HuHa's Ubuntu Tips

License: GNU Free Documentation License

Getting a freshly installed Ubuntu up and running

Install bare minimum tools

sudo apt-get install vim ssh aptitude synaptic muon
sudo apt-get install zsh mmv emacs gnuserv
sudo apt-get install exif exiftran exiftags jhead id3v2
sudo apt-get install vlc mplayer
sudo apt-get install git gitk colordiff automake cmake

Change default editor from 'nano' to 'vi':

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

Allow 'sudo' without password for yourself:

sudo visudo

Add line (at the end of the file - AFTER any 'include') with:

myusername  ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Don't log every `sudo` command:

sudo visudo

Add a line

Defaults !syslog

Keep the shell environment during `sudo`

sudo visudo

Locate the line with env_reset

Defaults    !env_reset

Set a password for root to have a fallback if your user can't log in anymore:

sudo passwd root

Allow ssh login for root:

sudo vi /etc/ssh/ssh_config

Locate the Host * section and add:

    PermitRootLogin yes

Enable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to kill the X server:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration

Hit [Return] 5 times until the "enable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace" dialog appears.

Disable forced NumLock

Whoever came up with the brain-dead idea to force this to "on" should be shot!

sudo apt-get remove numlockx

Problem with ReiserFS partitions at boot time:

Maybe fsck.reiserfs missing

sudo apt-get install reiserfsprogs

Booting

Change display manager back to lightdm default (unity) theme:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --force lightdm
sudo service lightdm restart

(config: /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf)

Change boot screen:

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
sudo update-alternatives --config text.plymouth
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Plymouth

Show boot messages:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

change GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

sudo update-grub

Change console / grub resolution:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1600x900

sudo update-grub

If that doesn't work:

sudo vi /etc/grub.d/00_header

locate the line with

set gfxmode=${GRUB_GFXMODE}

and add a new line with

set gfxpayload=keep

Reference:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/127851/change-boot-screen-resolution
http://www.ubuntu-forum.de/artikel/48665/auflösung-der-konsole-ändern.html

Fix Plymouth boot screen after installing NVidia drivers:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=1920x1200
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset \
  video=uvesafb:mode_option=1920x1200-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"

sudo update-grub
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

Change console font:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

For 1600x900, use "Terminus Bold" in 20x10. Otherwise, "Fixed" (the standard VGA font) is a good choice.

Change Grub font:

sudo grub-mkfont -s 24 -o /boot/grub/deja.pf2 \
  /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf

Add that font to /etc/grub.d/00_header:

sudo vi /etc/grub.d/00_header

GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/deja.pf2

Build complete grub.cfg from all the snippets in /etc/grub.d:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Debug and configure suspend-to-RAM:

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/power/basic-pm-debugging.txt http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/pm-utils

Sony Vaio VGX-TP1E: Use method 'shutdown'. Add to /etc/rc.local:

echo shutdown >/sys/power/disk

Reduce insane systemd timeout from 30 sec to reasonable value

cd /etc/systemd
sudo vi system.conf

Uncomment and change

DefaultTimeoutStopSec=10s

?? The same values are also in user.conf; maybe change them there as well.

Shell

zsh: Numeric keypad Enter key not working

Add this to ~/.zshrc:

bindkey -s "^[OM" "^M"

How to find out the key codes:

In zsh, hit Ctrl-V and then they key.

Desktop Environment

SysRq Key

Enable SysRq Key

Just for this session:

su
echo 1 >/proc/sys/kernel/sysrq

Permanently: Create a new file /etc/sysctl.d/90-sysrq.conf :

cd /etc/sysctl.d
sudo vi 90-sysrq.conf

Add this line:

kernel.sysrq=1

Using SysRq

Alt SysRq R (raw) Switch keyboard from raw mode, i.e. take it away from the X server. This will switch to a text console. Switch back to X with Alt F7.
Alt SysRq S Sync all mounted filesystems.
Alt SysRq B Reboot
Alt SysRq Space Show a summary of SysRq keys
Alt SysRq REISUB "Gentle" reboot:
- R: Switch keyboard from raw mode
- E: Send SIGTERM to all processes except init
- I: Send SIGKILL to all processes except init
- S: Sync all mounted filesystems
- U: Remount all mounted filesystems in read-only mode
- B: Reboot

SysRq on a Lenovo X1 Carbon

Use Fn S + command-key or Ctrl Fn S + command-key

Browser Task Manager (Opera, Chrome)

Hit Ctrl Esc to show the sub-processes (including extensions) in Chrome-based browsers including CPU and memory usage. You can kill individual ones from there.

