A “paper cuts” bug, originally filed in June 2009, explained the choice of icon to represent the button implied that it was for text editing or word processing. As the discussion went on, it was decided that the text-based display was for more advanced users and therefore the choice to enable it be made into an “advanced option”.

The current verison of Gnome being packaged with Lucid does away with this toggle button so that the location bar is always in button mode. There is however a keyboard shortcut, CTRL+L, to toggle it to text-based temporarily. Using / to start typing a location will also initiate the toggle.

If you want the location bar to be text-based all of the time, you can use gconf-editor to enable it. The key to change is:

/apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry

… which will need to be check-marked. You can do the same with gconftool-2 at a command line.

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry --type=bool true

To turn it back off, set it to false.

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/always_use_location_entry --type=bool false

Both the keyboard shortcuts and gconf settings work with Nautilus in both Karmic using Gnome 2.28.1 and Lucid Beta-1 using Gnome 2.29.92. I’m unsure if they work pre-Karmic.

After some digging, I came across this Launchpad bug explaining the same condition. Lars Bengtsson’s comment explained with a link that there was a change in the gnome-power-manager package back in July that decided to hide the Do nothing option unless it was specified in GConf.

There are two ways to specify Do nothing in GConf. Pick what you’re more comfortable with. The GUI way is to press ALT-F2 and run gconf-editor. Use the tree to navigate to apps > gnome-power-manager > buttons > lid_ac and change it to nothing. The Long description that appears below in the Key Documentation area provides the other possible values.

From a command line, or in a terminal window, use the following command to change the value to nothing:

gconftool-2 --type string --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/buttons/lid_ac "nothing"

You should now see Do nothing as an option from within the Power Management application.

It’s only semi-persistent. Once you change the option to something else, Do nothing is hidden again. You’ll need to repeat the process to add it back. Some comments from the bug entry suggest this may not work for everyone. I suspect there are other issues preventing them from keeping an external monitor active with a laptop’s lid closed which I couldn’t suggest a reason.

I had assumed it was a design decision due to the artwork changes being done to the icon theme that would be corrected during the final release. Well, the final release is here and the issue is still prevalent. Since it didn’t affect the ability to use the computer, I put off finding an answer.

I had been upgrading some other laptops with fresh installations of Karmic which usually includes some tweaks to the look and feel of the default install. That’s when I noticed in the Appearance Preferences that Show icons in menus was not enabled. Seems Karmic is installed with it defaulted to off. I gave it a click and voilà, the menu icons reappeared to much rejoicing.

You can open the Appearance Preferences by following System > Preferences > Appearance from the main menu. Click on the Interface tab and make sure there is a check mark in Show icons in menus.

Ta-da! They have returned!

My ugly mug and the new Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Desktop CD. Thank-you to Canonical for getting it to me so quick. I wasn’t expecting it until later this month. This is consequently the last time I’ll be requesting a free CD, as I mentioned a few days ago.

MatBoy: mhh, 9.10 upgrade on a eeepc 901 is not that easy with ssd
MatBoy: where does the 9.10 upgrade needs 1,5GB space ?
MatBoy: in /tmp ?
MatBoy: someone running 9.10 on a eeepc 901 with ssd ?
MatBoy: mhh, I can’t upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10… space issue of 1,5GB it says
MatBoy: LOL I removed my /home because I wanted to gpart the drives… which is ofcourse seperated :)
MatBoy: my install is on the 4GB part, so that might be too small by default…. I’m wondering if I move /tmp to the second drive if it works
MatBoy: I think I need a new install :(

Upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic through the Update Manager presented an interesting challenge on my Asus Eee PC 701. Since my / partition was only 4GB in size, there wasn’t enough room to download all of the necessary packages. Since there was no reason, or space, to put /var onto its own partition, the upgrade process was reliant on what the / partition contained. Fortunately, the Linux file system is very versatile making this more of an annoyance than a show-stopper.

Luckily for me, I had upgraded the SSD to a 32GB drive. I had it partitioned so that /home had its own 20GB partition. This gave me the option of “borrowing” space on that partition. Packages are downloaded to /var/cache/apt/archives/ regardless if they’re regular updates or part of a full system upgrade. What I did was create a symbolic link to a new location on the /home partition.

First, I had apt-get clean out any old updates. This would remove any old packages from the archives directory and free up a little more space on the / partition.

sudo apt-get clean

Next, I created the new temporary location with the included partial sub-directory and lock file.

sudo mkdir -p /home/temp_apt_cache/partial
sudo touch /home/temp_apt_cache/lock

Then, I temporarily changed the original location’s name to maintain a backup.

sudo mv /var/cache/apt/archives /var/cache/apt/archives_old

Lastly, I created a symbolic link to the new location.

sudo ln -s /home/temp_apt_cache /var/cache/apt/archives

I now had plenty of room for all of Karmic’s packages. The link does exactly what it sounds like, linking one location to another. When the upgrade process began downloading packages to the /var/cache/apt/archives/ directory, it was really saving them to the new /home location.

Since I wasn’t expecting to ever borrow more than about 1-1.5GB worth of space from my /home partition, I left it set up that way. To reverse the changes, I would remove the link, remove the temporary location, and rename the original location.

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives
sudo rm -rf /home/temp_apt_archive
sudo mv /var/cache/apt/archives_old /var/cache/apt/archives

With the new functionality introduced with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, there’s no simple way to do this without a bit of hacking at the command line, or through a root nautilus window if one feels inclined.

