Disabling the screensaver

[Cosmo.]

Did you press ctrl-h in the file manager, as pbear said?

But even without that I hardly believe, that there is only one folder. Please provide a screenshot of your home folder in the file manager. Alternatively enter in a terminal

Code: Select all

ls -la

, mark all, copy it to the clipboard and paste it here.

[Tom_SPQR]

"Open File Manager. Click Ctrl-H (display Hidden)." I am getting no response when I perform these two steps.

[Cosmo.]

Once again: Provide a screenshot.

[Tom_SPQR]

I just saw that you (Cosmo) posted 3 minutes before I finished typing up my last message.
I chose your second (“ls -la”) option. Here it is:

owner@owner-ThinkPad-T470s:~$ ls -la
total 144
drwxr-xr-x 20 owner owner 4096 Aug 3 13:49 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Jul 5 2020 ..
-rw------- 1 owner owner 6276 Aug 3 14:07 .bash_history
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 220 Jul 5 2020 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 3771 Jul 5 2020 .bashrc
drwxrwxr-x 20 owner owner 4096 Jul 7 12:15 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 3 owner owner 4096 Sep 16 2020 .cert
drwxr-xr-x 29 owner owner 4096 Aug 1 18:31 .config
drwxr-xr-x 4 owner owner 4096 Sep 3 2020 Cryptohippie-Linux
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 21 13:22 Desktop
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 23 Aug 5 2020 .dmrc
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Aug 3 13:05 Documents
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 30 20:23 Downloads
drwx------ 4 owner owner 4096 Nov 27 2021 .gnupg
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 22 Jul 5 2020 .gtkrc-2.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 516 Jul 5 2020 .gtkrc-xfce
-rw------- 1 owner owner 0 Jul 5 2020 .ICEauthority
drwxrwxr-x 4 owner owner 4096 Jul 28 2021 .linuxmint
drwxr-xr-x 4 owner owner 4096 Sep 20 2021 .local
drwx------ 5 owner owner 4096 Jan 3 2022 .mozilla
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 5 2020 Music
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Aug 3 14:07 Pictures
drwx------ 3 owner owner 4096 Aug 6 2020 .pki
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 807 Jul 5 2020 .profile
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 5 2020 Public
-rw-r--r-- 1 owner owner 0 Jul 5 2020 .sudo_as_admin_successful
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 5 2020 Templates
drwx------ 6 owner owner 4096 Nov 21 2021 .thunderbird
drwxr-xr-x 2 owner owner 4096 Jul 5 2020 Videos
-rw-rw-r-- 1 owner owner 176 May 1 2021 .wget-hsts
-rw------- 1 owner owner 65 Aug 3 13:49 .Xauthority
-rw------- 1 owner owner 10868 Aug 3 14:47 .xsession-errors
-rw------- 1 owner owner 10649 Aug 3 13:06 .xsession-errors.old

[Tom_SPQR]

My connection has been very glitchy since I got online. Sorry, but I'm going to have to end off here. Hopefully back tomorrow.

[Cosmo.]

There are clearly to be seen 9 not hidden folders, not only one.

[Tom_SPQR]

You have a more trained eye than do I, Cosmo. I'm not sure what I'm reading in the results of the “ls -la” command (except for the last words of some of the lines).

Using the file manager and looking inside subfolders like Public, Music, and Templates I see no files. But other subfolders do have files. I am thinking here of my post yesterday: "In looking within this single 16 KiB directory/folder, I see many subfolders that add up to more than 16KiB."

[pbear]

Not knowing how to read a command line output is normal. But you should have been able to see the same thing graphically in File Manager, i.e., files and folders with dots in front of them. FYI, here's what Cosmo notices:

Code: Select all

drwxrwxr-x 20 owner owner 4096 Jul 7 12:15 .cache
drwxr-xr-x 3 owner owner 4096 Sep 16 2020 .cert
drwxr-xr-x 29 owner owner 4096 Aug 1 18:31 .config
drwx------ 4 owner owner 4096 Nov 27 2021 .gnupg
drwxrwxr-x 4 owner owner 4096 Jul 28 2021 .linuxmint
drwxr-xr-x 4 owner owner 4096 Sep 20 2021 .local
drwx------ 5 owner owner 4096 Jan 3 2022 .mozilla
drwx------ 3 owner owner 4096 Aug 6 2020 .pki
drwx------ 6 owner owner 4096 Nov 21 2021 .thunderbird

"d" indicates a directory (as opposed to a file). Notice "d" also appears for the familiar directories, e.g., Documents and Downloads.

And another thing. Earlier in the day you said:

Got a message: "Filesystem does not support symbolic links."

First, you shouldn't be doing backup manually. Use an app like BackInTime. Second, the target has to use the same file system as /home, which is ext4. At a guess, your backup target is Fat32 or NTFS. You need to use ext4, in part so that the backup app can preserve symlinks.

[Cosmo.]

You have a more trained eye than do I, Cosmo. I'm not sure what I'm reading in the results of the “ls -la” command (except for the last words of some of the lines).

More trained: yes, but also with limited eyesight. It was clear for me from the beginning, that such a terminal output would be difficult to interpret for you. That was the reason, why I more than once asked you to provide a screenshot. The terminal command was only emergency solution, because you did not react on my screenshot requests.

[Tom_SPQR]

Pbear, Thanks for the quickie course on reading those results. I will have to spend time delving into BackInTime, Fat32 versus NTFS, and ext4, so I can respond (somewhat) more intelligently. You words are much appreciated.

[Tom_SPQR]

Cosmo, Attached is the screenshot of what I think you wanted. It does not show much (to my eye), which is why I opted for the "ls -la” command.

[Cosmo.]

The picture shows the content of the system folder home, namely your own home = owner. With this display there is indeed nothing to be done. Now do a double click on owner and you should see the content of your home; btw, if you open the file manager, it should display automatically the content of your home. Now if you are in your own home, press ctrl-h and you will see the effect of showing hidden files. This advice was some posts above the origin for this step.

[Tom_SPQR]

I double clicked on home and executed pbear's (Aug 2) Ctrl + H, which showed the subfolders.

[Cosmo.]

So back to the point, where we came from, namely this post: viewtopic.php?p=2209627#p2209627

How is the target device formatted? If you don't know open the tool Disks, where you can find this information.

[Tom_SPQR]

Disks shows me this:

[Cosmo.]

The file system of your home is ext4. What is the file system of the backup device in viewtopic.php?p=2209627#p2209627 ?

[Tom_SPQR]

I was thinking of using a reformatted flash drive to back up my files (which are few). The flash drive, being blank, does not have any files or file systems.

[Cosmo.]

Reformatted to what? Also ext4, something else? Show it also with Disks.

[Tom_SPQR]

For years I have reformatted my flash drives on a frequent basis to a blank tabla rasa state. I guess (once again) I am confused.
Likewise when you ask "Also ext4, something else?"
My August 11 post shows the result of using the Disk application, so I am guessing that I am yet again confused.

[Cosmo.]

We are again running in circles. The origin was this post: viewtopic.php?p=2209627#p2209627
Nobody can tell something about that error message, if we do not know anything about the involved elements, the backup target in this case.