Load ~/.Xdefaults etc.:

Create ~/.xprofile with

USRRESOURCES=$HOME/.Xdefaults

(yes, USRRESOURCES, not USERRESOURCES)

Get rid of unwanted directories in $HOME after each login:

vi ~/.config/user-dir.dirs

Set font sizes of Qt (5.x) programs in Xfce or GNOME

Install "qt5ct", set the environment up to use it and set fonts with it:

sudo apt-get install qt5ct
export QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt5ct
qt5ct

Restart any running Qt 5.x programs so they are using that environment variable. They should even change their settings on the fly when you hit the "apply" button in qt5ct.

Disable X screensaver completely:

cat noscreensaver
#!/bin/sh
xset -dpms s off s noblank s noexpose

Add this to Autostart (Xfce: settings -> session -> autostart)

Use function keys directly on Logitech K400 keyboard:

sudo apt-get install solaar

Send middle mouse click upon key press:

sudo apt-get install xdotool

map key to

xdotool click 2

in XFce: Map Windows key (Super_L)

Fix: X11 Freezing with NVidia Drivers

(Seen on Xubuntu 20.04 LTS with kernel 5.4.0-48 and nvidia-driver-450)

Check the syslog for this message: NVRM: GPU ...: GPU has fallen off the bus.

sudo journalctl | grep "fallen off the bus"

Okt 06 17:59:27 balrog kernel: NVRM: Xid (PCI:0000:01:00): 79, pid=1122, GPU has fallen off the bus.
Okt 06 17:59:27 balrog kernel: NVRM: GPU 0000:01:00.0: GPU has fallen off the bus.

Try setting persistent mode for the GPU. Check the current persistent status:

nvidia-smi

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 450.66       Driver Version: 450.66       CUDA Version: 11.0     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                               |                      |               MIG M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  GeForce GTX 105...  Off  | 00000000:01:00.0  On |                  N/A |
                           ^^^
                           |||

Set it once (this won't survive a reboot):

sudo nvidia-smi -pm 1

To make this permanent so it survives reboots, put it into a systemd unit in /usr/local.

Create the directory and add a new systemd unit file there:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/lib/systemd/system
cd /usr/local/lib/systemd/system
sudo vi my-nvidia-persistent.service

With this content:

[Unit]
Description=Set NVidia GPU to persistent mode
Requires=nvidia-persistenced.service
StopWhenUnneeded=true

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/usr/bin/nvidia-smi -pm 1

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Check if systemd finds it:

systemctl list-unit-files "*my*nvidia*"

If not, notify systemd to re-read the units:
```
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
```
Start it only once (won't auto-start after reboot with this method):
```
sudo systemctl start my-nvidia-persistent
```

Check if it was successful:

sudo systemctl status my-nvidia-persistent
nvidia-smi

Enable it for future reboots:
```
sudo systemctl enable my-nvidia-persistent
```
You should now have a symlink /etc/systemd/system/default.target.wants/my-nvidia-persistent.service to /usr/local/lib/systemd/system/my-nvidia-persistent.service.
Reboot and after the reboot check the persistent status:
```
sudo reboot
```
After reboot:
```
nvidia-smi
```

Fix video output tearing for Intel graphics

cd /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d

Create file 20-intel.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier "Intel Graphics"
    Driver "intel"
    Option "AccelMethod" "SNA"
    Option "TearFree"    "True"
EndSection

Restart X11 (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace)

Check in Xorg.log:

grep -i TearFree /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[  8758.350] (**) intel(0): Option "TearFree" "True"
[  8758.354] (**) intel(0): TearFree enabled

Xfce

Use a Better File Manager

Install PCManFM:

sudo apt install pcmanfm

Problem: PCManFM doesn't Show Thumbnails for Video Files

Install a thumbnailer for those files.