Navigate to the shared sounds directory.

cd /usr/share/sounds

In it, there should be a directory named ubuntu. Within ubuntu is an index.theme file and the sounds stored in a directory named stereo. I first made a complete copy of the ubuntu directory into a new directory.

sudo cp -a ./ubuntu ./adam

I then opened the ./adam/index.theme file with nano…

sudo nano ./adam/index.theme

… and changed my new theme’s name. I changed:

[Sound Theme]
Name=Ubuntu
Directories=stereo

[stereo]
OutputProfile=stereo

… to:

[Sound Theme]
Name=Adam
Directories=stereo

[stereo]
OutputProfile=stereo

… and saved the file.

I now had a new entry in the available themes named Adam.

To change the startup sound, I had to copy over my MGM roaring lion file and change its name. I renamed the old file just in case. Not that it was needed as it was still in the original ubuntu directory, just following my back-up before editing rule.

cd /usr/share/sounds/adam/stereo
sudo mv desktop-login.ogg desktop-login.ogg.old
sudo cp ~/Audio/mgmua_lionroar.wav .
sudo chmod 0644 mgmua_lionroar.wav
sudo mv mgmua_lionroar.wav desktop-login.wav

The filenames are based on the XDG Sound Theme specifications spelled out at freedestop.org. So far, only .ogg .oga and .wav files are supported.

This should at least start you on your way. There’s a lot more information with examples at freedesktop.org’s website. There have been bug reports filed about having the old functionality restored, but we can only wait and see what develops.

Imac: I’m trying 9.10 and after I suspended it asked for my password when went back to the computer. How do I disable that feature?

Not that I would recommend it, I can understand the need to turn the password prompt off when returning from suspend. On Ubuntu 9.10, Gnome has that as a setting which can be toggled through the GConf Configuration Editor, gconf-editor, or at the command line with gconftool.

The GUI Way:

The GConf Configuration Editor doesn’t have a visible menu listing. You can launch it by using ALT+F2 to open the Run Application dialog box and type gconf-editor followed by clicking the Run button.

Next, you will need to navigate to the necessary key name through the use of the tree menu on the left of the Configuration Editor. Double-click on apps to expand that part of the tree. Scroll down and double-click on gnome-power-manager. Lastly, single-click on lock to see the corresponding key names and their values appear in the upper-right window. You should see a key named suspend with a checkbox value next to it.

Simply click the checkbox to remove the checkmark. The change is immediate so you only need to close the Configuration Editor. If you want to turn that feature back on, follow the steps again and place a checkmark into the checkbox.

The CLI Way:

From a command line, to turn the feature off, you only need to use the following entry:

gconftool --type Boolean --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/lock/suspend false

To turn it back on, set it to true.

gconftool --type Boolean --set /apps/gnome-power-manager/lock/suspend true

Remember that the password prompt, while annoying at times, can be your last line of defense from letting people access sensitive data. While turning the prompt off makes sense for shared computers such as a media server box, it’s not recommended for personal laptops/desktops.

Since they do take a long time to receive, it’s recommended to download a CD and burn it for yourself once the 9.10 Karmic release is finalized. Also note that shipped CDs, assuming Canonical continues the trend, will be for i386 architecture only. That should work for the majority of users with both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel/AMD CPUs. However, if one wants or needs something else, IE: full 64-bit support, you’ll need to download an ISO from Ubuntu.

root@obsidian:~# vol_id /dev/sdb3
vol_id: command not found

I did a search for it and came across two cryptsetup entries which proved just as useful.

root@obsidian:~# find / -iname *vol_id*
/lib/cryptsetup/checks/vol_id
/lib/cryptsetup/checks/un_vol_id

root@obsidian:~# /lib/cryptsetup/checks/vol_id /dev/sdb3
- WARNING: vol_id from udev is not available, impossible to run checks.

Unbeknownst to me, vol_id is being dropped in favor of blkid starting with Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, which is certainly a good thing. The blkid command’s output is very intuitive. My soon-to-be dual-boot, dual-drive T61p is a lot easier to set up and map out with blkid.

root@obsidian:~# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID=”6A569ECC525CD967″ LABEL=”vista_boot” TYPE=”ntfs”
/dev/sda2: UUID=”D4BC0F29BC0F05A8″ LABEL=”vista_swap” TYPE=”ntfs”
/dev/sda3: UUID=”0ADE1B52DE1B3603″ LABEL=”Media” TYPE=”ntfs”
/dev/sdb1: UUID=”d2e9da2f-5e48-45f8-b0f5-d3edbe1b4695″ TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/sdb2: UUID=”6687c2b3-4c09-4d77-8a50-21bcac261247″ TYPE=”crypto_LUKS”
/dev/sdb3: UUID=”d2e7ac26-32f9-4123-94db-9b1d125f3951″ TYPE=”crypto_LUKS”
/dev/mapper/sdb2_crypt: UUID=”9769c898-c93e-4369-aa91-40d2728c70b1″ TYPE=”ext4″
/dev/mapper/sdb3: UUID=”f52ba5da-c97c-4e16-8889-8906f13018cd” TYPE=”ext4″

Now, I have both the partition and file-system UUIDs for sdb3, not to mention all of the others, which I need in order to finish setting up the encrypted partition.

“… if you upgraded to gdm 2.26 since last Friday, updating your system under GNOME will kill the upgrade and your session in the middle of the update again, since there is no way for the fixed gdm version to override the previous version’s prerm script.”

For more information including steps to fix the issue, see the original email in the mailing list archives.