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.
Is there anything preventing you from switching to Linux full time? Microsoft Office is sometimes touted as an “unmissable” application, and it is available for Linux. However there was a time when the same was said for Lotus. If your business did not have Lotus, you were considered a Philistine! Lotus, however had its own problems. Emails sent from windows had the winmail.dat attachment, etc. Today, Lotus notes prices itself out of the market and is almost not relevant any more. So how “unmissable” could it really have been? Back in the day, the airlines were all about unmissable applications when switching to OS/2 WARP – I just wish they were so concerned with missing luggage! If you have an “unmissable” application, let us know and tell us why.
Q: Gentlemen, I have an issue where my budgie panel goes missing completely or some of the icons go missing every time there is a big-ish update. My Ubuntu Budgie 18.04 just updated again and I can’t access my menu or even turn it off. I don’t want to keep turning it off by the power button, as I am afraid of disk corruption. What am I to do?
A: You *should be able to simply replace it with a command from the terminal: nohup budgie-panel –replace& Here is a link: https://github.com/solus-project/budgie-desktop/issues/289
Q: My laptop is a Lenovo that I got secondhand. I have just installed Xubuntu 18.04 that I have downloaded at the library at the beginning of last year. I run the software updater and get an error that I cannot update as there is an error with the repositories. The iso image is about a year old; have things changed that much since I downloaded it? I installed offline as I do not have internet connection at home. My previous install was online at my friend’s house, and worked fine on a Dell Optiplex with a Core2Duo, so I know the iso is fine.
A: The problem I think you are getting can be fixed with:
sudo apt - -fix-broken install
There has been an apt update since the image was released. However, run the update from the command-line to make sure:
sudo apt update and peruse the output.
Q: I would like to watch IPL on my laptop. The screen size is 1366 x 768. I have ubuntu 18.04.
A: I am not sure what the question is here. 1366 x768 is a non-HD screen on a laptop. It also basically just widens a 1024 x 768 screen. However the aspect ratio is correct. 1366 divided by 768 and 1920 divided by 1080 should both give you about 1.777. So if your question is about scaling, it should not look out of place.
Q: Hi Guys, is there a way I can reset my Ubuntu without losing my data? At the moment I create a new user for this, but it is a tedious process. I don’t use ‘Ubuntu’ Ubuntu, but Makulu Linux, and it’s great with all its configuration options. Sometimes I get lost messing with it and would like to go back to the way it was.
A: I cannot really speak for Makulu Linux (I do not have a copy on hand), but in Ubuntu you can use:
dconf reset -f /
Q: Somehow I went and deleted two documents that I thought I could get again. The saying that ‘nothing ever goes missing from the internet’ is not true. I need to recover these documents, but I have deleted them from my trash a while ago. What recovery software is there for Ubuntu and how can one un-delete one’s deleted files?
A: I will not go into data recovery in a questions and answers, but If you would like an article on it, drop us another line. I will point you to a website that you can read up on it: https://itsfoss.com/recover-deleted-files-linux/ Just remember that if you have physically overwritten the sectors the files were in, the chances of recovery are slim, no matter what recovery software you use.
Q: I have upgraded from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, but somehow Kabikaboo is missing. I have tried sudo apt install kabikaboo, but it says that the package is not found.
A: Not that I had any idea what Kabikaboo was before your email, but it seems there are unmet python dependencies in Ubuntu 18.04. I fear your package has fallen by the wayside. (I do not see any files on the sourceforge page.) See: https://launchpad.net/kabikaboo
I can try to help by suggesting alternatives: Writetype is awesome (http://www.bernsteinforpresident.com) or https://itsfoss.com/open-source-tools-writers/ or https://www.linuxlinks.com/novelists/ or you could ask on the snap / flatpack / appimage forums for someone to package it for you into a snap / flatpack / appimage.