Check /usr/share/thumbnailers what MIME types are already supported:

grep MimeType /usr/share/thumbnailers/*

If there is none for videos, install ffmpegthumbnailer:

sudo apt install ffmpegthumbnailer

Xfce Panel not Responding to Mouse Clicks

Restart it from a shell:

xfce4-panel -r

KDE 4

Avoid excessive (128 MB) Akonadi logging

in ~/.local/share/akonadi/db_data/ib_logfile*:

akonadictl stop
sudo vi /etc/akonadi/mysql-global.conf

Search for

innodb_log_file_size=64M

Replace with

innodb_log_file_size=1M

then

akonadictl start

Fix: KMail / Kontact refuses to start because of Akonadi problems

sudo apt-get remove --purge apparmor

Fix: KMail / Kontact refuses to start because of "resource collection" problems

akonadictl stop
rm -rf ~/.config/akonadi
akonadictl start

Change Gwenview fullscreen background to black instead of dirty brown:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

cd /usr/share/gwenview/images
sudo mv background.png background-bullshit.png
sudo convert -size 256x256 xc:black black-background.png
sudo ln -s black-background.png background.png

Using a symlink prevents the created black background from being overwritten upon the next package update of Gwenview: It will just clobber the symlink which can easily be restored.

Package management

Find out what packages are installed:

dpkg -l | grep '^ii'

Find out what packages are installed and what repo they come from:

apt list --installed

Find out what packages should be installed:

dpkg-query --show -f '${Package} ${db:Status-Want}\n' | grep install

with pattern:

dpkg-query -f '${Package} ${db:Status-Want}\n' --show "*xfce4*" | grep install | sed -e 's/ install//'

(see man dpkg-query and then search showformat for more variables)

Find out what package a file belongs to:

dpkg -S /some/file/name

with pattern:

dpkg -S "*Qt*"

Find fastest Ubuntu mirror:

Start muon
Settings -> software sources
Select mirror "other"
"Find fastest mirror"

Get rid of messages about available updates:

sudo rm /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available

Get rid of "reboot required" notice after apt-get upgrade:

sudo rm /var/run/reboot-required

Get rid of complaints about flashplugin-installer failure:

sudo rm /var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/data-downloads-failed-permanently

Exclude package during apt-get upgrade:

sudo apt-mark hold <pkg>

Later:

sudo apt-mark unhold <pkg>

Show:

sudo apt-mark showhold

Find out installation candidate package

sudo apt-cache policy <pkg-name>

Find out what packages were manually installed:

aptitude search '?installed ?not(?automatic)' --disable-columns -F '%p' | \
sort \
>/tmp/aptitude-manual-pkg.txt

Remove those from the installation media manifest (that were part of the default installation): Insert the installation USB stick / CD-ROM and:

find /media/.../...ubuntu...  -name "*manifest*"
cd <that directory>

awk '{ print $1 }' filesystem.manifest | \
sed -e 's/:amd64//' | \
sort \
>/tmp/manifest-pkg.txt

comm -13 /tmp/manifest-pkg.txt /tmp/aptitude-manual-pkg.txt

Fix complaints about invalid repo key for Opera:

http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/ppa/opera

wget -O - http://deb.opera.com/archive.key | sudo apt-key add -

Check /etc/apt/sources.list.d for duplicates!

Kernel / hardware

Enable keyboard beeper:

Un-blacklist pcspkr from /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Start alsamixer in terminal
- Move right to column 'beep'
- Un-mute the channel ('m')
- Turn channel volume up (~2-5%)

Fix: Laptop brightness control not working

sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
    ...
    Option "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

or create a file in /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d, e.g. 12-nvidia-brightness.conf:

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Default Device"
    Driver      "nvidia"
    Option      "RegistryDwords" "EnableBrightnessControl=1"
EndSection

The section must have an Identifier line.

Restart X11: Ctrl-Alt-Backspace, if enabled, otherwise log out and in, or

service lightdm restart

(Kubuntu also uses LightDM!)

If there is no /etc/X11/xorg.conf, nvidia-settings can create one.

