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. If your question does not appear immediately, it is just because there is such a lot, and I do them ‘first-come-first-served’.
Bon retour parmi nous pour cette nouvelle édition de Questions et Réponses ! Dans cette rubrique, nous essayons de répondre à vos questions sur Ubuntu. Assurez-vous de nous donner les détails concernant votre système d'exploitation et votre matériel. J'essaierai d'enlever tout ce qui pourrait vous identifier personnellement dans vos questions, mais il vaut mieux ne pas inclure des éléments comme des numéros de série, UUID ou adresses IP. Si votre question n'est pas publiée tout de suite, c'est parce qu'il y en a beaucoup et j'y réponds selon le principe de « premier arrivé, premier servi ».
One of my clients, back in the day, had two 64k ISDN lines for internet connectivity. Because of the bandwidth constraints and the high cost of ISDN, they were very frugal with the “internet” and related services such as e-mail. Only certain people had e-mail and internet access. It was with great interest that, one day, I went out on a call to a woman I know was not given internet access, but complained that it stopped working. This was a lady who typed with one finger, had to be constantly reminded how the printer worked, and other technical stuff. Logging in and starting her word processor was the height of her technical knowledge. I did not say anything over the phone, just that I would come have a look. When I got there, she assured me that I need not bother as it came right. I then asked her how she gets internet, as she was not on my list of people who had access. She proceeded to show me how she set up Microsoft fax in Windows NT and tweaking here and there and then typing the address she wanted to go to, in the Windows Explorer address bar, it would somehow bypass their sophisticated setup and she would be on the internet. Never, under any circumstances, underestimate users. No matter how technically challenged they are, they are always able to break your systems. When a user tells you one thing, think of all the dumb things they actually could have done and you will get to the bottom of the problem quickly enough!
Jadis, un de mes clients avait deux lignes ISDN à 64 k pour se connecter à l’Internet. Étant donné les contraintes de la bande passante et le coût élevé de l’ISDN, ils voulaient faire un usage très économe de l’« Internet » et de ses services comme les courriels. Seulement certaines personnes pouvaient accéder au Net et profiter des mails. Un jour, c’était avec un grand intérêt que je suis allé voir une femme qui, je le savais, n’avait pas accès à l’Internet, mais qui s’est plainte qu’il ne marchait plus. Il s’agissait d’une dame qui tapait avec un seul doigt, ne se souvenait jamais du fonctionnement de l’imprimante, et était dépassée par tous ces trucs technologiques. Se connecter et démarrer son traitement de texte était tout ce qu’elle savait faire. Je n’ai rien dit au téléphone sauf que je viendrait y jeter un œil. Quand j’y suis arrivé, elle m’a assuré que c’était peine perdue, car tout avait recommencé à bien fonctionner. Alors, je lui ai demandé comment elle réussissait à avoir le Net, car elle ne figurait pas sur la liste des gens qui pouvait y accéder. Elle m’a ensuite montré que, quand elle configurait Microsoft Fax dans Windows NT avec des ajustements par-ci et par-là, puis tapait l’adresse qu’elle voulait voir dans la barre d’URL de Windows Explorer, cela contournerait leur installation sophistiqué et qu’elle se trouverait sur l’Internet. Ne jamais, en aucun cas, sous-estimer les utilisateurs. Quel que soit le degré de la limitation de leurs capacités techniques, ils sont toujours capables de casser vos systèmes.
Quand un utilisateur vous dit une chose, pensez à tout ce qu’il aurait pu réellement faire d'idiot et vous irez au fond du problème assez rapidement !
Q: I am looking at the man page for tail, but it says nothing about secure browsing. How do I make secure browsing with it? A: ‘Tails’ is a distribution that allows safe browsing, ‘tail’ is the command to see the “tail-end” (last few lines) of a text file. Q: Guys, I have a terabyte of music. Which music manager would you recommend that I use for this on Ubuntu? I am moving it off my old Mac with iTunes. A: You will need one with a SQL backend to manage that huge library speedily. I cannot tell you which one you should use, but find a few you like and see which of them work best for you. Suggestions are Rythmbox, Clementine, Lollipop, Sayonara, etc.
Q : Je suis en train de lire la page man de tail, mais cela ne dit rien à propos d’une navigation sécurisée. Comment naviguer de façon sûre avec ?
R : « Tails » est une distribution qui permet la navigation sécurisée, mais « tail » est la commande à utiliser quand vous voulez voir la « tail end » (les dernières lignes) d’un fichier texte.
