Kubuntu Forums - General

responses don't match

die.boer — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 18:01:31 GMT

i have noticed lately that thread "responses" don't match the actual responses, like in the screenshot

is it only me or am i missing something?

[RESOLVED]Ventoy......... I know im missing something obvious as it really cant be this clunky....

Old and Confused — Sun, 16 Aug 2026 06:02:06 GMT

So i need to create a ventoy usb disk on my shiny new Kubuntu install. So i goto google type ventoy download linux Ubuntu and then it all goes horribly wrong.

Every guide I goto tell me a different thing every time i follow then (Bare in mind its me so following probably being generous) just leads to more confusion.

Why isnt it in Discover or a downloadable click and go format. A web link? Really I thought we wanted people to use Linux?

Ok rant aside please for love of sanity how do i make this work with out going into arcane vodo script (Konsole) ty in advance for anyone who can help.

Interesting ffmpeg vs. NFS vs. Kdialog behavior while using a VM.

oshunluvr — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 19:46:55 GMT

TL/DR: Re-encoding some mkv and mp4 videos on a VM using ffmpeg via a Dolphin service menu, The source and target file locations were on a NFS server connected to a Kubuntu26.04 VM using QEMU/KVM. The encoding completed successfully, but the VM (via kdialog) never acknowledged the task was finished even though the resulting output files were "closed" successfully. I'm kinda curious where the "break" occurred.

The setup: My desktop PC running KDEneon. A QEMU/KVM virtual machine on the desktop re-encoding files using ffmpeg. Both the PC and VM are accessing the files on my server via NFS v4.2.

The reason: I'm trying to re-encoding several hundred mp4 files and convert a few dozen other mkv to mp4 - primarily to reduce storage usage. ffmpeg keeps crashing on KDEneon if I try to process more than 2-3 files at a time. while also using Handbrake. I decided to try a newer version of ffmpeg to see if that worked better. KDEneon has a much older version of ffmpeg than Kubuntu 26.04 (6.1.1-3ubuntu5 vs. 8.0.1-2ubuntu2 ) but I didn't want to mess about trying to upgrade ffmpeg on KDEneon. So I decided to try using Kubuntu 26.04 in a VM. All of this was additionally complicated as I was simultaneously using Handbrake to also help complete this task on y PC (but not on the VM - yet ). I have enough CPU and RAM to encode more than one file at a time but Handbrake only does one at a time. So I thought I might speed things up by having ffmpeg directly re-encoding the files that were simple enough not to need special settings.

What I did: I already had an updated Kubuntu 26.04 VM so I added my Dolphin Service Menu that I wrote to make this task easier to the VM. I then mounted the NFS file system from the server on the VM. This enabled me to operate in the VM just as I has been on my desktop. I selected a few files and launched ffmpeg. The kdialog progress box popped open and encoding commenced as expected.

The results: The files on both machines (real and virtual) were encoded as expected, but for some reason - only on the VM - the kdialog box never closed as it does on the desktop machine. I verified the output files were viewable and thus "closed" my ffmpeg, but the dialog remained open on the VM as though the files were still being processed.

The question: What causes kdailog to not receive the signal that ffmpeg is done when using it on the VM? Is it the ffmpeg version difference, a difference in how NFS is mounted, or some other wrench in the works?

More detail:
Here's the Dolphin service menu contents:

Code:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Service
Icon="/usr/share/icons/breeze/mimetypes/32/video-mp4.svg"
X-KDE-ServiceTypes=KonqPopupMenu/Plugin
MimeType=video/*;
Actions=g-copy;g-rate24;g-rate28;
Encoding=UTF-8

[Desktop Action g-copy]
Name=Re-encode Video
Icon=/usr/share/icons/breeze/mimetypes/32/video-mp4.svg
Exec=dbusRef=$(kdialog --icon "/usr/share/icons/breeze/actions/24/convert.svg" --title="Conversion ffmpeg" --progressbar " Converting $(basename %f) " 0); fn=%u; ffmpeg -i %u -y -vcodec libx265 "${fn%.*}"-conv.mp4; qdbus $dbusRef close; kdialog --title "Conversion complete" --passivepopup "$(basename %f) converted to MP4";

[Desktop Action g-rate24]
Name=Re-encode w/rate 24
Icon=/usr/share/icons/breeze/mimetypes/32/video-mp4.svg
Exec=dbusRef=$(kdialog --icon "convert.svg" --title="Conversion ffmpeg" --progressbar " Converting $(basename %f) " 0); fn=%u; ffmpeg -i %u -y -vcodec libx265 -crf 24 "${fn%.*}-24".mp4; qdbus $dbusRef close; kdialog --title "Conversion complete" --passivepopup "$(basename %f) converted to MP4";

[Desktop Action g-rate28]
Name=Re-encode w/rate 28
Icon=/usr/share/icons/breeze/mimetypes/32/video-mp4.svg
Exec=dbusRef=$(kdialog --icon "convert.svg" --title="Conversion ffmpeg" --progressbar " Converting $(basename %f) " 0); fn=%u; ffmpeg -i %u -y -vcodec libx265 -crf 28 "${fn%.*}-28".mp4; qdbus $dbusRef close; kdialog --title "Conversion complete" --passivepopup "$(basename %f) converted to MP4";

This allows me to select a video file and either convert it to mp4 (action "g-copy"), re-encode it using the .H265 rate of "24" ( action "g-rate24" - smaller than default), or re-encode it using the .H265 rate of "28" (action "g-rate28 - much smaller than default). All 3 options work as I desire.

The main PC has the NFS shared mounted via fstab. The VM is manually mounted because I didn't need it to access the NFS server all the time.

