Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

[RoGeorge]

At each 2 years, in April, Ubuntu releases a LTS version (Long Time Support), which will benefit of 5 years of free updates from Ubuntu, and up to 10 years or more for paying customers.

In just a couple of weeks from now, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (named Focal Fossa,  )

"Focal Fossa" is an epic failure for a name, if you ask me, because "fecal fosa".

Anyway, what I want to ask is if I can install today the daily builds for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ then update later to the official release in April, without reinstalling from scratch.

Does Ubuntu has continuity between daily builds and the official release?
Will it be possible to "upgrade" from the 20.04 LTS daily builds to the 20.04 LTS release?

[Ampera]

So what you're saying is you want a bleeding edge long term stable version of Ubuntu? Isn't that sort of an oxymoron?

If you care about having long term stability, wait for the software to be stable long term, not before it's been released. If you want bleeding edge, may I point you to rolling release distros like SUSE Tumbleweed and Arch.

[brucehoult]

Yup. Personally I'll be sticking with 18.04 until 20.04 has been out at least a few months. Eventually it gets automatically offered by the software updater.

[RoGeorge]

Posting this from Kubuntu 20.04 LTS, and so far it's all working great!   

No annoyances, no crashes, no undetected devices, and I set it to use 3rd party drivers (proprietary nVidia instead of the default open source Nouveau driver).  So far I like Plasma more than Gnome, but I need to read about basic KDE concepts.

Old Ubuntu (Gnome) 18.10 is still in place, untouched, since I have had an empty old 160GB HDD.

[RoGeorge]

Meh, not perfect yet.  Somehow the display settings was messed up.  That was with Kubuntu and nVidia proprietary drivers.

There are 4 different monitors, each with it's own DPI/size/resolution, one is 4k.  An HDMI one is connected to the i7 GPU, the other 3 are connected to the nVidia GPU on Display Port 1.2, DVI and VGA.  No two the same.   

With Kubuntu and nVidia nouveau driver (open source), VLC struggles or crashes with some 4k videos.

That was with Kubuntu 20.04 LTS prerelease, yesterday 's build.  Kubuntu means Ubuntu, but with KDE Plasma graphics interface.  The default Ubuntu uses Gnome 3 for graphics.

Will try the same tests, this time with Ubuntu 20.03 LTE (Gnome) and see how it goes.  For some reason, Kubuntu iso was 2.3GB, while Ubuntu is 2.8 GB.

Is this expected, Gnome to be much bigger than KDE/Plasma?

[SiliconWizard]

Is this expected, Gnome to be much bigger than KDE/Plasma?

Well, don't know about "much", but bigger, actually yes. Whereas Gnome used to be much lighter than KDE in the old days, with the advent of recent KDE versions and Gnome 3, I think things have reversed. Of course we'd need to know all that Ubuntu pulls for Gnome 3 - it probably pulls the most it can by default instead of giving you a minimal install.

[retiredcaps]

Anyway, what I want to ask is if I can install today the daily builds for Ubuntu 20.04 LTS http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ then update later to the official release in April, without reinstalling from scratch.

Does Ubuntu has continuity between daily builds and the official release?
Will it be possible to "upgrade" from the 20.04 LTS daily builds to the 20.04 LTS release?

To answer your original questions above, I suspect the answer is yes based on using Lubuntu since 2014.

On my main computer where I only do banking and email, I use Lubuntu 18.04 LTS.  On my web browsing machine, I always use the next release beta daily build.

When I download the ISO, I use zsync so it only downloads the changed parts of the ISO.  Very little changes between the daily ISO and final LTS ISO.  Of course, all the latest patches, bug fixes, kernel will be in the LTS ISO.  I have been doing this procedure since 2014.

HOWEVER, when I install the new 20.04 LTS in May 2020, I will be completely installing it from scratch on my main computer so I know it will a "clean" install.  I only have to install 4 or 5 apps on it and then copy my data over.  It usually only takes me 2 hours every 2 years to update my main computer to the latest LTS.

My web browsing computer will be getting 20.10 once it's announced.