Manual check if it worked:

su
echo 15 >/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
echo 3  >/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

(values 0..15 are accepted)

If that doesn't work:

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash ...  acpi_backlight=vendor"

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Selectively Disable Meltdown/Spectre Kernel Patches

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SecurityTeam/KnowledgeBase/SpectreAndMeltdown/MitigationControls https://askubuntu.com/questions/991874/how-to-disable-page-table-isolation-to-regain-performance-lost-due-to-intel-cpu https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/hw-vuln/mds.html

Disable all (CAUTION!):

sudo vi /etc/default/grub

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="... pti=off spectre_v2=off mds=off"

sudo update-grub
sudo reboot

Applications

Fix Emacs complains about:

** (emacs:6834): WARNING **: Couldn't register with accessibility bus: Did not
   receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not
   send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply
   timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

Fix:

export NO_AT_BRIDGE=1

Emacs doesn't mark a region anymore with Ctrl-Space

ibus stole that key. Remove that keybinding from ibus so it is available again for Emacs:

ibus-setup

(as normal user, not as root!)

Tab "General", "Next input method"; click on "...", then "Delete".

Nobody needs that bullshit!

What fucking moron came up with such a brain-dead idea?

Seriously: It is already hard enough to advocate a Linux desktop in the sorry state it's in. We surely don't need anybody fucking around with it every couple of weeks to make it even harder to use. And breaking the most basic and single most important key combination of one of the oldest and most widely-used Linux editors like Emacs is adding insult to injury.

Emacs keeps marking regions in bright yellow, and it won't ever go away

This is the "secondary selection", a remnant of the very early days of the X Window System, going back to the early nineties (i.e. the last millenium). This is obsolete and braindead and just a PITA. It was of little use back in the days of xterm, xload and xclock, and it is completely useless in this day and age of KDE, GNOME, Xfce. Why after so many years somebody decided to enable that by default is beyond me; it shows a complete disconnect from the user base.

I have been using Emacs since 1992 or so, and I had never come across this - until two years ago or so. Suddenly, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all, I got blocks of text highlighted in bright yellow, and there was no way to get it back to normal other than restarting Emacs. What a PITA. And for the life of me I could not find out what was going on and how to fix it.

Emacs uses mouse operations in combination with the Meta key for that secondary selection. Normally, window managers tend to eat those key combinations: Alt-drag-mouse-1 for moving windows around, Alt-drag-mouse-3 for resizing them.

I am not sure what other keys also cause this; some genius might have found one of those other completely superfluous keys on the keyboard (some of the Windows keys?) to be "useful" for that, thus breaking my favourite editor.

May he rot in hell forevermore. May a thousand camels crap on his grave.

Anyway, here is how to get rid of it: Add to one of your Emacs startup files (e.g. ~/.emacs) those lines:

(global-set-key [M-mouse-1]      nil)
(global-set-key [M-drag-mouse-1] nil)
(global-set-key [M-down-mouse-1] nil)
(global-set-key [M-mouse-2]      nil)
(global-set-key [M-mouse-3]      nil)

This simply undefines those completely braindead key combinations.

If you have an .elc counterpart (a byte-compiled version) of that file, don't forget to byte-compile it (M-x byte-compile-file).

Fix: Evince (the PDF reader) segfaults with weird "permission denied" problems

Experienced with Xubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver

Uninstall apparmor.

sudo apt-get remove --purge apparmor

Reboot to make sure it isn't still active in the running system:

sudo reboot

It took me quite a while to figure that one out. It might just be an apparmor profile that isn't set up 100% correctly, but seriously, I don't give a shit. It was yet another denial of service by this "security enhancement" tool. Why anybody would bother with this piece of ~~shit~~ software is beyond me; it never did anything for me, only just against me. Good riddance.

Removable media

Assign volume label to VFAT partition / USB stick:

fatlabel /dev/sdc1 'MyLabel'

(from package dosfstools)

Alternative:

sudo mlabel -i /dev/sdc1 ::'MYLABEL'

Caution: This forces the label to be uppercase.

Multimedia

Get DVDs to play

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

Don't forget to activate libdvdcss:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh

Convert .webm Video to MP4

Make sure ffmpeg is installed.
Convert:
```
ffmpeg -i myvideo.webm myvideo.mp4
```

Network

Simple graphical network monitoring:

EtherApe is a GUI to show network connections in a graph with a line for each connection that corresponds to the amount of traffic.

Install:

sudo apt-get install etherape

Using:

xhost +
sudo etherape

Set up Automounter

Install:

sudo apt-get install autofs

Edit auto.master:

sudo vi /etc/auto.master

Add a line for a new map file:

/nas  /etc/auto.nas  --timeout=180

The first field (/nas)is the parent directory for the mount points, the second field is the name of the new map file. --timeout is optional.

