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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.
I worked for an automation company back in the day. My direct boss, the IT Director, was unhappy with his laptop. To fill in the background, let me state that he would test ALL our software on this laptop. Needless to say, Windows needed a registry clean and temp file clean like it is nobody’s business. (He also used it everywhere crappy, so the exhaust ports were probably all blocked inside.) I would venture to say that, daily, he would install and uninstall at least two programs downloaded from the internet, sometimes sketchy as all heck. However, he was very impatient and had the opinion that everything should just work and it was Microsoft’s baby to see that it did, as he paid good money for the OS. He could never set aside an hour or two just so I could get into the guts of the thing and see if I could rectify the problem. If the problem wasn’t solved in the first five minutes, he would chase you away and say he would do it himself. This culminated in him taking the laptop after a few weeks and shoving it behind a forklift and simply driving over it, claiming a new one from the insurance company. He loudly blamed the laptop manufacturer, Microsoft, etc. - never himself. Ubuntu is an operating system only and things like the above probably drove them to the Snap store. For newer computers, this is not a problem, but with the current chip shortages, a lot of people are holding on to their old 2011 computers as replacing them is too costly. Should Ubuntu maybe not ship a version aimed at older computers? Sure, Linux Lite supposedly fills that gap, but I think there is a lot of scope for improvement even there. Do you think you are up to the challenge? *nudge-nudge*, *wink-wink*.
Q: I did something and after an update – if I open a folder with another program, it opens with the terminal instead of files. I tried googling, but I am not sure which search terms will get me there. Nothing I have tried (from places like stack-overflow) has worked for me. I have even reinstalled Nautilus, hoping it would fix the defaults. I have it in the back of my mind that it is something to do with dconf editor, but I am not finding anything related I can put my finger on. I’m using Ubuntu Budgie with an i5 and 8 GB of RAM.
A: I'd suggest looking for mimeapps.list and adding: inode/directory=org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop in the Added Associations section at the top, and inode/directory=Nautilus.desktop in the Default Applications section. Reboot and if it still does not work, let us know.
Q: Why would a folder show up in the terminal, but not in the file manager?
A: Two reasons; one, it is hidden (it has a . before the name), and two, the permissions are set to not include the user that is browsing.
Q: I have Ubuntu 22.04 installed on my system, but with i3 desktop. I use a Nvidia3060 with two 24” Dell displays via HDMI. I recently installed VirtualBox with Windows and wanted to know if I can play games on both screens with Windows in VirtualBox? I have 32 GB of RAM and a 10th gen I5 with 8 cores.
A: My guess would be probably no, but I would start asking that in the VirtualBox forums rather.
Q: I’m a bit clueless, so please bear with me. I installed my P2P apps in Ubuntu, set my network port to 119, and set my method to encrypt only and also my IP v6 to off. Which is what I used to do on Windows 7. Nothing else. I did not even change the interface colors. Yet I cannot get it to work. I tried 3 different P2P programs and they all will not communicate with the outside world. My friend suggested that it is UFW I need to install to make it work, but I have no idea how to set it up for P2P networking.
A: Ubuntu is a bit less forgiving than Windows in this regard, ports below 1024 will not work for anything other than listed. See: https://www.iana.org/assignments/service-names-port-numbers/service-names-port-numbers.xhtml
Q: I have a Dell dock -K20A- connected to my laptop via USB-C with a widescreen monitor attached to it via HDMI. My fan goes up when I am working on the wide screen, but almost never comes on when I am using my laptop in bed. I have installed TLP, but it does not help. My laptop has only a Core i7 and no GPU. I still use Ubuntu 20.04.
A: I am unsure what you want, but I suspect you are wondering why your fan is going bananas. Firstly, the laptop is charging when the USB-C plug is in, causing heat, as energy is converted from one range to another. Secondly, the GPU, yes, your laptop has one or you would not get a display, is working twice as hard for a second monitor and then extra because it is a wide screen. The laptop display needs to fill in only 1920×1080 pixels every second, whereas the external one needs to fill, say, 3840×2160 every second. Make sure the laptop is well ventilated off the table too, the height of the feet are usually “minimum” height.
Q: Hello!!! I am a Mac convert and I can’t even go back to Mac any more, it feels like it is outdated when I do use it. I set up gnome boxes using this as my guide:: https://www.funkyspacemonkey.com/how-to-use-gnome-boxes-to-set-up-virtual-machines. I am sorta stuck now trying to get the display settings right. I want to set up a windows XP machine just to load my old games like Crusader, no Regret. I don’t need Xbox controller support or anything funny, just the basics.