[retiredcaps]

Meh, not perfect yet.

Another possibility is to try Linux Mint.  Mint uses Ubuntu as its base.  Mint also offers LTS.

https://www.linuxmint.com/

[RoGeorge]

Last time I tried (Jan 2019), Mint couldn't fire up a GUI with my two GPUs:
- nVidia GeForce GTX 760
- Intel® HD Graphics 4600
- 4 monitor, various size, DPI, and connectors, 1 must be connected to the i7 GPU because it is the only HDMI connector, and its corresponding monitor is in another room, through a 10 meters (30 feet) HDMI cable.

I think I'll give it a try to Ubuntu (Gnome) mostly because it has an install option (experimental) with ZFS as the file system for the Linux itself.

The irony makes that these days I managed to lose all my opened windows/tabs from Firefox (a ZFS would have helped restoring previous versions of Firefox tabs).  There were 88 windows, each with tens of tabs.   

It seems that one of these testing days, going back and forth between OS flavors, I closed Firefox without a proper File->Quit, letting me with only the last 3 windows to restore at the next open.  This is so dumb from Firefox, but what can I say, I knew about this malfunction (developers refuses for years to make a workaround to take care of it), so it's my fault entirely.

I have no backup of the open tabs for the last 15 months.   

[RoGeorge]

The experimental ZFS option worked fine, thought the warning message was VERY scary, saying it will delete everything for ANY existing OS (which I have 4 of them on various disks)!     They were trying to say that the chosen disk will be formatted as ZFS in order to install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on it, so no, it won't delete other disks, only the one chosen for installation.

I've set it use proprietary nVidia drivers.  The 4k video now plays OK, thought it is encoded with some new Matroska video format, that is why there were playing difficulties on the other OSs.  It was the unknown format, not the OS's fault.

For the 160GB (Ubuntu 20.04 LTS daily build /w Gnome 3) disk (sdd) + another 8TB storage disk (sdb), ZFS looks like that:

Code: [Select]

~$ zpool list
NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT
bpool  1.88G   200M  1.68G        -         -     0%    10%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
rpool   144G  4.08G   140G        -         -     0%     2%  1.00x    ONLINE  -
wd8TB  7.25T  5.52T  1.73T        -         -    17%    76%  1.00x    ONLINE  /home/muuu/

More ZFS details.  Last two entries are from another ZFS storage disk.

Code: [Select]

~$ zfs list
NAME                                               USED  AVAIL     REFER  MOUNTPOINT
bpool                                              200M  1.55G       96K  /boot
bpool/BOOT                                         199M  1.55G       96K  none
bpool/BOOT/ubuntu_xuly0w                           199M  1.55G      107M  /boot
rpool                                             4.07G   135G       96K  /
rpool/ROOT                                        3.94G   135G       96K  none
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w                          3.94G   135G     3.13G  /
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/srv                        96K   135G       96K  /srv
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/usr                       256K   135G       96K  /usr
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/usr/local                 160K   135G      104K  /usr/local
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var                       566M   135G       96K  /var
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/games                  96K   135G       96K  /var/games
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/lib                   554M   135G      449M  /var/lib
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/lib/AccountServices    96K   135G       96K  /var/lib/AccountServices
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/lib/NetworkManager    356K   135G      148K  /var/lib/NetworkManager
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/lib/apt              62.8M   135G     62.5M  /var/lib/apt
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/lib/dpkg             40.6M   135G     35.2M  /var/lib/dpkg
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/log                  11.3M   135G     6.24M  /var/log
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/mail                   96K   135G       96K  /var/mail
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/snap                  144K   135G      144K  /var/snap
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/spool                 224K   135G      112K  /var/spool
rpool/ROOT/ubuntu_xuly0w/var/www                    96K   135G       96K  /var/www
rpool/USERDATA                                     135M   135G       96K  /
rpool/USERDATA/muuu_3p439l                         135M   135G     84.3M  /home/muuu
rpool/USERDATA/root_3p439l                         312K   135G      248K  /root
wd8TB                                             5.52T  1.51T       96K  /home/muuu//wd8TB
wd8TB/2019                                        5.52T  1.51T     4.95T  /home/muuu//wd8TB/2019

