Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Welcome back to another edition of Questions and Answers! In this section, we will endeavour to answer your Ubuntu questions. Be sure to add details of the version of your operating system and your hardware. I will try to remove any personally identifiable strings from questions , but it is best not to include things like serial numbers, UUID’s or IP addresses. When there is bad English spelling and grammar, I will correct these for Q&A. It just reads better for our readers and is not intended to change your questions in any way. If you are not sure about your spelling, etc, you can run your question through Google translate. Once as an FSE, I was called to a site where the owner had issues connecting to the network, among other things. I packed all my diagnostic CD’s and hit the road. On the customer premises, I found that the owner had a brand new Macbook and everyone else had Windows PCs. I had never seen a Macbook before then, but knew they shared common ground with Linux. I was lost until I found the terminal. From there it was simple to run dmesg and view the log files to sort out all his queries. The customer wanted to know where I had honed my ‘Mac skills’. When I told him that this was the first time I ever touched a Mac, he was unbelieving. I explained that a Mac was Linux under the hood (I was ignorant back then), and OSX was simply another Desktop Environment to me. What I am trying to illustrate here is that one should not ignore the command-line completely. Yes, we live in a GUI world, but the command-line is always there to assist. Even if you never use your command-line, learn to use it, it may save your bacon one day.
Bienvenue dans une autre édition de Questions et réponses ! Dans cette rubrique, nous essayons de répondre à vos questions sur Ubuntu. Assurez-vous d'ajouter les détails de la version de votre système d'exploitation et de votre matériel. J'essayerai d'enlever toutes informations qui vous identifient personnellement, mais il vaut mieux ne pas inclure des choses come les numéros de série, des UUID ou des adresses IP.
Je corrigerai les fautes d'orthographe et de grammaire de la langue pour la rubrique Q. ET R. Ça se lit mieux et je n'ai aucune intention de modifier vos questions de quelque façon que ce soit. Si vous ne vous sentez pas à l'aise avec l'anglais vous pouvez toujours voir ce que donne votre question dans Traduction de Google.
Une fois, quand j'étais un FSE (Field Service Engineer - ingénieur de maintenance sur site), on m'a appelé sur un site où le propriétaire avait, notamment, des problèmes pour se connecter au réseau. J'ai rassemblé tous mes CD de diagnostique et pris ma voiture. Dans les locaux du client, j'ai découvert que le propriétaire avait un Macbook flambant neuf et que le reste du personnel avait des PC sous Windows. Je n'avais jamais vu de Macbook avant, mais je savais qu'ils ont des bases communes avec Linux. J'étais perdu avant de trouver le terminal, mais, après, il était simple d'exécuter dmesg et de voir les fichiers journaux pour pouvoir arriver au bout de toutes ses questions. Le client voulait savoir où j'avais perfectionné mes « compétences sous Mac » et quand je lui ai dit que c'était la toute première fois que j'ai touché à un Mac, il ne me croyait pas. J'ai expliqué que Mac était Linux sous le capot (je n'y connaissait pas grand' chose alors), et que OS X n'était qu'un autre environnement de bureau pour moi. Ce que j'essaie de démontrer ici est que l'on ne devrait jamais complètement ignorer la ligne de commande. Oui, nous habitons un monde d'interfaces graphiques, mais la ligne de commande est toujours là pour nous aider. Même si vous n'utilisez jamais la ligne de commande, apprenez à l'utiliser, car il peut vous sauver la peau un jour.
Q: Dear Sir, I have a Lenovo Y510P. It has issues with the SD card slot. It is very weird and frustrating. I mostly use it for transferring my photos to rawtherapee. I can’t seem to find a proprietary driver to fix this. Please help me. A: I did some digging and found that this is not Ubuntu related but Lenovo related. I hope you have extended warranty on your laptop, as it will need to go in. Lenovo have forums filled with your problem, e.g. https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-P-Y-and-Z-series/Y510P-SD-Card-problems-and-More/m-p/3979737#M159689. There is no proprietary driver to fix this as it is a hardware problem. Q: I have installed plank on Ubuntu, version 0.11.4. How can I change the icon size please. I have Googled this, but I can not right-click preferences to change them as described, as my right-click brings up “keep in dock” and not preferences. A: The nice thing about Linux is there are many ways to do something. The reason you are seeing “Keep in Dock” is because you are clicking on an Icon. There is about half a millimetre on either end where you can right-click to get the other drop-down menu, or you can open a terminal and type “plank –preferences”, or even look in your menu, start typing plank and there should be a menu item plank preferences, or you can even hold down ctrl + alt and right-click for the alternate menu.
Q : Cher monsieur, J'ai un Lenovo Y510P. Le port pour la carte SD a des problèmes. C'est très bizarre et frustrant. Je l'utilise en grande partie pour transférer mes photos sur raxtherapee. Je n'arrive pas à trouver un pilote propriétaire pour résoudre ce problème. Je vous prie de bien vouloir m'aider.
R : J'ai fait quelques recherches et découvert que ce n'est pas associé à Linux, mais à Lenovo. J'espère que vous ayez pris une garantie étendue sur votre portable, car il faudra faire appel au SAV.
Q: Hello, I installed ‘Frogatto and friends’ on Ubuntu for my son. I realise the application is not being developed any more; however, I was teaching him to play and noticed a double tap in either direction sort of lets him slide. Somehow, he stops sliding immediately. How can I set the keypress sensitivity so this works properly? Do I need to set it in-game or Ubuntu? I want to cultivate a love for pixel art in my son and ‘Frogatto and friends’ is beautiful.
