Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Q I am in the process of installing Ubuntu but the entire HDD is filled with partitions. Is there any way to figure out which partitions can safely be deleted? I've included a screen capture (above) of the partitions.
A (Thanks to SeijiSensei in the Ubuntu Forums) Rather than deleting partitions, I'd use the Windows disk manager (Control Panel > Computer Management > Disk Management) to shrink the Windows partition then give the newly freed space to Linux during installation.
Q I am very, very eager to install Tails but I would like to keep my current Ubuntu 15.10 + Windows 10 dual-boot config. Is it possible to triple boot with Tails?
A (Thanks to DK1993 and Bucky Ball in the Ubuntu Forums) Tails is supposed to be used in a live environment. It is supposed to run in RAM and delete all information when the computer is powered down. Otherwise, considering distros that are intended for installation on a hard drive, yes, you can triple-boot without issue. You just need free space on the drive to create a partition and install to it.
Q During boot up, I got this error message:
USB 2/3 device descriptor read64, error -110
It was repeated two more times, then there were some other error messages.
A This sounds crazy, but it works. Shutdown your computer, unplug it for five minutes, then plug it back in and start it up.
Q My vortexbox server is unreachable. Its IP address is 192.168.1.255
A (Thanks to SeijiSensei in the Ubuntu Forums) 192.168.1.255 is the “broadcast” address for the 192.168.1.0/24 network. Both 192.168.1.0 and 192.168.1.255 cannot be assigned to hosts. Give the server a different address.
Q I want to limit how much Internet bandwidth any one user can have.
A (Thanks to matt_symes in the Ubuntu Forums) You can do traffic shaping with the command: tc
You'll want to read the man page and look at tutorials on the net as it's a big area.
Top questions at Askubuntu
* How important is the sudo password? http://goo.gl/8NxLe6
* How to create a bootable .iso file from Ubuntu Live USB? http://goo.gl/FRsgmu
* Delete all files except specified files/folders using command-line? http://goo.gl/S1LCVG
* Get all image files with wget http://goo.gl/OVLx4n
* Reinstall base Ubuntu without formatting or removing manually installed packages http://goo.gl/RSQWrb
* Will Ubuntu 16.04 LTS server still use dpkg? http://goo.gl/mON1J4
* Is Linux getting less or more secure? http://goo.gl/EOAUc6
* 15.04 is available to update to. Will I lose my data? http://goo.gl/8Iz4w2
* No version of Ubuntu can be installed with any 6th generation Intel processor http://goo.gl/NXEXaR
Tips and Techniques Cleanup!
This has little to do with Linux, but I hope it's still interesting.
My “high-performance desktop” computer is several years old. In recent months, it has overheated if asked to do anything mildly computational. Even playing a Youtube video was enough to cause a problem.
I could tell this, because Conky, combined with lm-sensors and hdd-temp, displays all the temperatures all the time. The computer has a “production” partition and a “test” partition, and they each have Conky installed to tell me what I want to know.
Eventually, I broke down and addressed the problem. Open the case, take the CPU heatsink and fan out, and give them a good cleaning. I also noticed that the “thermal paste,” which connects the CPU to the heat sink, had broken down. New thermal paste, install the heatsink and fan again, button up the case, and all is well.
This is not a job for the faint-of-heart! If you are concerned about tackling it, take your computer to a trusted tech, and be prepared to pay a reasonable service fee. $100 is not too much. Why? Because even the most competent service person will occasionally have a slip of the fingers, and now we're talking a new motherboard, CPU and memory. Not cheap.
In my specific case, it worked beautifully. My CPU now idles at the same temperature as me, and even when rendering video, gets nowhere close to “too hot.” Once again, I have a “high-performance” computer.
Aside: in my test partition, I upgraded Xubuntu 15.04 to 15.10, and it went flawlessly. That's where I am writing this column.