And the lsblk output for the two ZFS disks only:

Code: [Select]

NAME            MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
loop0             7:0    0 171.3M  1 loop /snap/gnome-3-34-1804/5
loop1             7:1    0  54.7M  1 loop /snap/core18/1668
loop2             7:2    0  47.7M  1 loop /snap/snap-store/292
loop3             7:3    0  44.9M  1 loop /snap/gtk-common-themes/1440
loop4             7:4    0  91.4M  1 loop /snap/core/8689
sdb               8:16   0   7.3T  0 disk
├─sdb1            8:17   0   7.3T  0 part
└─sdb9            8:25   0     8M  0 part
sdd               8:48   0 149.1G  0 disk
├─sdd1            8:49   0   512M  0 part
├─sdd2            8:50   0     2G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sdd3            8:51   0     2G  0 part
└─sdd4            8:52   0 144.6G  0 part

To remove Home and Trash icons from the Desktop, open a terminal and type:

Code: [Select]

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.desktop-icons show-home false
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.desktop-icons show-trash false
Installing 'gnome-tweak-tool' works for other tweaks, but shows no settings for those two desktop icons.

[RoGeorge]

Ubuntu 20.04 LTE - install 'dash-to-panel' from git:

Code: [Select]

# git not installed by default
sudo apt install git

# install 'gettext' or else the following 'make install' will fail with "make: msgfmt: Command not found" and "make: *** [Makefile:54: po/hu.mo] Error 127"
sudo apt install gettext

# install 'dash-to-panel' from github
git clone https://github.com/home-sweet-gnome/dash-to-panel.git
cd ./dash-to-panel/
make install

# now, reload the shell with 'ALT+F2 r ENTER', or better restart the computer
# the 'dash-to-panel' settings should be available by right click on the taskbar panel, or from 'Tweaks' -> 'Extensions' if you installed it (sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool)
# settings for either 'Dash to panel' or 'Desktop icons' does nothing, and opens nothing

However, the settings menu for this extension does not open, nor for the other extension present (which has its own settings) 'Desktop icons'.  Another annoying thing, I can not put a visible volume (speaker) indicator on the bar, so I can not change volume without extra clicks.   

Aaand the "which distro" nightmare from a year ago, when I switched from Windows to Linux, repeats.  Now, already thinking again maybe I should try Gentoo! 

[bsfeechannel]

Aaand the "which distro" nightmare from a year ago, when I switched from Windows to Linux, repeats.  Now, already thinking again maybe I should try Gentoo! 

One way to end the which-distro nightmare is to chose the hardware that works with your distro, not the distro that works with your hardware.

I buy hardware by its compatibility with linux in general and my distro in particular. If it is not compatible, it is not worth buying it. But that's just me.

[I wanted a rude username]

Strongly agree. Won't buy Nvidia again unless they release decent open source drivers, or at least the information the open source community needs to implement them. I like my kernels untainted.

[RoGeorge]

Indeed, the hardware was bought about 5 years ago, for Windows, with some gaming in mind, too.  It was before Spectre/Meltdown.

Next desktop will certainly not have a nVidia GPU, and certainly not an Intel CPU.  For those with Linux/Intel, try this:

Code: [Select]

cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'processor\|bugs'

For my Intel i7-4790K with 2 (hyperthreading enabled) x 4 (physical) cores, it shows this:

~$ cat /proc/cpuinfo | grep 'processor\|bugs'
processor   : 0
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 1
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 2
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 3
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 4
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 5
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 6
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf
processor   : 7
bugs      : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf

To see how/if each of those are mitigated:

Code: [Select]

tail -n+1 /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*

The output for i7-4790K with Ubuntu 18.10 and Linux kernel 4.18.0-13-generic:

~$ tail -n+1 /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf <==
Mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable   

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown <==
Mitigation: PTI

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass <==
Mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1 <==
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2 <==
Mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB, IBRS_FW

Maybe I should disable the multithreading.
Not sure if "SMT vulnerable" means it is still vulnerable, or is it just the name of the fix?   

