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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.
So, the JingPad A1 has come and gone, I suppose by the time this is published in 2 months, things may be different, but I think it died somehow. CuteFishOS last had action on July 3 (and a nothing the month before), another promising project seems to be dead in the water. Why do we have the spectacular rise & fall of Linux projects? As soon as something “nice” comes to Linux, it seems to go silent. I recall such projects as PearOS. Not the thing that parades itself around as that now, but PearOS 7, I think it was the last decent version that was faster than the OS it was based on with nifty tools. PearOS 8 was incomplete iirc and the website died when it go “released”. We could go full conspiracy here and say M$/Apple paid them to stop, but it seems unlikely. I suspect the final message was to mess with us: “Pear OS is no longer available for download. Its future is now in hands of a company who wants to remain anonymous for the moment. The concept has pleased them it and now wants to continue and improve the system for their own products. I can not give a name but it is a very large company well known …” What causes a developer to abandon a project, whilst other projects live on? Money does make the world go ‘round and I have seen brilliant projects canned because the profit margin would be too small. The business side of things kills the innovation. Is this the reason Red Hat wants to drop games from the repository? Should there be a Kickstarter-type place for Linux projects? Could it be attitude? As with anything in life, practise makes perfect and I am thankful to my current colleagues for letting me do all the work whilst on shift, I could look at it and go; why should I do it all, or, take the practice an stay on top of the game. I learn more, I don’t get bored, I get my muscle memory. I do not see a down side. So is it attitude that needs to change? I don’t know the answer to these questions as I don’t run any open source projects. If you have any insights on these issues, let us know.
Q: Hi. I have started to learn Ubuntu server and my “server” is an i3 with 128gb SSD and 4G memory. While it all goes swimmingly, I find that I run out of space quite fast. I have Ubuntu Desktop and I know disk usage analyser, but my server has no GUI. Df -h just tells me my drive is at 99%. How do I know what is taking up all the space? I have an image, so I just restore that when I run out, so no real biggie.
A: What you are looking for is du instead of df. If you do a:
du -a | sort -n -r | more
you will see the biggest files & folders at the top. Now simply slice the top few you want to look at with: head -n 10, for instance, to replace the “more” once you know how many lines you want.
Q: Here I am transitioning to a new laptop from my 10year old one. It is flush with all the bells ‘n whistles. I go to install Ubuntu 22.04 and it does not show the option “install alongside Windows”. It came with Windows 11 pre-installed.
A:You need to make space on your had drive for Ubuntu to live. You may also need to re-install windows as I have had issues will Dell, where the drive controller is installed as “raid-on” in the BIOS and you need to have it in AHCI for Ubuntu. (changing the way the controller talks to thee drive, may result in windows not booting.) Each manufacturer has little quirks like this. Secure boot is another option that may be hindering you.
Q: I want to install Docker, but I'm getting bash: version: No such file or directory' error. All from here: https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/ It is driving me up the wall.
A: The docker site may be out of date or may be the “recommended” way, I’m not sure. Thanks to Daniel (Fleabite) for the easy answer:
sudo apt install docker.io
Q: Can I install plain Ubuntu on my Raspberry Pi 3b+? It had Ubuntu Mate on before but it behaved sluggishly. I was looking at forums for the best option to do so, but the advice is all mixed.
A: Don’t. Yes I know it is a horrible answer but unless you install the IOT core version, it will be as slow as turtles stampeding through peanut butter. You can save yourself a lot of grey hair by sticking to Raspbian.
Q: I have a docker container with Ubuntu and I wanted to use the pip installer but it gives error SystemError: Cannot compile 'Python.h'. Perhaps you need to install python-dev|python-dev ? It’s the latest version btw.
A: Have you considered installing a different version of Python in a virtual environment and try it that way?
Q: I recently updated Vbox versions with addons and it loads, but as I create a new VirtualMachine and start it from a virtual CDROM in order to install Ubuntu22.04 as guest I get this error: The VirtualBox kernel modules do not match this version of VirtualBox. Executing '/sbin/vboxconfig' may correct this. Make sure that you are not mixing builds of VirtualBox from different sources.
