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.
The trend lately is immutable file systems and contained packages like Snap & Flatpak. While this is all well and good, I think we are missing out on that frugality. When SSD’s came along and they made a big difference, but were very pricey, I had hoped that we would return to a more sane situation, where OS’s did not make your machine slower. Boy was I wrong. This just gave licence to lazy programmers & programming and quality to drop even further in favour of quantity. Let me explain. My 2011 mac mini with mountain lion boots and works just as fast the latest Mac’s with SSD’s and more memory. My old 2nd generation i5 with spinning rust and Solus 1.2 (It think) boots faster than most of my new machines with super fast SSD’s and the latest OS’s. Yes, I have a 486 that boots to Dos so fast off a slow drive, it will make modern PC’s heads spin. We have all this extra power and speed and everything just gets slower. Windows is a classic example, though we all know that. Their driver bloat is so bad – I just did some updates on Dell laptops I was going to push out and the DRIVER updates were bigger than a Linux distro!! Frugality breeds innovation, you can look at the demo scene to see what I mean, people still do demo’s in 4k!!! Everyone is now jumping on the AI bandwagon, yes, it is coming to a distro near you! My Ubuntu updates for Warty Warthog were kilobytes in size, now I download 100 Megabytes in browser alone, every second day. I feel Linux is now moving the windows / Mac way too. I just want my machine to work, without telemetry, built into my drivers, without having to accommodate every last java framework, without fake AI nonsense, without adverts and Kardashian crap pushed to my desktop, don’t you? Is it too much to ask?
Q: I migrated from Windows (spying) to Mac (can’t upgrade) and from Mac to Ubuntu. I like the Mac way of doing things, but the file layout is a mess, I prefer my file manager like Windows 7, not just alphabetical. <removed> It says I have Thunar, but I have tried ROX too. Can I make them more Window-sy? <removed>
A: I suggest sticking with Thunar and if you look in the preferences, you will see “sort folders before files” (Under the Edit-menu) That should make it like your picture.
Q: Sometimes when I am like 3 ft from my huawei router, I get disconnected and sometimes I am on the edge of the property and no disconnects. I am using Ubuntu 22.04 and my machine is Model name: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-12900HK. I don’t have this issue at my sister’s house and her router is in the kitchen with appliances running.
A: Have you considered that someone – a neighbour perhaps – is disconnecting you on purpose? I’d check for other WiFi signals if I were you and maybe move your channel or when you had the disconnects, change your password, as by the time that password is cracked, it won’t be valid. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_deauthentication_attack
Q: This may sound strange, but I was wondering if there was a way I could interact with my monitor via Ubuntu. My laptop has brightness settings from the battery icon, so there must be a way for me to talk to this AOC?
A: I did a bit of searching and found this: https://www.ddcutil.com/# -how good it is, I cannot tell you as I have never used it. “ddcutil is a Linux program for managing monitor settings, such as brightness, color levels, and input source. Generally speaking, any setting that can be changed by pressing buttons on the monitor can be modified by ddcutil.”
Q: My friend sends me pictures from his retarded iPhone. I open his messages in WhatsApp web and can’t see what they are. Is there a way to convert them?
A: If memory serves, it is HEIC images. (or something) You can install GIMP and open the image with it. It will ask you to convert upon opening. Click convert. Once visible EXPORT the image and choose JPEG or PNG or whatever you prefer for the output. (at the bottom)
Q: I am running Xubuntu 23.04 Lunar Lobster on my old 8gb laptop. I am wondering how to pin something to the taskbar like windows please?
A: It is not that simple, as the “taskbar” in XFCE is a “panel” and you can have many. What you need to do is create a “launcher” on the panel you want to use as your “taskbar”. So it will be right click, → panel, → panel preferences, → items.
Q: Is there a way to do half scaling? I have a 4k monitor and a 2k monitor. I only see 1x, 1.5x and 2x? I want them both to be the same.
A: Instead of scaling your one screen down, how about scaling the other up? If all else fails, you can choose “custom” and use the plus and minus buttons.
Q: Is there a way I can search for files in both my Ubuntu and Windows partitions? I am duel booting Ubuntu 23.04 and Windows 11.
A: Probably not from Windows side – but if the drive is mounted by Ubuntu, you should be able to see the windows files, even index them with a tool like fsearch. (Dual booting creates two partitions both readable by Ubuntu but not by Windows.)
Q: Hey, my laptop wakes by itself, in my backpack, so that when I take it out the whole chassis is hot. I am running Ubuntu 22.04.
A: This is a tough one as you do not give any details. It could be software, some program or daemon that runs every x minutes or it could be as simple as your laptop locks via magnets in the casing and there is something opposing those.
Q: I travel a lot and I would like to play the UK lottery every day. However, most VPN’s I have used are blocked by them. My son-in-law said that Ubuntu may be the way to go as I only know Windows. I have Ubuntu installed in a Virtual machine, but I do not see how to set up a VPN?
A: OK, Ubuntu can have a VPN added via the network connection icon, or if your VPN provider provides an installation file, you can install it that way. However, Ubuntu in no way affects the computer at the other end of your VPN, or it’s IP address, for that matter. I think your son-in-law meant an Ubuntu VPS in the UK. (Something completely different)
Q: I boot with the latest live iso 20,04,6 and it works, but when I try to install Ubuntu, it shows no hard drives. Windows is on it currently. <removed screenshot>
A: There can be multiple reasons for this – the drive may be in a mode in the BIOS/UEFI that needs a driver, yes believe it or not Linux does not always see everything. You may have a legacy boot version and your system is set for UEFI, in which case you need the UEFI installer ISO. Your installation media may be corrupt, etc. I suggest starting by grabbing the latest version and trying that, if it works, it may just be a kernel thing, (Your PC may be too new)
Q: hey, recently I started updating via the command line and I noticed errors. Firstly there is a brave error, Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com stable InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386' and secondly there is one with “unknown” instead of release. How can I fix this?
A: The first one indicates that you have a repository that has i386 included, you can see if you find it in your sources, if not, don’t worry, it is a non-system breaking thing. (It may be a PPA or the way you installed it) The second one points to a manual install, lets say with wget or curl. This error means it will not update with the rest of the system and you will need to do it manually.
Q: For some reason we have our keyboards set to UK layout. Normally it will not be a problem, but there is only one slash. I have tried the on-screen keyboard and verily, the other slash is missing. Now obviously I expect things to be in different places, but this dell 7420 only has a small keyboard, so I’m not finding it. I know I can use alt-codes, but they don’t work on the login screens.
A: If your policies keep changing the keyboards to UK, you can live with it, the other slash on a UK keyboard layout is still where it is on the US layout. You just need to press ctrl or alt or both when pressing it or else you get an octothorpe if memory serves.