Create the new map file:

sudo vi /etc/auto.nas

work  -fstype=nfs,soft,intr  nas:/work
sh    -fstype=nfs,soft,intr  nas:/sh

Each line describes one mount. The first field is the mount point below the parent directory specified in the master file, i.e. in this example it will become /nas/work and /nas/sh.

The optional second field are the mount options. The first mount option must start with a - to identify the field as mount options.

For Nfs4, use

-fstype=nfs4

The last field is the server and the exported mount.

Testing and Debugging

Test:

ls -l /nas/work

This should already mount the NFS directory and show content. The mount command should also show the new automount map:

mount | grep autofs

/etc/auto.nas on /nas type autofs (rw,relatime,...

Discover mounts on the server (here: nas) with

showmount -e nas

To test what the automounter does, shut it down: Ubuntu 16.04 and later with systemd:

sudo systemctl stop   autofs.service
sudo systemctl status autofs.service

Earlier Ubuntu versions with upstart:

sudo /etc/init.d/autofs stop

Open a new shell and restart the automounter in the foreground (!) with verbose and debug output:

sudo automount -f -v -d

Watch the output while you try to access the NFS mounts in another shell:

ls -l /nas/work

When everything works well, don't forget to restart the automounter: Ubuntu 16.04 and later with systemd:

sudo systemctl start  autofs.service
sudo systemctl status autofs.service

Earlier Ubuntu versions with upstart:

sudo /etc/init.d/autofs start

Encryption

Create a Crypto File

Make sure cryptsetup is installed:
```
sudo apt install cryptsetup
```
Create a large enough file with preallocated size as a container. For a 100 GB file:
```
cd /target/dir
fallocate -l 100G mycont.dat
```
alternatively (much slower!) with dd:
```
sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=mycont.dat bs=1G count=100
```
Create a LUKS encryption layer inside that file:
```
sudo cryptsetup -y luksFormat mycont.dat
```

Open that LUKS container:

sudo cryptsetup luksOpen mycont.dat mysecrets

Check if there is now a device for it in /dev/mapper:
```
ls -l /dev/mapper
```
You should see a symlink mysecrets pointing to ../dm-0 and a file control. control is always there.
Create a filesystem in the container:
```
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/mapper/mysecrets
```
Don't reserve too much space in the container for root, consider fsck cycles and give it a volume label.
```
sudo tune2fs -r 0 -c 0 -L mysecrets /dev/mapper/mysecrets
```
The volume label is used for the mount point if your desktop (Xfce, KDE, GNOME) automatically mounts it, so choose something that isn't too hard to type.
If your desktop doesn't mount it automatically, create a mount point and mount it. A non-obvious name for the mount point might be a good idea to avoid making everybody aware that there is a crypto file; mkdir /mysecrets would give that away immediately. Use a neutral name for the mount point.
```
sudo mkdir /mnt2
sudo mount /dev/mapper/mysecrets /mysecrets
```

Unmount and close it:

sudo umount /mnt2
sudo cryptsetup luksClose mysecrets

Using the Crypto File

Unlock:
```
sudo cryptsetup luksOpen /target/dir/mycont.dat mysecrets
```
Depending on your desktop, it might be automatically mounted, usually to /media/$USER/mysecrets (the name from the volume label).
If your desktop doesn't mount it automatically, mount it manually:
```
sudo mount /dev/mapper/mysecrets /mnt2
```

Unmount and close:

sudo umount /media/$USER/mysecrets

or

sudo umount /mnt2

In any case, don't forget to close it so it's locked again:

sudo luksClose mysecrets

Check if it is active:
```
ls /dev/mapper/mysecrets
```
A file /dev/mapper/control is perfectly normal.

LUKS / DeviceMapper Troubleshooting

See DeviceMapper Devices

sudo dmsetup ls

See LUKS Devices

sudo blkid | grep LUKS

Reset DeviceMapper

sudo dmsetup remove_all

This removes the devices only from the DeviceMapper's internal table, of course, it does not actually do anything to the devices.

Opera

Fix Opera Window Size and Position

Option 1: Edit Opera's Preferences File

For many releases, the Opera web browser correctly stored the last main window size and position in ~/.config/opera/Preferences when closing the last browser window and restored it when restarting Opera. This file can be edited.