[brucehoult]

My 2990wx gives:

Code: [Select]

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/itlb_multihit <==
Not affected

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf <==
Not affected

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/mds <==
Not affected

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown <==
Not affected

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass <==
Mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1 <==
Mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2 <==
Mitigation: Full AMD retpoline, IBPB: conditional, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/tsx_async_abort <==
Not affected


[RoGeorge]

"SMT vulnerable" means it's vulnerable!  It's not some name of a fix.
After disabling the Multithreading from BIOS, it now shows:

~$ tail -n+1 /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/*
==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/l1tf <==
Mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled   

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/meltdown <==
Mitigation: PTI

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spec_store_bypass <==
Mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v1 <==
Mitigation: __user pointer sanitization

==> /sys/devices/system/cpu/vulnerabilities/spectre_v2 <==
Mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB, IBRS_FW

[RoGeorge]

I am testing right now Gentoo and Kubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) prerelease.

Gentoo is great, but for a desktop use, at home, is unpractical (at least for my typical usage).  Gentoo needs way too much attention, it takes way too long to update or emerge (compiling from sources).  Gentoo makes sense if one has a farm full of identical servers, or something, but not for a single desktop at home, and a typical daily usage.

OTOH, Kubuntu 20.04 LTS (prerelease, right now an early beta, maybe) is just right as a home desktop.

Kubuntu means Ubuntu, but with KDE/Plasma instead of Gnome (normal Ubuntu comes with Gnome GUI instead of KDE/Plasma), and LTS stands for Long Time Support (5 years for free, or 10 years payed support).

The release date is somewhere around 20 of April 2020, but daily builds (prerelease) can be downloaded and installed:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/daily-live/current/
or, fot classical Ubuntu, the Focal Fossa 20.04 LTS daily builds are at:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

I am writing from a Kubuntu 20.04 prerelease install, and so far it was rock solid.  The only bug so far (or maybe not bug, but difficulty, IDK) was that I can not connect with Samba to a WinXP shared folder (worked OK with Ubuntu 18.10, but not working with Kubuntu 20.04 LTS, also the interface is different) not sure why it doesn't work.

Other than SMB, all seems to be working fine.  Also, there are lots of updates and fixes at each couple of hours, since we are less than a month before the official 20.04 LTS release.   

To me, Kubuntu 20.04 LTS was so far very stable (testing it for more than a weekend now), and there is still a month of potential bugs fixes before the official release.   

[brucehoult]

I am testing right now Gentoo and Kubuntu 20.04 LTS (Focal Fossa) prerelease.

Gentoo is great, but for a desktop use, at home, is unpractical (at least for my typical usage).  Gentoo needs way too much attention, it takes way too long to update or emerge (compiling from sources).  Gentoo makes sense if one has a farm full of identical servers, or something, but not for a single desktop at home, and a typical daily usage.

OTOH, Kubuntu 20.04 LTS (prerelease, right now an early beta, maybe) is just right as a home desktop.

I completely agree that Ubuntu LTS is the right thing to use for people who just want to use Linux for real work, not dick about with it all the time.

In principle Kubuntu is as good as Ubuntu for this, and in some ways the UI is better. I used Kubuntu back in the mid 2000's, mostly because my gf Jes at the time was part of the documentation team. Back then in the days before Core [2] [Duo] the UI was noticeably a bit less resource intensive.

I ended up switching to regular Ubuntu because it was less trouble, and a lot of binary-distributed software was linked against the Gnome libraries anyway.

Pretty much every company I've come across using Linux internally and developing software on it uses Ubuntu LTS -- many of them still on 16.04 at this point. That's the supported platform. Often individual developers within the company are allowed -- even maybe encouraged -- to run something different if they prefer it, but if they encounter a situation where something works on Ubuntu LTS and doesn't work on their own workstation then that's their problem to find a fix for.

The exception is EDA companies, which seem to have settled on RedHat-ish systems, generally Centos.

