All the issues below were encountered while running Ubuntu 20.4.2 LTS with GNOME

When playing video games, I like to separate music & game audio between my analogue speakers, and my USB headset. However, when my USB headset is plugged in, all audio is always played through them, no matter what audio device the software says it is using.

Whenever a push notification appears at the top of my screen, if I click it, qBittorrent pops up.

I use a SanDisk Clip Jam for my daily audio book listening. It's a cheap device, with many limitations, but one which has served me well for multiple hours a day, every day, for several years.

Among its many issues is the fact that files can only be played in alphabetical order by file name. They cannot be sorted using metadata, or in any other way. Because I use it primarily for audio books, file ordering is essential.

Today I moved some new audio books to the device from my Ubuntu 20.4.2 LTS machine for the first time. The files were named correctly, but when I attempted to play them they were in a completely random order. I checked file sizes, last modified dates, audio length, etc. None of these sorting systems corresponded to the way the files were ordered on the ClipJam.

I deleted the files from the ClipJam, and copied the same files again–but this time I copied them from my Windows 7 computer. When accessing the files on the ClipJam they are now ordered correctly.

I guess that something about the ext4 file system is not playing nicely with the FAT32 file system used by the ClipJam.

When using GIMP in windows, I was able to click File > Create > From Device, and access my scanner. It would then open a scanning utility, and once an image was scanned, import the image directly to GIMP. It was slightly more convenient than opening the scanning utility separately.

Everything I've read indicates that XSANE is necessary for this. After running sudo apt-get update and sudo apt install xsane, the xsane program itself does seem to be installed and working. xsane -v produces the following text:

Gtk-Message: 15:45:11.201: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
xsane-0.999 (c) 1998-2013 Oliver Rauch
  E-mail: Oliver.Rauch@xsane.org
  package xsane-0.999
  compiled with GTK-2.24.32
  with color management function
  with GIMP support, compiled with GIMP-2.10.18
  XSane output formats: jpeg, pdf(compr.), png, pnm, ps(compr.), tiff, txt

The error regarding failing to load the canberra-gtk-module occurs whenever I interact with xsane. It's something I'd like to look into.

Regardless, this message confirms that the version of xsane I am using ought to have GIMP support compatible with 2.10.18. I'm using 2.10.22, which I would presume is close enough, but perhaps is another issue to investigate.

In GIMP I went to edit>preferences>folders>Plug-ins to see which folders my snap install was using. There are two:

• /home/beloch/snap/gimp/347/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins
• /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins

From here I followed the instructions for running xsane under the gimp on ubuntu 20.04 LTS. In the terminal I entered ln -s /usr/bin/xsane ~/snap/gimp/347/.config/GIMP/2.10/plug-ins, and restarted GIMP. This didn't work. I then rebooted my whole computer, which also didn't work. I then entered ln -s /usr/bin/xsane /usr/lib/gimp/2.0/plug-ins, rebooted GIMP, and then the whole computer, and again, neither of these worked.

I note that the xsane instructions appear to have been copy-pasted for at least the last few releases of Ubuntu. I notice also that they say the scanner option will appear under “File > Acquire,” which has not existed in GIMP since 2007 when it was changed to “File > Create.” That, and the 2013 copyright date on the xsane software, make me worry this is just too out of date to get working. Yet it is so far the only solution I've seen discussed anywhere online.

When next I return to this issue I would like to consider:

• Whatever is going on here.
• Just uninstall the snap and install GIMP under apt, which often seems to fix stuff.
• investigate “Failed to load module “canberra-gtk-module”” message
• Try to confirm if there is a successor project to xsane.

Sometimes, when I have many windows open, I might attempt to close or minimize a window that is out of focus. Sometimes this works as I would normally expect. Other times, the window does not register they input. Often when this happens I can click the window's title bar, and even drag it around, but it will not come into focus. When I move it to the same space occupied by other windows, it goes 'under' them.

• I had postulated that this might have something to do with the windows being in different Workspaces. However, the bug occurred just now with a Thunderbird window getting stuck beneath a Discord window. Both were in the same Workspace.

This probably helped me with my microphone getting reset all the time: https://makandracards.com/makandra-orga/473864-how-to-set-a-fixed-microphone-source-in-ubuntu-if-it-keeps-changing