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, UUIDs or IP addresses. If your question does not appear immediately, it is just because there is such a lot, and I do them, first-come-first-served.
Bienvenue de retour dans un autre épisode de Q. ET R.! Dans cette rubrique, nous essayerons de répondre à vos questions sur Ubuntu. Assurez-vous d’ajouter des détails de la version de votre système d’exploitation et votre matériel. J’essaierai d’enlever de vos questions toutes chaînes qui pourraient vous identifier personnellement, mais il vaut mieux ne pas inclure des choses comme des numéros de série, des UUID ou des adresses IP. Si votre question n’apparaît pas tout de suite, ce n’est que parce qu’il y en a beaucoup et que je les traite sur la base de premier venu, premier servi.
We live in a “Socially” connected world. We chat on Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord and more. I read an article that the current generation would rather type than receive a phone call (search thegardian.com for silenced ringtones). I wonder about the “sterility” of it all; yes, these are the things that keep me up at night. On the positive side, text has no emotions, unless we add them, hence emoticons, I suppose. So any emotions you add are purely your own. I was assisting someone via WhatApp, but I was logged into their PC via Anydesk and also trying to get past a “support bot” (the ones where they try to brush you off so they don’t have to employ real people) at the same time for something unrelated. Their Anydesk had sound on, so I could hear them talking as well as system sounds. I won’t repeat what they said, but suffice to say, it wasn’t nice. I recall meeting one of our members @Swift110 on our Telegram channel this way, driving, and typing, yes I know, so it was very terse, as one cannot dot the i’s and cross the t’s when your attention is on the road. He never took it to be rude or personal, and he got his problem sorted. If he had huffed himself like this person did, for no other reason than adding emotion where there was none, I doubt he would have gotten sorted. Text is just that, but as we evolve in this online, connected world, is adding emotion to cold clinical text not a subliminal cry for human contact?
Nous vivons dans un monde connecté par les « réseaux sociaux ». Nous tchattons sur Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord et plus encore. J’ai lu un article qui disait que la génération actuelle préfère taper que de recevoir un appel téléphonique (recherchez dans thegardian.com pour trouver des sonneries silencieuses). Je me pose des questions sur la stérilité » de tout cela ; et, oui, ce sont des choses qui m’empêche de dormir. Côté positif, le texte n’a pas d’émotions à moins de les ajouter, d’où les émoticônes, je suppose. Ainsi, toute émotion que vous ajoutez n’appartient qu’à vous. J’aidais quelqu’un via WhatsApp, mais j’étais connecté à leur PC via Anydesk et j’essayais en plus de passer outre un « support bot » (ceux qui essaient de vous décourager afin de ne pas devoir employer des êtres humains) en même temps pour quelque chose qui n’avait rien à voir avec le reste. Le son était activé sur leur Anydesk et je pouvais donc les entendre parler ainsi que les sons système. Je ne répéterai pas ce qu’ils ont dit, mais il me suffit de dire que ce n’était pas gentil. Je me souviens d’avoir rencontré un de nos membres @Swift110 sur notre groupe Telegram comme ça, tout en conduisant et en tapant – oui, je sais et c’était donc très laconique, car on ne peut pas mettre les barres sur les « t » et les points sur les « i » quand votre attention est sur la route. Il n’a jamais eu la sensation d’être visé personnellement ou d’impolitesse et j’ai résolu son problème. S’il s’était mis en colère comme cette autre personne, pour aucune raison sauf l’ajout d’une émotion où il n’y en avait pas, je ne pense pas que j’aurais résolu son problème. Le texte n’est que cela, mais tandis qu’on évolue dans ce monde connecté en ligne, est-ce que l’ajout d’émotion au texte froid et clinique n’est pas un cri subliminal demandant un contact humain ?
Q: Can I use the software centre OFFLINE, and how do I do that as it just freezes at downloading software catalogue, with the progress bar at 99%. I am on Ubuntu 20.04, but I want to try 21.04 next. People just give me stupid answers.
A: Yes and no. Yes, if you have the CDROM as a repository or maybe add an offline volume; that way you can grab from there, but you need to download the files to install them and that is not possible if there is no network. As to the “freezing/hanging”, just wait, it has to time out. You should be able to uninstall software from there once it has, and install stuff already in your cache.
Q: My keyboard and mouse are the only USB devices in my PC. When I turn it on, Windows says “USB device malfunction”, but in Ubuntu there is no peep. I am dual-booting on a ghetto black box with an i5 with 16GB RAM and AMD 5700 gfx card. My keyboard and mouse work anyway. Why is Windows warning me, but Ubuntu is not?
