Full Circle Magazine FR

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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, UUIDs, or IP addresses. If your question does not appear immediately, it is just because there are many waiting, and I do them first-come-first-served.



I recently met a real-life NPC and it got me thinking about how people think about Linux. I went to a shop and was about to pick up some toothpaste, when I saw a “new” brand I did not know (I say “new” but I haven’t bought it in years as I usually buy bulk). A lady walked up next to me and took a few tubes. I politely asked her if it was a “good” toothpaste. She pointed out that the box said “50% more calcium”. I laughed and said it may as well be 1000% more, as your teeth cannot absorb calcium from brushing for a minute, from toothpaste. She proceeded to stare at me and, totally disgusted, said that she “follows the science” and I “should take my conspiracy theories elsewhere” and walked off, shaking her head like I was the idiocracy candidate. (There is a reason that kids who are allergic to milk get calcium supplements). This reminded me of someone who told me that Windows is better because it “looked more modern”. I have had that response before regarding LibreOffice, so I usually use OnlyOffice as a substitute for people who get fed-up paying M$, as it “looks” more modern than LibreOffice. (I actually hate the look of M$ Office as it takes up too much space, etcetera, but what do I know?). Does Linux need more “looksmaxxing”, as the kids say, out of the box? Or... should it be open-source applications?

Quick thank you to @judascreep for coming back to me about .cue files and their uses. If you have Audacious installed, and you open the .cue files with it, it will chapter-ize your audio books. I can see this being useful for .m4a and .m4b audio books if you wanted to see each chapter. 


Q: I connected my redmi phone to my Ubuntu 24.04 laptop, just to test and transfer a few photos. I did not change anything and used everything as-is. The thing is, since that day, my alarm on my phone that used to go off for minutes at a time, now goes off for only like 30s, then stops by itself. Previously it used to ring and ring and ring until I killed it. How can I set this back?

A: My best guess is that it is unrelated. I’d say check your phone settings, as I’d say it was something unintentional like being unlocked in your pocket that caused it, not being connected to your Laptop. 


Q: Is it possible for you to tell me what this command does? Awk -F ‘S1 <removed> I don’t want to enter it in case it messes up my computer. I got it from an acquaintance, but she is rather bitchy and I sorta don’t trust her. 

A: There are a number of websites you can test out commands or scripts on, for instance: https://www.shellcheck.net If that one is not to your liking, simply search in your favourite search engine for more sites like this.


Q: This is a weird one; I have Ubuntu 24.04 installed and updated, everything works, other than my microphone in Audacity. I have tried a bluetooth headset and the internal microphone as well as a wired headset. I can’t think what else to try, as it used to work,I used it about three months ago, and not once did it give me issues. The test in settings shows everything is fine.

A: First suggestion, if you are in Wayland, boot to X11 and test and vice-versa. Try removing things like docks and HDMI cables, if you have any connected. If you have Audacity as a Snap, try the .deb-version. It may just be an update that caused the error. Also, I suggest getting something like Stacer and use the cleaning option to clean all your cache files. You could also uninstall it and install an older version to see if that helps. 


Q: Is there a way to keep more commands so I can keep pressing the up arrow?

A: Open your terminal, open the preferences and find your profile, even if it has only “default” and find the “Scrolling” tab, and set “Limit Scrollback” to 1000 or more (how many you may need). Some terminals require you to create a profile other than default first, though. 


Q: How do I know what version of Ubuntu I have on my computer? When I run uname -a in my terminal, I get “Linux deathstar 6.11.0-29-generic #29~24.04.1-Ubuntu”, but I’m sure I installed the non-24.04.1? 

A: That is the kernel version. Try this: source /etc/os-release ; echo $PRETTY_NAME - or, if you have Gnome, go to Settings -> About.


Q: I deleted a bunch – like a lot! - of photos after going through them one by one. I was tired and I hit the delete key a few times in my sleepy state. Is there a way of restoring just the photo I want, without restoring them all again, just to get that one back? I don’t know the name, all are named DSC-345xxxx.jpg? Ubuntu 24.04 Gnome core i5 <removed>

A: Ubuntu is not Windows, you can open your trash and double-click a picture file and it should open, so you can see which pictures are what. If that is not what you want to know, please ping me again, as I am not sure what you want.


Q: When I open a picture, I get: could not open IMG004.JPG Fatal error reading file : Not a JPG file. How can I see the picture?

A: Ubuntu is telling you the file is not what it seems. In the folder where the file is located, right-click and select: Open terminal here / Open in terminal. In the terminal, type: file IMG004.JPG - and see what it tells you. It may not be a picture. If it is, right-click on the file and choose “open with” and open the file with your image viewer.


Q: OK, so I tried yt-dlp on Ubuntu 24.04 and the names are all messed up. File names with nonsense after. How can I fix this?

A: Honestly, you are giving me very little to work with. When *I use yt-dlp, I usually see the name of the video, followed by the tag in the url, say: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFb52rSmIiU, then I would see FFb52rSmIiU appended to the end of the file name, that is normal. If that is *not what you are getting, try getting yt-dlp from their github page (https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/) and run ./yt-dlp_linux <URL> and see if the version you have is not out-of-date. If you used pip or the package manager to install it, try updating it. 


Q: My man pages in Ubuntu 24.04 are monochrome. It used to be colourful on 22.04. I’m not sure if it is something I did? I installed the minimal install and copied my .bashrc over like I did for 22.04. My cousin set it all up for me and he is currently abroad, so I’m all thumbs.

A: According to Stack Exchange, there were updates to “Groff ≥1.23” and that may be why. Nothing you did. According to them: “The theory: Termcap is a library that Less uses to access the terminal”. Termcap is largely obsolete, having been replaced by Terminfo, but Terminfo offers a Termcap compatibility interface to applications. See: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/108699/documentation-on-less-termcap-variables


Q: I have a Raspberry pi 3B with Ubuntu Mate installed on it. It was fine previously, as I used it as a media PC. Now that I’ve upgraded tho, I cannot get to the login. I’ve tried to install a few times, checked the SHA, checked the SD card, etc. Nothing is amiss and if I install the desktop version, no issues either. 

A: Are you using the IOT version and making it Mate, with a desktop, and gdm, etcetera, you may get issues yes, but you have my brain reeling now. Are you following some tutorial or are you just messing about by yourself? Please explain some more of what you are doing and what you are trying to achieve, and what errors you are seeing when you try to log in with another TTY, other than 7.


Q: Why does Ubuntu tell me “503 Service Unavailable? No server is available to handle this request” On the Ubuntu website? My firefox is 141.0 up-to-date. 

A: Rule of thumb, if you see 5xx errors, it means the server has the issue, not you. See: https://www.lifewire.com/503-service-unavailable-explained-2622940 I usually call it the “come back later error”. Give it time and try again, the server may just be overloaded.