I'm running 18.04 LTS on my own machines. I'll be updating to 20.04 LTS when the software updater suggests that I do -- probably around June or July I guess.

[RoGeorge]

I've had an issue yesterday with Kubuntu 20.04 LTS.  The file "~/.xsession-errors" filled up all the partition, more than 60GB, mostly with the same error message about VDPAU not being able to create chroma filter.  Found 3 log spammers:



Log spammer 1
This was something related with VLC.  Played a movie with the VLC hardware decoder set to VDPAU (for nVidia), while the movie was playing on a monitor connected to the onboard i7 GPU (Intel® HD Graphics 4600), then the PC went to standby, and the next day run out of space.

To empty the ~/.xsession-errors file, redirect /dev/null to it

Code: [Select]

> .xsession-errorsSet the VLC hardware decoding to Automatic in VLC.  From menu Tools -> Preferences -> Input/Codecs -> Hardware-accelerated decoding, and from the corresponding drop down box select Automatic, then press Save.



Log spammer 2
Looking in the ~/.xsession-errors again, there was still some smaller spam with the repeated message "qml: temp unit: 0".  This was from a widget/plasmoid installed from the official "Plasma Addon - Discover" repository.  The addon is called Thermal Monitor, and also has had a minor bug that all the temperatures were shown except for the CPU, where it showed OFF instead of a number.  At a right click and Reload Temperature Sources, the CPU temperature start working.

To fix the error log spamming with "qml: temp unit: 0", open the file "~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.thermalMonitor/contents/code/temperature-utils.js" and in the line #16, change print into dbgprint, then save, so line 16 will look like that:

Code: [Select]

dbgprint('temp unit: ' + temperatureUnit)
To fix the OFF displayed instead of hte CPU temperature, open the file "~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.thermalMonitor/contents/ui/main.qml" and change the line 58 from "property var systemmonitorAvailableSources" into

Code: [Select]

property var systemmonitorAvailableSources: []then save and restart.

The Thermal Monitor plasmoid should now display correctly, without any help, and also should not spam error messages any more.  The fixes above were found by reading the github issues and comments, e.g. https://github.com/kotelnik/plasma-applet-thermal-monitor/issues/53



Log spammer 3
A third spammer I found was the KTorrent.  When started from the GUI, it was continually sending thousands and thousands of lines into ~/.xsession-errors log, with all the TCP connection, failures, even a canceled attempt of renaming a torrent was logged with all the details, including the old and the new file name, that were the same, since the rename attempt was canceled, way too verbose. 

However, when I started ktorrent from a terminal, I noticed the same crazy verbosity, but only in the terminal where ktorrent was running, and nothing into the ~/.xsession-errors.  Even more, after redirecting the stdout to /dev/null, no error messages were displaying, so all those were not errors from stderr, were just normal stdout messages, thought, not sure why they had to be many.

To fix that, in the file "/usr/share/applications/org.kde.ktorrent.desktop", find the "Exec=" key and redirect stdout to /dev/null by replacing the line "Exec=ktorrent %U" with

Code: [Select]

Exec=sh -c "ktorrent %U" > /dev/nullSave and start the KTorrent from GUI.  The extra shell wrapper is required, or else when a new torrent URL is added, the shell will concatenate the %U list of URLs with > /dev/null, which will generate errors.

The .xsession-errors should now stay clean of ktorrent spam, only the ktorrent errors, if any, will go into the error log.  If curious about what .desktop file does, what is Exec= key, or what is %U, they are described in the doc pages:
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s07.html
https://specifications.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/ar01s06.html



Question
About the last one, when a programm is started from a GUI instead of a terminal, it seems OK to redirect the stderr to an error log, but why redirecting the stdout to the ~/.xsession-errors, too?  Is this expected behaviour, or a bug?

[rdl]

I've never understood why recording log files is on by default. In well over twenty years of using PCs, running multiple operating systems, I don't recall ever having a problem that was solved because of something in a log file. On the other hand, no telling how many drives died an early death because of them.