A: There is too little info here, but do you maybe have a disco-disco keyboard that maybe lights up with things programmed to it in Windows, that Linux does not support? It could be that it is drawing just a tiny bit more current that way. Also make sure about the USB statement; there may be a USB receiver for something in some arb port too.
Q: I uninstalled snapd, but cecconoid is available only as a snap, so I installed it again, but now cecconoid is not showing up in snap –list, why is that?
A: As far as I am aware, removing snapd will remove your snaps too. Just reinstall the game.
Q: How do I stop Shotwell from launching every time I plug my phone in to charge? Seriously, it’s annoying.
A: You need to open your settings and navigate to removable devices and unselect it there.
Q: Greetings. I have a Canon MB2070 Printer that just won’t print on Ubuntu 18.04. It replaced my ageing Canon printer – This one’s older / smaller brother MB2040. I can see the print and scan in the printer tab, but I can’t print a test page. I have even tried CUPS and it adds another Canon2070USB printer to the list, so now it shows 2 printers and a fax. All I get is empty page after empty page.
A: I had a look at the manufacturer page, you can download the “debian” driver and install that. It is the third option down, don’t take the first one as that is rpm built in the zipped file. Unzip the driver (right-click ‘extract here’), and run the “./install” file from your terminal and follow the prompts. Remember to delete all those autoadded printers first.
Q: This will blow your mind. I have a black box PC with Ubuntu Budgie 20.04 with a D-link USB WiFi adapter and a USB Canon Maxify printer. When I do a scan for available scanners, the D-Link adapter picks up as one. So when I scan, there is no internet. When there is internet, the scanner is not detected. How do I solve this? <dmesg output removed> <image removed>
A: The first thing you need to do is remove “ippusbxd“ and restart. Know that you cannot use Simple Scan any more. There are other options for scanning, I suggest using Xsane as it has decent options.
Q: I am trying to install software from the software centre, but it just seems to be hanging there, no rhyme or reason.
A: Try opening a terminal and typing:
sudo dpkg –configure -a
Q: I tried asking my question on askubuntu, but the ***holes just closed the question and downvoted me. I am hoping you can help me. I have been updating fine for months. Now on 20.04 I am getting failure messages with automatic and manual updates. I tried sudo apt-get upgrade and update commands. How can I fix this?
A: This depends on your error – and you will see it when you do the manual update in the terminal. I will point you here: https://www.maketecheasier.com/fix-ubuntu-update-errors/ and here: https://net2.com/how-to-fix-ubuntu-update-errors/ as you did not tell me the precise error.
Q: I have made a lot of screenshots from Youtube, but I need to cut out the logo on all of them. It’s a lot of images. Instead of me wasting countless hours into the wee morning, is there a way for me to do it in one go?
A: You want imagemagick. You can use a ‘for loop’ to walk through the images. The base would be something like this:
convert image_in.jpg -crop <width x height+left+top> image_out.jpg
If you have a server with a disk array, you could also process them in parallel, but you need good I/O. https://imagemagick.org/script/command-line-options.php
Q: This is not working for me: https://www.jamescoyle.net/how-to/1974-how-to-fix-a-full-boot-partition-on-linux, in particular, dpkg –list 'linux-image*' ??? “dpkg: error: cannot access archive '*.deb': No such file or directory“, and I need to clear out all the old kernels as the partition is getting full! My Ubuntu is 20.04 and my SSD is only 16GB.
A: The “cannot access” should be your clue. You need to run it with sudo. Also try using: sudo apt-get autoremove –purge and follow the prompts. I always recommend using Synaptic package manager, as it is visual and you can mark kernels for complete removal.
Q: Hi, all the information I find on Google is related to Ubuntu Gnome, but I am on Xubuntu, and I need to disable my keypad whilst trying. I have a Dell Latitude 5140 and Xubuntu 20.04 that I dual-boot with Windows.
A: On XFCE, the setting is hidden in a sub-panel, go to settings→ mouse and touchpad, then below the device, you have “buttons and feedback”, then another tab, “touchpad”, what you want is in there.
Q: I was reading up on slideshow software and I am very confused. What would be the best software I need to use? It must be easy for a technically challenged person like myself. I want it to look nice, as it is mainly for family photos of my grandchildren, but I can’t be bothered to niggle over timings and cropping and whatnot.
A: “Best” is always subjective. I have never really used that functionality, but I have heard good things about imagination slideshow maker. If you would like us to run a tutorial on it, let us know and we will include it in a future issue.
