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. Back when Pterodactyl abduction was not covered by insurance and my neighbour Barney Rubble got new digs, the company that I worked for was one of the few who did support for Wang equipment (as in Mandarin for “king”, not the other meaning). To support high-speed printing, they supplied what was known as ‘band printers’ (dot-matrix was very slow back then). This consisted of a steel band with letters printed on it, rotating at crazy velocity, and hammers like that of a typewriter striking the letters. A common fault would be for the band to jump off the spindles or moving out of phase. We would say it slipped. As a joke, we (the FSE’s) would enter “knit one, slip one” (and other variations of it) on our reports. One of the companies who had these was a spinning mill and they also made knitted things. Now, imagine the confusion when a new IT manager took over and started looking back at past errors to come up with a plan for the future… Don’t be afraid to write notes or make shell scripts for when you reinstall your OS, reinstallation is a fact – like Windows spying on you.
Bienvenue dans cette nouvelle édition de Questions et Réponses ! Dans cette rubrique, nous nous efforcerons de répondre à vos questions concernant Ubuntu. Assurez-vous d'ajouter les détails de la version de votre système d'exploitation et de votre matériel. J'essaierai d'enlever des questions toutes références qui risqueraient de vous identifier personnellement, mais il vaut mieux ne pas inclure des choses comme des numéros de série, des UUID ou des adresses IP.
Autrefois, quand l'enlèvement par Ptérodactyl n'était pas couvert par les assurances et que mon voisin des Pierrafeu a acheté une nouvelle grotte, la société pour laquelle je travaillais était parmi celles - et il y en avait très peu - qui faisait du service après vente pour le matériel Wang (comme dans le mandarin pour « Roi », pas comme l'autre [pénis]). Pour que vous puissiez faire de l'impression à haute vitesse, ils fournissaient ce qui s'appelaient des « imprimantes à bande » (à l'époque, l'impression matricielle était extrêmement lente). C'était une bande d'acier sur laquelle des lettres étaient imprimées, qui se tourner à une vitesse folle, et des « marteaux » comme ceux d'une machine à écrire, qui tapait les lettres. Un défaut courant était que la bande sauterait de ses axes ou se déplacerait de façon déphasée. Nous disions qu'elle a dérapé. Comme plaisanterie, nous (les FSE ou ingénieurs de maintenance sur site) mettraient « une maille à l'endroit, une maille glissée » (et des variantes) dans nos rapports. Une des sociétés qui utilisaient ces imprimantes était une usine de filatures qui fabriquait aussi des produits tricotés. Vous pouvez imaginer le chaos quand un nouveau chef informatique commençait à regarder les erreurs du passé pour pouvoir formuler un plan pour l'avenir… N'ayez pas peur d'écrire des notes ou de créer des scripts shell pour quand vous réinstallerez votre OS, la réinstallation est un fait, comme Windows qui vous espionne.
Q: Hello. Something is definitely wrong with my installation, I suspect it is the hard drive of my HP Compaq laptop. It is ancient. How can I check for bad sectors on my drive?
A: I would suggest booting from a USB thumb drive and doing this, but you can do it on a live system too: sudo badblocks -v /dev/sdaX> badblocks.txt where X is your drive. You can run : sudo fdisk -l to find out what that number should be.
Q: Hi, I need some help here. I have an old proline monitor that is 1280 x 1024, yet it keeps detecting and switching to 1024 x 768. I prefer the square monitors to the stretched widescreen ones, and would like to keep these. Somebody told me to run dpkg - -reconfigure, but I broke it before like that. The monitor runs at 60Hz or 75Hz. Please help me with this as it is annoying as hell.
A: Firstly, those old Proline’s are not quite HD. The command you are looking for is xrandr, XOrg’s own monitor configuration utility. First query your monitor with: xrandr -q , this will list all the modes. Possibly yours will be: xrandr –output VGA1 –mode 1280×1024 –rate 60.00 if it is connected to your VGA port. The nice thing is you can put xrandr statements (as above) inside your .xinitrc and it will work. Reference: https://xorg-team.pages.debian.net/xorg/howto/use-xrandr.html
Q: My Ubuntu seems messed up. If Ubuntu wasn’t so damn friendly, I’d go back to Debian, but sometimes the quirks drive me mad. Sometimes it connects to wireless, sometimes not. Then there is that ‘special’ case where the taskbar icon runs up and down through the bars, almost like it is flashing or stuck on initializing. I don’t know if it is connected or connecting or what state it is in. I usually just reboot my laptop. I didn’t have this on Ubuntu 16.04. Is there a simple way to check?
A: Yes. You can use nmcli. It is quite a versatile command. nmcli - -help will bring up the basics. What you will not see in that list is the ‘d’ option (read the manpage for all the switches). Use the command: nmcli d (no hyphen) This will bring up your devices and type and the state. (connected or not)
Q: My Ubuntu Budgie 18.4 has a line in my task bar. How do I get rid of it?
A: This is very little info to go on. A. You could have a LCD malfunction. B. It could be a theme, like Pocillo-light-slim. C. It can even be your wallpaper! Without more information, I just cannot tell.
Reply: Hahaha yes, you were right, do I feel sheepish!
(Not sure what we were right about – he never got back to us.)