Q: I want to make a web page in Ubuntu and I have reserved a domain name. How do I paste pictures and text into my web page? My machine is an i3 with 4GB of memory and Ubuntu 18.04.
A: I am afraid it is not as simple as that. Web sites are not quite WYSIWYG (there are some site providers that have simple designs). Behind the scenes, it’s all html and CSS. Youtube has great tutorials on html and CSS. I can recommend Geany to write your html code in, which is available from the Ubuntu store.
Q: Good day, team. I am writing about something weird, but not life threatening. Sometimes when I use LibreOffice - it is updated - on Ubuntu 18.04, I get the waiting mouse cursor. Nothing is waiting and I can continue as normal. I did not have this on Ubuntu 14.04. I skipped 16.04 so I can’t comment on that. Still, the spinning ball is very distracting when I am busy. I have tried searching for answers on duckduckgo and searx, but came up empty-handed. What can I do about it?
A: Team? No team, it is only little old me. Thank goodness it is not life threatening! My advice to you is, change your mouse theme. If that does not work, switch to OnlyOffice (www.onlyoffice.com) or WPS office and see if the problem follows. Off the bat, it is hard to say what the cause could be. Have you checked “dmesg” output?
Q: I uninstalling programs in ubuntu software. Mistake; I click uninstall ubuntu software. Afraid reboot. Ubuntu software will be gone. Sorry bad English. How to fix?
A: I am going to assume you uninstalled your Ubuntu software centre, and you do not want to reboot as you will lose your software? First go get a beer, this is serious. Next press control + alt+ t to open a terminal or click on your terminal icon to open it. Now enter:
sudo apt install gnome-software
and let it complete. The hard work is done. You can now safely reboot.
Q: Hello. I am confused. I have bought a Crucial 512 SSD for my Lenovo i3 laptop. It’s supposed to be fast now. Windows booting went down from like a minute to a 20 seconds. Ubuntu is still like 30 seconds to boot. What is going on? I am dual-booting Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu. I have 8GB of memory.
A: All I can tell you is: it depends. Check the boot log. Usually it is waiting for network or bluetooth. Main culprits! The Linux support from vendors on those are usually bad. You can try booting with network and bluetooth disabled and see. Do you perhaps have readahead set up? Also Windows does a slight-of-hand, where it drops you to the desktop, but it is still booting in the background, whereas Linux finishes booting first. Boot into Linux and immediately open a terminal and type dmesg. Do not bother piping it to a pager, what you need is at the end. The time things take to initialize is on the left. If there is a big jump anywhere near the end, that is your problem. (Lets say at 4.55s the network is up then you have a jump to 28s for bluetooth, you know what the issue is).
Q: Xubuntu n00b here. I want to know about the menu. Why is it that when I click the settings icon in the bottom of the menu and then go to a section, I have the option to go back to all settings. Yet, when I click on settings in the menu and select an option, like desktop, I can’t return to all settings? I am sure it’s not me. Also if I resize the menu, I can’t resize the panes inside?
A: The Xubuntu menu is the whisker menu if I am remembering correctly. If you open settings, it is assumed you are tweaking multiple settings, and if you use the menu to go to an option directly, it is assumed you were aiming just for that. As for resizing, I cannot tell you as I am on Budgie at the moment and away from home. Feel free to ask on the Xubuntu or Xfce forums regarding. I will take a stab and say the ratio may be hard coded.
Q: I live in an apartment building in the old part of town, the rent is cheap, but I can’t afford internet other than what I get on my mobile. I took my craptop – a pre-core2 pentium - to the library and installed ‘remember the milk’. It just gave me a blank page when I tried to use it at home. I tethered my phone and it seemed to work, but, when untethered, it stopped working again. What else do I need to download to get it working at home? Google is useless
A: Don’t quote me, but I am sure ‘Remember the Milk’ is an electron application, ie. a front end for a web page. So no web page means no application. You can try an alternative like Wunderlist maybe?