A: That last bit is telling, as it seems that you may have downloaded a debian or Mint .deb file to install it. I cannot really help you as I need more information, but I suggest backing up you VHD’s and purging VirtualBox and installing it fresh(not from that .deb). I have seen something like this before, but I cannot remember the outcome. If your OS is older, you may need to add a PPA to get the latest version of VirtualBox.
Q: I was looking for a DR solution for Ubuntu. Something I don’t have to constantly manage. Can you help?
A: I am going to assume Disaster Recovery? I have heard good things about this: https://relax-and-recover.org/ though in my previous job we used Veeam, it was finnicky, but it worked.
Q: I’m new to Ubuntu server, but I have been running Ubuntu desktop since 7. I have a logfile that stopped recording, but it made a new one with today’s date. This is all fine, but I have a log reader reading off the old file. What are my options?
A: My advice would be to rename your old one to say, log_old with the mv command and then name the new one to the name the old one had, say, log or whatever. You could also configure your log reader to read the new filename.
Q: This may sound weird, but I have two Ubuntu web servers and one nginx load balancer as my lab setup. I have had 404 errors and my friend would say it is the load balancer, how would you know that so fast? How can I learn this dark magic?
A: Actually, your friend would be wrong. A 404 is a file not found error, meaning the file is not found on the host, so query passed the load balancer to the host, a 500 error would indicate that the load balancer cannot find the host. Have a look here: https://kb.iu.edu/d/bfrc
Q: I want to stream live gameplay to twitch from my Ubuntu machine. I am told that I need to use OBS studio, but how do I actually do that? On Android it is easy, you download the app and go live.
A: I am sorry, this I know NOTHING about, if we have any readers who have experience with this, please email us: misc@fullcirclemagazine.org
Q: I have set up my machine with the latest Ubuntu and set it up the same as my old 18.04 one (Both Dell 3020 midi towers). Somehow stuff like slack just give me a black screen. There is NO Nvidia involved. Give me the short version please.
A: OK. One word: Wayland.
Q: I have installed an icon theme in Ubuntu that I really like, however it is missing a few icons. I feel that I could make the ones I need, but I have no idea where to start. Can you point me in the right direction?
A: That-a-way. OK, I’d suggest copying an icon from he pack you could use as a base and opening it in Inkscape. Then edit to your heart’s content and save it as the name of the application that is lacking. Copy it into the pack. It really is that simple.
Q: So I have my sister’s laptop from her time in uni and it is an old Intel core I3 2.2ghz and 4gb ram HP and I would like to know if this boy supports the latest ubuntu 22.04LTS, I think?
A: Yes. All of the i-series CPU’s are supported, even the core2duo’s. You may have to do some BIOS wrangling, (see question above) but it will work.
Q: I installed Ubuntu in Virtualbox, but it is in a mini screen and it won’t go fullscreen. I think I may need to install a driver, but the driver app does not find any. It just sits in the middle of my display.
A: You need to install what is called the “guest addons” and you should be golden.
Q:I added Thunderbird v91.12 on my new laptop. The screen size went from 1366×768 to 1920×1080 from the old one, so everything is kinda small. I don’t have the best eyes as it is, and when I go to adjust the font sizes in the preferences, nothing seems to happen. Please help?
A: Thunderbird is basically a browser, so the fonts you are adjusting is for the “READING PANE” only. You can change it by changing your system fonts. And Thunderbird and Firefox should look better. You could also adjust the “Density” setting once you have bigger fonts.
Q: I have had to go back to Ubuntu 18.04, as our software does not support any of the newer versions. I just hit one snag, I need bluetooth for my headphones. I have an HP Probook with nothing printed on the bottom cover, so no model number, but it is an i5 with an SSD, so it can’t be THAT old. Dmesg <removed>
A: I am not 100% on bluetooth as I have not used it, (no bluetooth devices). However, I can point you here: https://net2.com/how-to-set-up-bluetooth-on-ubuntu-18-04/
Q: So with the stupid woke principles I need to fix all my senior’s scripts, since he has left the company. My experience is working in a computer repair shop the last two years, and everything is Linux here. I have to go into each script and replace slave and secondary and sometimes revert them for machines that have not upgraded. <removed>
A: Linux ships with a command line application called sed, a stream editor. Simply type:
sed -i ‘s/setSlaveOK/setSecondaryOK/g’
man sed if you get stuck or find it on the ‘net.