A: Looks like everyone has display issues this week. What you are looking for is VirtualBox rather. I’d agree that Gnome Boxes are probably a lot “lighter”, but you will need the “client addons” that VirtualBox provides, that is like a driver for the underlying OS to set display size.
Q: My Ubuntu 22.04 LTS version drains battery a lot during suspend mode on the cooling pad, maybe 6 hours. It lasts a lot longer without the cooling pad, maybe 2 days, why would that be?
A: That probably has more to do with the BIOS setup than Ubuntu. Make sure that your BIOS USB settings are set NOT to provide power in suspend mode or power-off mode, something like that. I have a sneaky suspicion you have a cooling pad with fans that continue spinning when you close your laptop lid. Another option would be to simply unplug the cooling pad from the laptop when it sleeps.
Q: I have a question about Ubuntu Studio and the new ‘fixes’ for speculative attacks. I use the realtime kernel, but my system is always updated, so I assume I have the latest patches. From what I understand, the ‘fixes’ basically kill any advantage the realtime kernel offers me. Is there still a point in using the realtime kernel?
A: Sorry, this is a bit out of my depth, as I never really used the RT or low-latency kernel. You can read more about it here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/553980/why-would-anyone-choose-not-to-use-the-lowlatency-kernel - You do, however, know that you can disable all those patches, if you are sure you don’t load untrusted software. See here: https://magenaut.com/disable-spectre-and-meltdown-mitigations/
Q: Our wifi access point sorta melted and I’m back to using cables in the lounge. I just can’t afford to buy another at the moment. I have noticed that sometimes I get 1Gb/s to the switch and sometimes only 100Mb/s. It feels like I haven’t used these cables since the early 2000s, so, on the one hand, it is good to get use from something I was going to put out with the trash. On the other hand, I used Windows 95 then, and I have no idea how to set all the nuances of Ubuntu wired networking. I am on Ubuntu 18.04 until I get tired of it.
A: My guess is that the issue is not Ubuntu, but old cabling that came across with Moses on the boat. Old cables are usually rated for only 10-100Mbit traffic. Try picking up some CAT5 cabling. (Make sure it is, as I have tested more than 5 brands in 2020 that said CAT5 but were not compliant).
Q: I used to use Ubuntu standard, but gnome is kinda boring, so I switched it up and went to Budgie. So far, I am liking it; just one small issue. When I save a file to my desktop, there is nothing there. Then, I open the file manager and click on the desktop folder and my files are there. I want my files on my desktop for easy access, not the desktop folder. How can I change this?
A: Sorry my friend, but you are not making any sense. The “desktop” you see IS your desktop folder. The only thing I can think of is that you have the desktop icons turned off in the budgie settings. This also means it will hide any other files on the desktop.
Q: I can’t get my scanner to actually scan in Ubuntu 22.04. It’s detected, etc, but when push comes to shove, nothing happens.
A: Try another scanning program or “app”. The scanning software for Linux is not pretty by a long shot, but try another. For instance, if Simple Scan does not do it for you, try Gscan2pdf or something.
Q: After my Windows update earlier this week, I have not been able to get into my Ubuntu. I get just a blank screen. Help?
A: Hi, Unfortunately you have provided no information, so none can come out. Do you dual-boot, or do you use WSL or some other method of running Ubuntu? A good example would be to say I have Ubuntu version x with Windows 10 on VirtualBox on top of Proxmox or whatever, with 2GB of memory and standard VGA drivers. When I run VirtualBox in full-screen, there is no display, or something to that effect, and you will get help a lot easier.
Q: Which terminal is better to use, like Kitty or Tabby or what modern terminal should I use?
A: Try them all and keep the one you like. If you want an opinion poll, we can ask our readers.
Q: Why would one use xdg-open in the place of Curl? It seems Curl can do everything and more?
A: The reason is that xdg-open will open the graphical application associated with whatever it is you are grabbing. For instance, if you grab a magnet file, xdg-open will open your torrent application using the file as an argument. Curl, on the other hand, is more of a terminal command-line tool. Though it is powerful, each has its niche.
Q: I am learning Ubuntu and I want to install the package manually, but I get an error. I am attaching screenshots. I have few virtual machines to play with so breaking is not a problem. Get from here→ https://pkgs.org/ <removed> <removed>
A: Package architecture is usually arranged by system, denoted in the package name. You cannot install a package meant for an ARM CPU on your x86 CPU. One is CISC and one is RISC, on a very basic level. It is the same reason you do not put Diesel in your petrol car. Both are fuel, but meant for very different engines. Dpkg is fine for installing packages, but try to stick to apt or apt-get to make sure all dependencies are satisfied.