The only difference - other than the KDEneon version of ffmpeg crashing randomly - is the kdialog on the native KDEneon system closes when the file is done and messages me when each file is complete. The VM does not acknowledge that the file encoding is done. I have to manually verify the destination file is OK by launching it VLC, then "cancel" the action on the VM using the kdialog box.

Mount options on server:

Code:

server:/Videos on /shared/Videos type nfs4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,vers=4.2,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,soft,fatal_neterrors=none,proto=tcp,nconnect=16,timeo=20,retrans=5,sec=sys,clientaddr=192.168.1.199,local_lock=none,addr=192.168.1.250)

Mount options on VM:

Code:

server:/Videos on /shared/Videos type nfs4 (rw,noatime,nodiratime,vers=4.2,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,fatal_neterrors=none,proto=tcp,nconnect=16,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,clientaddr=192.168.1.199,local_lock=none,addr=192.168.1.250)

The above almost Identical.

Currently testing the VM running six simultaneous conversions at once.

funny linux memes

die.boer — Sun, 09 Aug 2026 08:11:50 GMT

some memes , cause i'm bored ...

[SOLVED]Need help creating a bash alias

Snowhog — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:41:12 GMT

I want to create a bash alias for this awk command:

awk -F'@' '{gsub(/\./, "", $1); print $1 "@" $2}' gmail_block_log.csv > cleaned_email_addresses.txt

My awk foo sucks, and Google isn't being very helpful. I know we have talent here in KFN, so, a little assistance please?

Caffeine and Linux

Snowhog — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:38:37 GMT

A combination to my liking.

Recover missing files

mr_raider — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 14:49:23 GMT

So for anyone who games on Linux, you probaly have experience with the horrible EA app. Without getting into details, suffice it to say that cloud syncing game saves is poorly implemented feature in the app, and frequently the sync borks deleting save games.

Now I know the folder where the saves are held, and it sits within a btrfs subvolume.

How can I recover those saves, since they must have been there and were erased by the EA app during a sync

silence

die.boer — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 19:12:20 GMT

i see absolutely no new posts on "today's posts" for 2 days now ....
has every1 gone quiet , or have i've been "muted" ? (for some reason)
i'd like to know

time to return?

NickStone — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:07:23 GMT

I was a Kubuntu user many moons ago. Since my time away I have mainly been using MX and Artix. I am currently using Windows 11 but only because it is the only OS that allows me to play Silent Hunter III through Steam. I have tried to get it running through Steam on MX but it simply doesn't work.

Should I come back to Kubuntu?

change root user / accounts

die.boer — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 19:46:26 GMT

so in my scenario , i had my 1 account setup (root) , but my kids was getting more and more on my pc and doing whatever they do
so i was starting to get worried that they could install/delete stuff ,cause login password is the same as root password on admin account.
PS: i did 1st create 2 new user accounts for them (standard user) , but then found everything they are used to is gone ( they're used to log into my account with everything set up)
so what i did it is create another sysadmin account and then made my usual account standard ,so they can log into my usual account and everything seems like they used to by now, but they cant "change" anything.
if any1 find them self's in the same situation , here are the steps:

basically it goes like this
-Keep your current account (xxx) exactly as it is.
-Create a new account called sysadmin (or similar) and add it to sudo.
-Remove xxx from the sudo group.

like this :
Create the new admin account

Code:

sudo adduser sysadmin

You'll be asked to set a password for sysadmin.

Add sysadmin to the sudo group

Code:

sudo usermod -aG sudo sysadmin

.

Test the new account
Before removing xxx from sudo, log out and log into sysadmin.
Open a terminal and run:

Code:

sudo whoami

It should return:
root
If it does, you're good.

Remove xxx from the sudo group
Log back into sysadmin (important!), then run:

Code:

sudo deluser xxx sudo

Verify:

Code:

groups xxx

You should no longer see sudo in the list.

Test xxx
Log back into your normal xxx account and try:

Code:

sudo apt update

You should get:
xxx is not in the sudoers file. ( or in my case sudo: I'm sorry xxx. I'm afraid I can't do that)

and that's that ...

IMPORTANT :
Whenever you need to do admin tasks

Code:

su - sysadmin

hope this helps someone with kiddies on their PC

PS : if there is an alternative way , i'd love to hear (read) it

[RESOLVED]Interesting sorting behavior in Dolphin

oshunluvr — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:36:09 GMT

I noticed this just this morning: I have a directory full of files with sequential names. "Episode 01, Episode 02" etc. Each file has a subtitle file associated with it the uses the exact same file name but has a different extension. "mp4" for the episodes and "srt" for the subtitles.

When using "Name" as the sort field, this results in each set of files listed with the mp4 then it's immediately followed by the srt file. So for example:

Episode 01.mp4
Episode 01.srt
Episode 02.mp4
Episode 02.srt

This is as expected.

Sometimes I want to do something with just the subtitle files (edit, move, whatever) I want to group the files by type so I click on "Type" to sort them, but this also reverses the alphabetical order resulting in:

Episode 02.srt
Episode 01.srt
Episode 02.mp4
Episode 01.mp4

This is NOT expected nor desired.

So the question I have is whether or not this is intended behavior or if the second sort field - which does not appear to be configurable - is simply set wrong in the code.

Another possibility is that there is some other field that is the secondary sort field and I just haven't discovered it yet. Like maybe file access time or whatever. I would need to set up a test to confirm this.

I'm wondering if anyone has any insight to this - either to confirm what I see or clarify what controls the secondary sort field.

It appears at this point, that the secondary sort is reverse alphabetical which I do not prefer, and if so, I will likely file a bug report on it.