Q : Les mecs, j’ai un téraoctet de musique. Quel gestionnaire de musique recommanderiez-vous sous Ubuntu? Je transfère la musique de mon vieux Mac avec iTunes.
R : Vous en aurez besoin d’un avec un backend SQL pour pouvoir rapidement gérer cette bibliothèque énorme. Je ne peux pas vous dire lequel utiliser, mais je vous conseille d'en trouver quelques-uns qui vous plaisent et choisissez celui qui fonctionne le mieux pour vous. Voici quelques suggestions : Rythmbox, Clementine, Lollipop, Sayonara, etc.
Q: I live in rural India. My internet is bad. What is a good way to download distributions without them getting corrupt? Thank you kindly. A: Corrupt files I cannot guarantee, but we can try to get them down in the best possible state with Uget. Try: sudo apt install uget then paste the URL in there. Q: I have bad eyes with thick glasses. Sometimes my old laptop won’t shut down, then I have to press the power button to force it to. When it then restarts, I get the default wallpaper on my login screen. How can I prevent this from happening as the bright light hurts my sensitive eyes. A: Okay, what you do is… find the name of the default wallpaper then name another dark one the same and copy it over the default one. You may need to start nautilus as root to do it in the GUI. This is the only way you can avoid that specific issue.
Q : J’habite en Inde rurale. Mon Internet est mauvais. Comment peut-on télécharger des distributions sans qu’elle soient corrompues ?
R : Je ne peux pas garantir la condition des fichiers (corrompus ou pas), mais vous pouvez essayer de les récupérer dans le meilleur état possible avec Uget. Essayez :
sudo apt install uget
puis coller l’URL dedans.
Q : Mes yeux sont mauvais et j’ai des lunettes épaisses. Parfois, mon vieux portable ne s’éteint pas et je dois appuyer longuement sur l’interrupteur pour qu’il s’arrête. Après, quand il redémarre, j’ai le papier peint par défaut sur l’écran de connexion. Comment y remédier, car la lumière brillante fait mal à mes yeux sensibles.
R : OK, ce qu’il faut faire est… trouver le nom du fond d’écran par défaut, puis nommer un autre fond d’écran (sombre) la même chose et copier-le par-dessus le défaut. Vous devriez sans doute lancer Nautilus en tant que root pour pouvoir le faire dans l’interface graphique. C’est le seul moyen d’éviter ce problème précis.
Q: I am using Xubuntu 18.04 and I am having issues with Ristretto image viewer. Some things just will not display, etc, etc. I have abandoned standard Ubuntu as if feels slow and bloated, but sometimes XFCE apps feel alien to me. What can I do?
A: You do not have to stick with Ristretto, uninstall it and try Viewnoir or Nomacs as your default image viewer. You are spoiled for choice when it comes to image viewers on Linux.
Q: I don’t know if the problem is with Ubuntu or Windows 10. I connect to my Windows 10 file shares via SMB. To cut a long story short, it worked once, then would not thereafter. I am pulling my hair out in frustration. Please, please help.
A: Would you even doubt for a moment if I told you it was Windows 10? You need to go to where you uninstall programs, then go to uninstall features and remove the ‘remove SMB v.1.0’ tick in the checkbox. Restart and you should be peachy.
Q: Weird one guys, I can set my microphone volume and I can see that it is working by the orange bar moving as I speak. BUT! When I record sound, and play it back, there is nothing in VLC at full volume. When I use Skype, I can hear the other person, but they can’t hear me. I have asked around, but nobody can help me. I have Ubuntu 19.04 on my HP gen3 laptop.
A: I cannot help you either, but I can tell you what the problem is, as I have seen it before. It is a botched install, either the hard drive has a bad sector or your .iso image is flawed. Verify this with the SHA sum or ‘check media’ when installing. Backup, reinstall, recover and you should be golden.
Q: Good day sir. Instead of typing pwd in the terminal, I want to copy and paste it from the file manager. Like windows file manager does, but it seems Nautilus does not. It is little things like these that make it difficult for me to use Ubuntu. My workflow needs to actually… flow. Instead it makes me feel dumb. Can you point me in the right direction?
A: I can, he went that-a-way! —> These are teething problems, you just need to get used to the nuances that Ubuntu has. You just use the same shortcut key combination you use to clear the terminal. Press “CTRL+L” and the path will magically appear! Abracadabra and a happy Ubuntu to you.
