Linux for beginners

Is this related to Firefox?

 

Oh yes. I don't know how I failed to mention it is Firefox I am talking about.

 

My experience is limited to Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and Kubuntu: I've not seen Firefox obey my dark GTK theme for its internal pages (about:config, aboutreferences, about:addons, about:newtab, etc) unless I specifically use additional CSS. And here's someone else who had the same experience with Linux Mint 19.3: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1210859/how-to-make-firefox-look-more-like-the-current-gtk-theme

 

Firefox in Linux Mint Cinnamon, Solus Plasma and Win10 all show the dark theme in the Options / Preferences and Add-ons page, just not Kubuntu. Obviously this doesn't affect performance, it's just cosmetic, but would be nice if it was consistent in Kubuntu as well.

 

I'm caring less about this now. I've found a setting in Kubuntu that makes my Pioneer surround sound system with home made speakers sound awesome, and Firefox plays very nicely. Pity about Brave, but I can work around it.

 

Thanks for bringing this up!

My main system is Kubuntu 18.04 and Firefox has been set up just the way I like it and so I hardly ever have need to visit the about: pages.

But it seems that adding (or changing)
ui.systemUsesDarkTheme with a "Number" of "1" does the trick for most about: pages. This is with Kubuntu 18.04.

 

That works great!

Thank you so much for that tip. Happy Krusty!

 

By the way, things are better in Kubuntu 20.04 (still in development) and even in Kubuntu 19.10 with a ppa providing Plasma 5.18. There, it's just like you described: Firefox seems to detect you're using a dark gtk3 theme and automatically provides you with dark about: pages. We don't have to mess with about : config.

 

I don't know what I've done on this machine but Brave audio is working now. Yay!

I did check after Brave updated but no audio at that time. It is now though.

 

... Well, some times it works.

 

I tested playing a Disney/Pixar DVD, Wall-E, on Kubuntu.
VLC media player did not play the movie correctly, not even when started from the DVD's own menu. The chapter/scene order was messed up.
SMPlayer did not play the DVD correctly, either. And as support for DVD menus has been removed in SMPlayer, there was no option to start the movie from the DVD menu.
Dragon Player didn't play the DVD at all, for some reason.
One media player that was able to play Disney/Pixar's Wall-E DVD, was Kaffeine. It played the correct chapter/scene order, although was it with some limited but eye-watering rendering errors.

 

Much better!
I tried Kodi (media player/ media center/ entertainment center) on Kubuntu.
Kodi played the Disney/Pixar Wall-E DVD perfectly!
Correct chapter/scene order, with no rendering errors, in perfect quality, way better than Kaffeine did.
So I found my player for Disney/Pixar DVDs on Kubuntu.

 

Thanks for your testing. I might give Kodi a run and see how it goes. I'm not sure that I have any Disney movies here but I shall check.

Out of curiosity, is there an easy way to see which updates to Kubuntu have been installed?

 

Do you prefer terminal or GUI?
I don't know how to check history in Discover software center, but in Muon package manager, View\History (or Ctrl+H) opens History, in which you can view all changes, installations, updates, or removals.

 

Great to know!

@Stupendous Man

Do you know which database Muon looks at? Does it look at /var/log/dpkg.log and its archives (or something else in /var/log)? And if it does look at /var/log/whatever, wouldn't the output be limited to just how many archived logs are stored?

I've set my /etc/logrotate.d/dpkg to retain 60 versions (rotated monthly). But, IIRC, the default value is much lower than 60.

I have /var/log/dpkg.log.22.gz as the oldest (and first). From that, I see that my installation of Kubuntu 18.04 was on 2018-05-02 and Muon does show me history of that date.

So, especially for LTS versions, if Muon on a system with a default logrotate, can dig out the history from day 1, that means the system (or Muon) has that information stored somewhere other than in /var/log/dpkg.log* (or even in apt's logs).

 

I don't know, this is new to me, but according to some web search results, update history is in: /var/log/dpkg.log

I don't know, but I would guess if the log is limited, the history shown in Muon would be limited as well.

That is an interesting thought.
I cannot tell you, I'm too much a Linux newbie, but perhaps someone else can.

 

To see that in the console you could add an alias for the command in the first answer here or the function from the second answer (whatever you prefer) to your ~/.bashrc. After editing that file you have to execute

Code:

source .bashrc

once to make the changes work.

 

Thanks but they may as well be speaking Greek to me. I'm not too concerned, just curious. By default Kubuntu automatically installs security updates and lets the user manually install others. I can change that but I'm not that worried really.

 

Did you notice my reply, regarding the GUI way?

 

Yes. I haven't booted into Kubuntu yet but I'm guessing that is something I need to install, or is it included?

 

Muon is included in Kubuntu 18.04, as an alternative to Dolphin.
You find Muon in application launcher, system applications.

 

OK, great! I'll check it out as soon as I boot into Kubuntu.

 

Muon is a qt-based package manager very much like Synaptic Package Manager (which is now gtk3-based). But since you'll be using elevated privileges to access it, be careful what you do with it. Just viewing history is perfectly safe.

 

How is one using elevated privileges to access Muon when opening Muon through application launcher, system applications? It doesn't need elevated privileges to access Muon that way.

 

Yes, Muon does show the history of updates. Thanks!

I never needed to enter my password into Muon to check which updates have been installed.