Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Q When does Ubuntu Mate 16.04 support end?
A The “Mate” parts will get updates for three years, the underlying Ubuntu parts will be updated for five years. This is typical of the *buntu distros.
Q Is it safe to write to an NTFS partition from Linux?
A Some people report various problems in Windows after writing to the C: drive from Linux. However, there is agreement that it's safe to write to other NTFS partitions. Sometimes, you really need to do it, for example to copy a large file to an external drive so you can take it to friends who use Windows.
Q I'm a Data Warehouse developer, mostly Informatica and SQL. I would love to have a local install of ORACLE and/or DB2 and SQL Server for that matter. I would prefer an older version, not cloud based. If any of you could recommend a source for a local installation of a DB, I would appreciate it.
A (Thanks to SeijiSensei in the Ubuntu Forums) I've used PostgreSQL for a couple of decades now and would not choose any other SQL server for Linux. PostgreSQL has excellent command-line utilities to create users and databases – tasks that are unnecessarily complex in MySQL. It has a solid ODBC driver so it can communicate with Windows software. I have a couple of PG databases that I manage with Microsoft Access that way.
Tips and Techniques
Meat and potatoes
Many of the questions and answers in this column come from the Ubuntu Forums. However, they are not representative of what appears in the Forums.
I try to avoid duplication, so the most popular themes from the Forums – the meat and potatoes – have appeared long ago. The most popular themes are: • My Wi-Fi doesn't work, • Sound doesn't work the way I expect it to, • I installed an update and now something is broken.
There are a few very patient people in the forums who help with Wi-Fi questions. They help people to identify the actual Wi-Fi chip in their computers, and, in most cases, how to get it working. If you have an issue with Wi-Fi, I urge you to search in the Forums first, because you will probably find the solution is already there. You don't need to ask a question.
The key piece of information is the identification of the Wi-Fi chip. In most cases, looking at the output of lsusb and lspci will show you what it is. Knowing that you have a Dell Dimension is only marginally helpful, but the useful information may look like this:
Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR2413/AR2414 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5005G(S) 802.11bg] (rev 01)
So my Google search would be: Wi-Fi AR5005G ubuntuforums
More than with Wi-Fi, there are a host of possible issues with sound. I plug in my earphones and expect the sound to switch from the built-in speakers. How can I boost the output from my microphone? Why doesn't my HDMI connection include sound? And many more.
Once again, identifying the sound chip is useful. For example, lspci output:
Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)
And once again, there's a good chance you can find the answer to your issue by doing a search.
For problems caused by an update, there are things you can do ahead of time which may help. First is having a detailed identification of the components of your system. My suggestion is to run these commands:
cd Desktop
sudo lshw -html > config.htm
Now copy config.htm from your desktop to a flash drive, so you can view it on another computer.
Second, figure out how to use grub to boot into a kernel which is not the latest one. Here's a web page to read: https://askubuntu.com/questions/82140/how-can-i-boot-with-an-older-kernel-version
Finally, have a Boot Repair DVD ready to go, before you need it. Instructions: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
Between the Ubuntu Forums and Askubuntu, the answer to any problem you encounter is likely sitting there waiting for you. All you need is a good Google search to find it.