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.
I was standing in for one of our technicians at a large tyre factory. They were a nice fat target for viruses, malware and whatnots, as is the case with very large companies. To help combat the issue, they had, I think, Mail Marshall running as well, at the head office. Obviously this parsed all the content in an email and blocked emails containing certain words. You then got a notification, telling you it had been blocked. You then had to contact your local IT (in this particular case, me), to contact HQ IT to release the email after they had inspected it. You would also get a notification if someone sent you a virus, presumably so you could inform your contact. This was a major issue, as people would send you messages to release the email with a virus in it. No matter how many times you explained that you cannot release a virus, the more they would insist. Having basically “grown up” in IT, I cannot fathom what goes through a user’s head when they do stuff like that. I had one guy go to his HOD and they both tried to gang up on me to get the virus released, because they “needed it”. They would not listen to reason, it was just IT being spiteful. I have even had people wanting Nigerian prince emails released, because it was “important”. I don’t even open emails from people at vendors I don’t know. I get sent an email from cathy.jones@vmware; I don’t know Cathy Jones; it goes straight to junk. I don’t open it. This also cuts down on email fatigue. This BS, where you “can’t miss an email”, is nonsense, you don’t do anything urgent via email as emails can get lost, etc. If it is urgent, you pick up the phone, or send a message on Teams/Slack or whatever, to say I just sent you an urgent email. I agree we need trust in our lives, but not blind trust.
Q: I’m not too sure about this, I have Ubuntu 20, and I have apparently hung the Software Updater. After a few minutes, I killed the process. Restarted the Software Updater and it stalled on “checking for updates”. I’m almost positive the last one was quick. How can I fix this? A: You could try updating via the command-line to see what errors you get (it may be a PPA?). Alternatively, you could switch update mirrors. May I suggest that you start updating, and getting a cuppa, and have a chat with the neighbour, and coming back. If it is installing kernels or the like it may take a bit longer, same if the mirror is busy. Q: At the top of the screen, there is date and time window in there is a bell icon, if you click on the clock you see: “Pending Update Snap Store”. If I click on updates, I get Snap Store 41.3-60 48.2MB Update. If I then click on ‘Update All’, I get Unable to update “Snap Store”: (null): cannot refresh “snap-store”: snap “snap-store” has running apps (ubuntu-software) This seems circular to me? A: Close everything, open a terminal and type: sudo snap refresh then type in your password and let it complete and reboot and you should be good.
Q: I am a beginner to ubuntu. SDA is full and SDB is empty. SDB is not mounted yet. I need detailed instructions since I am a beginner of ubuntu. A: You did not say for what? If you want to format and mount sdb, simply use the disks application; if you want terminal help, you should say so. If your drive is too full to do any of it, boot from the live image and clear some space. You need to say exactly what you want; I can’t see your screen? I will do a piece on disks in the magazine, just for you. Q: I have a problem with some nohup output. When I run a job, I have a lot of output data. The output nohup.out becomes too large and everything slows down. Someone suggested I redirect the output. I’m not sure what to do. A: You could use: nohup “your command” > /dev/null 2>&1& which just sends the output to a black hole. There is a nice write up on: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/3886/difference-between-nohup-disown-and/148698#148698 - where they explain nohup better than I can in a Q & A.
Q: I am looking to get tab-completion on my command-line aliases. I heavily use aliases, as I am new to Ubuntu and Linux in general, and I hate typing long commands. Like: alias sau='sudo apt update'. BUT aliases do not work with tab completion with the names of apps that you don’t know, so sudo apt install ink [tab], [tab] will bring up inkscape, but not if I use an alias. A: Aaah, never tried it myself, I type fast enough, but it seems there is someone out there who likes you. See: https://github.com/cykerway/complete-alias. This seems to be what you need. Just pay attention to the dependencies. Q: I have a no-name bluetooth USB dongle in a USB port on my black-box-special PC, which lights up when I insert it, but that is about it. How can I get Ubuntu to see it? Oh yes, I have 22.10 on a four-year old machine, not sure what’s inside. A: You can try this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup#Manual_Discovery, I have no bluetooth devices, so I have never used it. If you want to know “what's inside”, install inxi and run: inxi -a
Q: I have mongodb running on Ubuntu 20.04 and I have a few Python scripts running that use it. However, lately most of them have been failing, and I don’t know what has changed. I have not upgraded Ubuntu (yet!). Is it Ubuntu or Python? A: Mongodb has changed; the “mongo” command has been superseded by the mongosh command, which breaks previous compatibility with the mongo command. https://www.mongodb.com/blog/post/introducing-the-new-shell. It has nothing to do with Ubuntu. Q: Hey guy. I am trying to install Lubuntu on an older Core2Duo machine. I created a boot USB, and can get it running from there. However when I try to install it, I get almost all the way to the end and it fails installing the bootloader. I get the error: “The bootloader could not be installed. Erm, what now? A: I had a similar issue with Linux Lite 6.0. When 6.1 launched, the issue was fixed and it installed flawlessly, so I cannot tell you what the issue was. Try getting a later version of the install image (you may have to wait, unfortunately). Alternatively, may I suggest blanking the disk with a gparted bootable USB and trying again? (unless you know how to use fdisk?). P.S. I just tried in a VM, and it installed first time. Maybe try that, it may be an error with the installation medium.
Q: I take my Ubuntu Laptop to work, just to keep work and private/semi-private stuff apart, so I don’t do anything not work related on my work laptop. Thing is, when I go for a quick coffee break, I close the lid, but I only want it to lock the laptop, not go to sleep. I have caffeine and caffeine-indicator installed, but it does nothing. In windows it is in the power options, but I don’t see it on Xubuntu? A: It is not an option out-of-the-box as I recall, but you can* change it. See: https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2020/05/lid-close-behavior-ubuntu-20-04/ Q: I have a new headset and I cannot use it on Ubuntu 22.04 with Skype or anything. The other party does not hear me at all. I installed audacity and I record, but I get nothing. The mic is not disabled in the settings, I checked. This is the headphones <link removed>, and this is the laptop <link removed>. My old broken headset worked here before. The only difference between the 2 is the USB cable. A: Guys, if you send links, try not to make them Amazon shopping links, link to the provider. The USB cable on the newer model drives only the disco-disco LEDs. If you are sure that you can record with the on-board microphone, look for a hardware switch on the cable for the headset. That model definitely has one. Make sure it is not in the off position, effectively muting the unit. There is no other reason, except for a defective unit, that it would not work.