for upgrade (E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.) 2021-06-20 09:39:33,632 DEBUG Marking 'ubuntu-mate-core' for upgrade 2021-06-20 09:39:34,559 WARNING Can't mark 'ubuntu-mate-core' for upgrade (E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.) 2021-06-20 09:39:34,561 DEBUG Marking 'ubuntu-mate-desktop' for upgrade 2021-06-20 09:39:35,491 WARNING Can't mark 'ubuntu-mate-desktop' for upgrade (E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.) 2021-06-20 09:39:39,951 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'Broken packages after upgrade: xubuntu-core, xubuntu-desktop' 2021-06-20 09:39:39,952 DEBUG abort called However, I don't have any broken packages - both the graphic packages manager and CLI searches confirm this. Trying to run the upgrade from the GUI just crashes. Can I do this the debian way, and alter the sources file and do the upgrade that way? Many thanks, Jenny

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