Q: How can I rename my downloaded files so that the ends come off? For Instance: Peter.Shilling.Major.Tom[mp3red.su].mp3 to just Peter Shilling - Major Tom.mp3. It is rather time consuming renaming all these files. Also it is quite boring.
A: There are two ways; use Gprename from the software centre or one of the java tools like filebot. That said, if it is just mp3 files, why not wash them through musicbrainz picard? (Also from the software centre).
Q: My old computer won’t run windows 10. I tried loading it, but after leaving it on for 2 days, updates don’t seem to install drivers, so my sound does not work and my VGA resolution is stuck on 1024 x 768 on my widescreen monitor. It used to work fine with XP and I never had the urge to update to 7 or 8. The reason I tried windows 10 was that all the new peripherals now say windows 10 on the box. I look after my stuff and the PC is still in good shape and dust free. I can’t justify throwing it out. Can I run the latest Ubuntu on there?
A: If it ran Windows XP, chances are it will run Ubuntu 18.04. Since you did not give your specs, I will assume it was a decent PC that performed well on XP. I would not go for the “latest” version, as that is a testing version. Maybe also look at rather running Ubuntu MATE instead of the Gnome version. If you miss XP, then try MAKULU Linux.
Q: My Xubuntu 18 search, catfish, is rather slow, like windows search. How can I make it faster? I have heard about making a RAM drive and copying it into there. Will this work?
A: No. A RAM drive will only be fast with the contents of a RAM drive. Rather look at Fsearch. Look here: https://github.com/cboxdoerfer/fsearch -There is also a PPA as mentioned. Or try locate in the terminal.
Q: I have Ubuntu 16.04, and I am having an Issue with configuring the latest version of Sublime text. I have signed up for a Udemy course and they use Sublime. I just don’t get all the same settings. Can you help me please?
A: Unfortunately I cannot. This is something you need to take up with your instructor. That said, you usually do not need Sublime text. It is just nice to have. There are alternatives like Atom or Geany or brackets or Code::Blocks if you need an IDE. (Gedit will even work).
Q: I can’t get display from my working Nvidia 210 graphics card on Ubuntu 19.10. It is a fresh install. This is my output. <image> and this <image> and this is my dmesg query <image>.
A: If you download a beta or testing version of software, you are a tester, and you report bugs. If you want a stable system, stick to LTS releases. This means that if you download 19.10 beta and have issues, you need to report them. We cannot help you with those as beta software is buggy and incomplete.
Q: Hey. After updating WPA supplicant and the Broadcom drivers, my wifi bars on Ubuntu have halved. How to fix?
A: That , my friend, is why we really do not want proprietary drivers on Linux. You cannot fix. The code is not free and open source to modify and repair. You can try taking it up with Broadcom or get an open source friendly network card.
Q: I have a kick-ass Soundblaster Audigy that is no longer supported in Windows. Will it work in Ubuntu?
A: Yes! (You may not get 100% functionality, as some of the applications are Windows only, but it will work).
Q: I use kxstudio for my home machine and I was wondering why I can’t use alt mousewheel zoom like I can with Xubuntu? I can’t seem to find a setting for it and I have even tried dconf. Someone suggested I use dpkg-reconfigure to set up my screen, but that also didn’t work. It is a useful feature that I use all the time.
A: It has to do with the composter. If you change to another composter, you lose that functionality. I may be wrong here, but if you really need to change composters, look at Compiz as that also has a zoom function, or at least had, the last time I used it.
Q: I am starting to get bored with Ubuntu. Which distribution should I switch to next?
A: This depends on how much effort you want to put in. Switch to pure Debian and see how good you actually had it.
Q: I am moving to a new city which is 6 hrs from my home. How can I find the local Ubuntu and Linux user groups? Is there a website that they need to register on?
A: Your best bet is meetup.com, then maybe the paper for local LUG’s. Interest groups do not need to register anywhere – just form up. You can even start your own and host it on a site like meetup.com.
Q: Hello Sir, I am trying to install 64-bit Ubuntu on Windows10 in Virtualbox. Only, Virtualbox only shows me 32-bit. I know it works as I have 64-bit server in hyper-v. I have all the right things on in my bios. What steps did I miss?
A: Microshaft made it so that if you use Hyper-V, you cannot use another product. Uninstall Hyper-V and VirtualBox will work again just fine.