Q: Before I ask my question below, can I just say that I enjoy you magazine and podcast. I have been reading and listening ever since leaving Windows in 2012 and moving to Ubuntu. It's a great effort. Now to my question: I have an old CanoScan LiDE 60 USB powered flatbed scanner that I have faithfully carted around Australia for years. It just worked with Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04 & 18.04, and it has served us well doing entire photo albums and all our office work. We currently live in a camper trailer so we keep any essential paperwork digitally - we have no room for filing cabinets and the flatbed without a printer means it is easy to stow. Unfortunately, this old scanner is now playing up and ready for replacement. I tried the CanoScan 300 & 400, but could not get them to work with Ubuntu 18.04. I've checked the hardware compatibility site but it seems out-of-date for flatbeds. Can you help with a flatbed scanner that will work out of the box with Ubuntu 18.04?
A: Thank you for the kind words. The CanoScan 300 is not Linux compatible. That said, a user on the Late night Linux Telegram channel got it to work using this link: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1107632/install-canon-lide-300-400-on-ubuntu-18-04
After some investigation (pardon the long wait), it seems that in the new scanners, only the Epson flatbed scanners are SANE compliant out of the box. Tested with SANE drivers and Simplescan, it works.
Q: Hey guys, I was trying to install Deflemask, but can’t get it to work. My computer uses Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS. Gnome 3.28.2. Their website forum is forbidden 403 for some reason. http://deflemask.com. My problem is described in the manual tho. “This is usually due to a missing library, remember to get OpenGL (sudo apt-get install freeglut3), if you are on a 64-bit distro, you have to Download 32-bit libraries (sudo apt-get install ia32-libs)”. It says it is missing files. I tried to install what they said, but I must be too dumb. I just don’t get it. ia32libs says no installation candidate. You gotta help me, I never felt this stupid in windows.
A: I have never even heard of Deflemask, let alone use it. I tried the installation and got the dll shuffle too. Made me feel like Using Fedora 2 back in the day and breaking it. Do not feel ‘dumb’, rejoice! It means you are learning more and realising there is more to know. Instead of ia32libs, use (t)rusty old dpkg: sudo dpkg –add-architecture i386 and update your repo’s. (That is two dashes, the word processor sometimes turns it into one long dash.) Then install:
sudo apt install libsdl-image1.2:i386
sudo apt install libgtk2.0-0:i386
sudo apt install libglu1-mesa:i386
(note the “:i386” at the end). It should run fine after that.
P.S. I really like this software, maybe we can do an article on it sometime.
Q: Is this a good laptop for Ubuntu and CAD? <link to deal removed> (Cherry Trail SoC 2GB laptop, 32GB SSD.)
A: No. CAD requires a graphics card, unless you are willing to suffer in silence; failing that , a very powerful CPU. (Cherry trail is an Atom CPU SoC , like a Raspberry Pi). CAD is memory hungry, 2GB will barely cover it. Try for an HD screen, 1366 is usable, but will strain your eyes on a 14-inch display. As for Ubuntu, not sure, it may need Raspbian…
Q: Hey guys! Can you please help me, I have searched the internet empty, but can’t find a solution. Run Xubuntu 18.04 with the latest Firefox, and I have tried all the about:config tricks, but I can’t seem to fix the screen tearing when scrolling. I have installed nvidia proprietary drivers, added compton, etc. The screen tears about 2/3 the way down. I want to smash my screen, that’s how frustrated I am.
A: Dear frustrated, open Firefox preferences and under general go to performance. Now untick “smooth scrolling” - if this does not fix your problem, get back to me. (yes it sounds counter intuitive, but it works).
Q: My machine is an i5/8GB with Ubuntu 18.04. I want to theme Geany. I have become used to the dark interface of Sublime text. My problem is this: Geany themes only cover the code pane.
A: This one also threw me a curve ball. However, there is a youtube video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In9tvv_ge9I
Q: My question is about Focus Writer. I have installed it from synaptic as I did not want a snap package. I can’t edit a theme and I am feeling very stupid. Could you redpill me?
A: The short answer is that you can not edit default themes. You can, however, duplicate a theme and edit that. It will move to “custom”, or you can even create your own that will be editable after saving in the ‘custom’ tab.
Q: hey, my problem is my ubuntu is hanging up. sometimes with graphic corruption. It has never happened before. This is my specs. <output of neofetch removed.> It is not overheating. What could be wrong?
A: If you take a gander at that output, you will see: Disk (/): 3G / 410G (99%) - fourth from the bottom. Boot into ‘advanced’ or ‘recovery’ mode and use the make space option. If it fails to make space, boot from a live medium and delete some stuff. It may be wise to install Stacer to monitor your disk usage and clean up some space.
Q: I am so addicted to 2048-qt game in Ubuntu. How can I hide it so my supervisor can’t see what I am doing?
A: The short answer is you can not. However, there is a command-line version (with graphics) that will show up as terminal open and not a game, but you never heard it from me.
Q: Help! I can’t log into my Skype any more. It just says that I have been logged out for security reasons. The more I log in, the more it logs me out immediately. Have I been hacked?
A: No, it’s Microshaft at its finest. You need to uninstall, reboot, reinstall the latest version, and go through the ‘forgot password’ routine and reset your password. Only then will you be able to log in. Failing that, you may have to make a new profile.
Q: How can I create a shortcut to point to the default application for reading mail, without specifying what it is? I know about mailto: but this does not work well. I am creating a vanilla desktop with applications on it. I want to roll it out across multiple machines, but the machines may / may not be the same, but it must be standardized. If that makes any sense?
A: That sounds like an interesting project, will you keep us informed about your progress? You can try: exo-open –launch MailReader %u in the command parameters. It is unashamedly stolen from: “exo-open –launch WebBrowser %u” (That is two dashes, word processors do funny things.)