[bd139]

I spend half my days in log files. They're there when you need them.

[I wanted a rude username]

When started from the GUI, it was continually sending thousands and thousands of lines into ~/.xsession-errors log, with all the TCP connection, failures, even a canceled attempt of renaming a torrent was logged with all the details, including the old and the new file name, that were the same, since the rename attempt was canceled, way too verbose. 

However, when I started ktorrent from a terminal, I noticed the same crazy verbosity, but only in the terminal where ktorrent was running, and nothing into the ~/.xsession-errors.  Even more, after redirecting the stdout to /dev/null, no error messages were displaying, so all those were not errors from stderr, were just normal stdout messages, thought, not sure why they had to be many.

That's what .xsession-errors is for.

See, in the old days you would log in to X without a session, and the only thing that would open would be a single Xterm. You would use it to start your window manager, then more Xterms (because of course), and ultimately you'd be starting everything from Xterms. So you'd be able to see every program's output.

But if your login script executes a window manager (which today go by the glorified name of "desktop environments", though at base they have the same function), when it launches a program it puts all output into .xsession-errors (and potentially also syslog, though that's annoying), because otherwise that output would be lost.

GUI programs spamming output are absolutely buggy and those bugs need to be reported and fixed. Also, MPV > VLC. 

[RoGeorge]

To me, the name .xsession-errors is a very uninspired choose, because makes one expect to find only errors there.

Some more fun with logs, a line from the same .xsession-errors

kio_smb: open  "smb://user:password@server/folder"   3   -1

The password is written in the log in plain text when the user tries, for example, to connect by typing the full UNC in a file browser, e.g. Dolphin.  Nobody does protocol://user:pass@server anymore, but still, IMO it's a security issue to send to the logs a line you know it has a password in it.


Anyways, as I said before, there were some problems accessing Samba shares.

Whatever I tried, I couldn't make KDE to ask for a username and password, no matter which file browser is used.  In the background it tries all stupid things, like trying to use the Kubuntu username, then "anonymous", and so one, but never asks for credentials with a pop-up window.   

It even has a more stupid place where I can put a username and pass to be used by default in samba shares.  But it's only one user/pass combination.  What if I connect to more machines with different user names?   

And the rule says if I left that user/pass blank in System Settings -> Network Settings -> Windows Shares, then it will ask for user/pass with a pop-up window, but it doesn't!   

Apart from the missing pop-up for credentials, there was one more thing.  For Windows XP, newer samba protocols >=1.0 does not work.  The solution is to either install cifs-tools and mount from the command line (or from the fstab), or much easier because it has a nice GUI, to install smb4k, and set it to use smb v=1.0 (from the advanced settings of smb4k)

TL;DR
- No idea why no file browser is asking for credentials when connecting to a Samba share
- for WinXP, you must specify to Samba to use the protocol v=1.0
- in the end, smb4k was the winner, a nice GUI that can remember former connections, asks for user/password, and many others (integrates the samba shares into file browsers, autoreconnect, rsync, umount at shutdown, etc.)

[RoGeorge]

Also, MPV > VLC. 

Didn't used MPV much before, mainly because by default the wheel was scrolling through the movie instead of changing the volume.  This time, took the time to read the docs in order to change the mouse wheel behavior.

First, make a local profile:

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cp -r /usr/share/doc/mpv/ ~/.config/After that, the only files of interest are "~/.config/mpv/mpv.conf" and "~/.config/mpv/input.conf".  For the mouse wheel to change the volume, in the file "~/.config/mpv/input.conf" put the lines

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WHEEL_UP      add volume 5
WHEEL_DOWN    add volume -5
As a side effect of looking how to change that, I found out that MPV has all the features that I looked for in other players, but never found them all together.  For example, MPV can slightly adjust the play speed of the movie in order to match it with the monitor framerate, so the movie won't stutter periodically, has a working hardware acceleration, and so on.  MPV also has had the lowest processor utilisation in comparison with VLC or SMPlayer.

So far, MPV works great, and I love the minimal interface.   
Thanks!