A: I cannot find any documentation on the slide function, so I installed the game to test. I suspect that the sliding noise and the puff of dust is an immediate stop, rather than a slide. Double-tap hold is run, so the character starts running, then stops immediately as you are not holding down the directional button. For future reference ‘im-config’ is what you use to set your input method.
Q: Ubuntu Budgie 18.04, i3 4GB ram. Noob here. I am populating my calendar with things for next year, but I have only *personal when I create an entry. If I click the arrow beside *personal, there are no other options. How do I add more categories? Google is not helping.
A: Click on “edit details” just below that, and then the drop-down arrow next to unnamed event. This will allow you to select birthdays category. Those are the only built in categories. If you want to create more, you need to click the top leftmost button and select ‘calendars’. Then add a ‘calendar’ as a category. Be sure to choose a different colour for this calendar and, when it is displayed on your calendar, it will be a category.
Q: I have recently switched to Ubuntu so I am not familiar with it. I like to write stories and was wondering what is the best program to use?
A: Oh boy, this is not easy. ‘Best’ is a relative term. Let me give you options with reasons. If you are a seat of your pants writer, like Stephen King: focus writer / koala writer. If you do not care about aesthetics then a distraction-free writer will do, like ghostwriter or textroom. If you are a meticulous planner: Bibisco. If you are in-between those two: Plume creator. Libre Office has many plug-ins if word processors are your thing. If you are creating ebooks, Sigil. It all boils down to what you are comfortable with.
Q: My friends, I have made a minimal install. Tell me is this the problem. My eyes are bad, so I enable the screen reader. However, nothing seems to be happening when I click menus or application menu. This worked in my old Ubuntu installation, 13.10, I think. This is important to me. Sorry for my bad English.
A: “The minimal install is simply a reduced set of packages for the people who would rather layer up their own set of things.” What’s missing in it is orca. Just add:
sudo apt install orca
Q: I am using Geary to read my gmail on Ubuntu 16.04. However, every so often, it will ask me for a password. My gmail password is 23 random characters and I can’t remember it. As I understand it, my password is saved in the Ubuntu keyring. How / where do I manage this? Is that the same as online accounts in settings? Why is it forgetting my details? My laptop is an old Acer Travelmate.
A: I am going to answer what I feel is the main question first, before addressing the others. Geary is not “forgetting” your password. Google uses a security algorithm that uses your IP address range and application when you log in to your account. When you go to another town, or to a place with, say, a VPN, or different ISP, that range changes and Google rejects the sign in. Geary now thinks the password is incorrect and asks you for the password. As Geary uses IMAP and not POP3. It does store the password in your keyring : https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=cqJoDwAAQBAJ&q=keyring#v=snippet&q=keyring&f=false
There is always: geary - -help (you will see the -d option)
Q: Can one set up an internet downloader for Linux without PPA’s? I don’t like PPA’s.
A: You most certainly can! Just type: sudo apt install uget. If you prefer the command-line, check out the manpages for wget and curl.
Q: I have googled this, but to no real satisfaction. When I use Thunderbird with a Dark theme like arc dark or materia dark, I can’t see anything in in the email pane. I have to use a light theme to see the contents. It is either white-on-white or the reading pane is black. It is very frustrating.
A: I usually install the monterrail themes for my clients, but I decided to test it for you. The black reading pane is a problem when changing themes, but click on an email and it goes away. To get rid of the white-on-white, I suggest using the monterrail full dark theme. At the moment Thunderbird integration seems a bit iffy. Override it with a Thunderbird theme.
Q: My computer did not boot this morning so i took out the hard disk and attached it to a desktop with Linux Mint on it. Windows partitions can be read but Mint partition says “UNKNOWN FILE SYSTEM”
A: The short answer is recover your data and reinstall Linux. There are ways to get the filesystem back, but it is too complicated and long for Q&A. Use photorec to recover your data and redo, it is much quicker and will save you lots of grey hairs.
Q: Firefox key layouts have changed as my backspace key no longer takes me to the previous page. How can I fix this?
A: In the address bar, type: about:config and accept the risk. Then, in the search bar, type backspace. Change browser.backspace_action to 0 from 2. Close the tab and test.
Q: Why is it that I had to install the intel microcode in Ubuntu 16.04, but it doesn’t get installed in 18.04?
A: As I understood it, it was not Ubuntu version related, but kernel related.
Q: My error after upgrading to 18.04 again, is ’: E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead’. What now?
A: I would suggest looking at the complete error message. It will tell you which package failed. I will bet money it is a PPA. For 18.04, they have to say “BIONIC”, you will also notice some need dependencies that are not available in 18.04 any more.
Q: After resuming from standby, one of my monitors is switched to off in the settings under Devices → Displays. All three monitors are identical. Boot UP works 100%. The issue is when it goes into sleep mode. Then only two come on. The one monitor is switched off under the settings. What am I doing wrong?
A: Just update to the latest kernel, there was a bug floating around in the triple monitor setups on the older kernels.
Q: My error is with virtualbox on Ubuntu 18.10. I get an error of - ‘WARNING: The character device /dev/vboxdrv does not exist. Please install the virtualbox-dkms package and the appropriate headers, most likely Linux-headers-generic’ and there are more errors and it just wont start.
A: Your best bet is to remove virtualbox (I recommend purging it). Then run :
apt –fix-broken install
and then reinstall virtualbox. For good measure, run:
sudo apt autoremove
once it is uninstalled, and reboot before installing it again.