Caveat:

Close Opera before doing that as it will be overwritten each time Opera shuts down!
It's text, but horribly formatted; it's just one single insanely wide line.

Look for an entry like this:

"window_placement":{"height":1157,"left":230,"maximized":false,"top":0,"width":1520}

There might be several of those. If you edit, make sure to use the right one.

To find a good window size and position, use the xwininfo command from the x11-utils package.

Option 2: Edit the Launcher

Right-click the launcher for Opera on your desktop, then click "Edit Launcher" from its context menu. Click into the "Command" field and change it to

opera %U --window-size=1600,1550 --window-position=250,0

Notice the different syntax: It uses a comma as the delimiter, even for the window size, unlike the X11 standard for -geometry which would be 1600x1550.

If you also have a launcher in the task bar, make sure to edit that as well: Right-click it, select "Properties" from the context menu, then select the bottom-most icon from the buttons on the right side (the "Edit" button with the pencil on the paper), then you get the same "Edit Launcher" window as above; and also edit the "Command" field with the command line above.

In both cases, don't forget to save the changes.

Get Rid of Opera's Red Update Reminder

When Opera thinks there is a newer, better, shinier version out there, it will display its "Menu" button in the top left corner red to make it so annoying that you will want to do something about it.

But sometimes they fuck up; sometimes the latest Opera doesn't work, or it doesn't work with the chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra that is available for your distro. Still, you get that "up yours" red button when Opera wants you to update.

Fix 1: Disable Auto-Update

Start Opera with the --disable-update option; add that to the command used in the Opera launcher on your desktop.

Check at "Update and Recovery" in Opera's main menu if that had any effect. It should now say "Update check disabled".

Fix 2: Rename the Auto-Update Binary

cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera
sudo mv opera_autoupdate opera_autoupdate.old

Remember that every Opera update or installation will revert this change.

Enforce Correct Video Codecs

Opera heavily depends on the chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra package to display all video formats. But Chromium (and its codecs) and Opera are not released in sync; sometimes the Chromium and the codecs are lagging behind, sometimes Opera is lagging behind. Essentially it has become impossible (since early 2020) to get matching versions if you rely on automatic updates.

Solution

Set both packages on "hold" until you are sure you have matching ones:

chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
opera-stable

sudo apt-mark hold chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra opera-stable

Use the "About Opera" page from Opera's "Help" menu to find out which Chrome version it is built for; e.g.

Browser identification ...

Chrome/101.0.4951.67 Safari/537.36 OPR/87.0.4390.36_

Do not upgrade Opera if you cannot also upgrade the Chrome codecs to that version: Most YouTube videos will stop playing.

You can use synaptic to see which version you have installed, and which one is available, i.e. which one you would get with sudo apt upgrade.

When the Chrome major version is increased, you can take your chances: Unhold the packages, upgrade; and remember to set them to "hold" again.

sudo apt-mark unhold chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra opera-stable
sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt update
sudo apt-mark hold chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra opera-stable

Keeping older Opera Versions

The Opera repos only keep the latest version around. If you want to go back to an earlier version, you are screwed; unless you explicitly download it in time (as long as it's still available) in an archive directory.

[sh @ balrog] .../work/archive/deb 19 % ls -l

total 165244
-rwxr-xr-x 1 sh sh      161 Feb 18 16:11 download-opera-stable
-rw-r--r-- 1 sh sh 84257204 May  9 13:47 opera-stable_86.0.4363.50_amd64.deb
-rw-r--r-- 1 sh sh 84936088 May 27 08:40 opera-stable_87.0.4390.36_amd64.deb

[sh @ balrog] .../work/archive/deb 20 % cat download-opera-stable

#!/bin/sh

DL_DIR=/work/archive/deb

cd $DL_DIR
apt-get download opera-stable

echo "\n$DL_DIR (latest 10):\n"
/bin/ls -rlth opera-stable*.deb | tail -n 10
echo

Call this little script when you think you might have a candidate version for a better Opera; but when you might want to go back to the previous one.

Install a version from this archive directory with dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i ./opera-stable_87.0.4390.36_amd64.deb

This will also handle a version downgrade gracefully.

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