Q: PT [04.07.21 20:58] When I look at info images of other distributions, like arch, the people always have like 1000 packages, but Ubuntu seems to have 2000-3000. Why is that? Is this the bloat people talk about?
A: Ubuntu caters for the everyday computer user, so it includes things like printer and scanner packages, backup software, etc. If you add a package like blender or a music player, all the dependencies it downloads are also counted towards those packages. These other distributions are bare and you need to add all of that. It is simply a design choice and not “bloat”.
Q: I was watching a Youtube video and the instructor made his terminal bigger with a keypress. I have the same Xubuntu setup, but mine does not zoom bigger. I wanted to make screen recording with the terminal as big as possible, but dragging it with the mouse only makes the canvas bigger. If that makes any sense?
A: Zooming in Xubuntu is done with the ALT key and mouse wheel, but I suspect you did not pay real close attention. (One terminal looks a lot like the next). This is why I use Sakura instead of the standard terminal, so that when I teach, I can use the CTRL and ‘+’ keys to make it bigger and I suspect your teacher does too.
Q: Where can I look to see why my wifi is just turning off. Coming from a Windows background, I can look at the event viewer.
A: There are also log file viewers for Linux, but it may just be easier and faster to peruse the output of the ‘dmesg’ command or ‘sudo journalctl’. WiFi that just turns off is usually a power saving setting, just by-the-by.
Q: I have returned to Ubuntu after a few years, actually it was Ubuntu 8.04 last. I used to get my open-source games and apps from getdeb and playdeb, but the website seems spammy now.
A: Those places are gone with the wind, I am afraid. You can try pling.com, navigate to apps → games, and grab what you want there; alternatively, they also have a store, like your software store, that you can peruse and install from.
Q: I was drawn into a few interview rounds and was wondering what were good questions to test Linux knowledge with, but not questions and answers on the internet, as those can be learned parrot-fashion.
A: I find that switches are a good way to see if someone has used Linux or not. They may know the commands, but do they know how to use the switches? For instance the tar command; what switches would you use to extract a file? Then follow that up with, why those specific switches? That tells me a lot more than if the person knows “what is a kernel”.
Q: I am trying to use Rufus via WINE in Ubuntu 21.04 to write some liteOS images to a USB drive. I just feel stupid, I can’t get this right. How difficult is it to burn an ISO to USB thumb drive?
A: My first question is why flog yourself? I am not sure what liteOS is (searching brings up both Windows and Linux), but if it is Linux-based, you have a USB writer program built in, or you can grab Balena etcher. If the images are Windows-based, you can use WoeUSB, Unetbootin or even Ventoy.
Q: I had to sell my computer after Covid and built up one from random spares. The mainboard has a B75 chipset and a gen3 CPU. The only “modern” thing in there is a 256GB SSD. However, I cannot boot Ubuntu from a USB stick. It just gives; no boot device, insert boot device. The boot order is correct, and boot from USB is enabled.
Intel’s website for the mainboard is dead, so I am not sure if I have the latest BIOS patch. If I can just get Ubuntu on it, I can function again.
A: B75 boards are notorious for that kind of thing, it has something to do with fast boot, I think. I can’t tell you why, only that you need to plug the SSD on another SATA port when you boot with USB (after changing it in the BIOS), and it should boot. Enabling hot-plug is a good idea. Then, you can move the SSD back to the original SATA port (usually 1.5 and 3GB/s ports?). Then set the boot order again. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Q: I downloaded and installed Ubuntu 21.04. I wasn’t paying attention and used the whole disk. Is there a way I can get my stuff back on the Windows partition that is now not there?
A: Yes, I would suggest using another Windows machine and load something like Easus recovery on it and recover it there (do not install anything on the disk you are trying to recover as it will just overwrite things you may want to get back). Linux has recovery programs, but the proprietary Windows ones are a lot more targeted towards Windows files. If you want to use Linux, you will need to install testdisk and photorec.
Q: So I switched from Gnome to Cinnamon and now I want to switch to KDE, but it says I have broken packages. When I try to repair it, it wants to remove 1789 packages of my 2940 packages, that can’t be right?
A: That is why you don’t just snap on another desktop. Yes, I know it is possible, but there is always something that supersedes another component that does the same work. Vanilla Gnome is not the Gnome that ships with Ubuntu, for instance, that is why it takes so long for Canonical to test and tweak it for you. You also now invite Gnome things and configs to sit next to KDE things and configs, and installed apps may get confused as which to use, etc. Just consider it bad practice. Write it off as a lesson learned, and install Kubuntu fresh. (It will be a lot quicker than trying to fix it.)
Q: Does Ubuntu work with secure-boot yet?
A: Yes.