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.
At work, we ship our notebooks with an account for the company and an account for the user. There is nothing sinister about it, the idea behind this is that, when the user returns the laptop, we simply delete the user and all its folders, and the laptop can be farmed out to another person. At least 50% of the time, someone will want to log into the company account – asking for the password, whilst, right in front of them, their name is displayed in big letters. Others will come up with the most outlandish issues, thinking they are not administrators and they need the company account password to do something. Now, most of our machines are Macs, and the rest are Ubuntu. A quick look in the Mac user settings will tell you that your account is an Admin account, but, somehow, that elusive account password just bugs people. There is literally nothing in that account, it just serves as an entry point to delete their profiles later. Its presence on the login screen is like a carrot to the proverbial donkey. Yet, when companies install certificates – say at McDonalds, they will eagerly click yes, without reading – thereby compromising their computers or phones. You also have to understand that all these people get security training at least once. Many of them are developers who are supposed to know better. Guys, don’t compromise your Ubuntu installation by running commands that you do not know, or install certificates that allow people to access your network traffic, no matter what. Be safe. Black Friday is almost upon us, so do not fall for tricks, especially if you shop online. As you can see from the above, even people who should know better, do stupid things. Be sceptical, always!
Q: Hi, I keep seeing errors like: E: Package 'whatever I typed' has no installation candidate. I’m following a tutorial on making Ubuntu look like MacOS and I keep getting stuck.
A: There may be multiple reasons, but the main one would be finger problems, ie, you typed it wrongly, so the best way to see is start typing, say, “python”, or whatever you are trying to install, and when you hit the last letter, in this case “n”, press tab twice. If the program you wanted does not show up, you may need to add a PPA (Personal package archive) or get it elsewhere.
Q: On the dock in a fresh install of Ubuntu 22.04, these two app icons are precisely the same with different icons. Both programs do the same job. <removed>
A: Yup, update:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
or get a later version of your installation media (22.04.3) to fix that.
Q: I have flagship Ubuntu 22.04 in Virtualbox on Voyager Linux, and I started noticing graphical glitches like this <removed>. What could be the cause? Everything was working fine for almost an hour before it happened. The only things I have installed have been extensions for Gnome.
A: In Virtualbox settings, turn off all “acceleration” in the graphics options, and try again, if you are still stuck, when you log in, switch from Wayland to X11 via the small gear in the bottom-right.
Q: I would like to create an alias of the command with sudo for updating to like -u, is it possible to create something like that for a user?
A: I’d suggest rather writing a script, place it in your usr/bin, and run it like a command.
Q: My setup is as follows, I have a notebook on a stand, but the notebook has only a small keyboard. I have a wireless keyboard plugged in that has all the extended keys. On my numeric keypad, when I hit the “del” key, instead of a period, I see a comma. My Ubuntu is up-to-date, and my LibreOffice is up-to-date. Google is not helping much as the fixes involve “setxkb”, but that is not available in the latest Ubuntu.
A: The issue is LibreOffice related, but I’ll tell you where to go since you have been searching. In LibreOffice, go to tools→ Options → Language Settings, and look for Decimal Separator Key. If the tick is on, turn it off and vice-versa.
Q: Why is it that when I start a program in the terminal (to see debug output), and I close that terminal, the program also closes, unlike Windows 10? I’m new to Kubuntu. Someone suggested I go add an & at the end, but it still does not work. We are trying to install some games to play (that worked in Windows XP) that don’t work in Windows 10.
A: OK, here is the short version. Unlike windoze, your desktop environment is running in a TTY. (In the old days, you needed to type startx for the GUI.) So, when you open another TTY (terminal), it sits in another process. When you terminate that process, it takes whatever is running inside it to the great beyond. On your keyboard, press CTRL+ALT+F2 and see what happens. To return, press CTRL+ALT+F7.
Q: I have been running Ubuntu WSL for over a year now and I am satisfied; how can I make this my default (instead of windows) please? I can’t stand the forced updates any more.
A: WSL is “Windows Subsystem for Linux” and not Linux. Back up your data to an external drive, and install Ubuntu with the “erase disk” option. This will ensure that NTFS gets replaced by EXT4. Once complete, you can copy documents to documents, music to music and so forth, just make sure you do not overwrite the folders that Ubuntu has.
Q: I can’t get xdotool to work in Ubuntu 22.04. I recently updated – as 16.04 was a little stale – and did not take this into account, only my apps. I print envelopes, so I need to perform certain actions over and over. Can you help me?
A: I saw somewhere that xdotool was replaced with ydotool for Wayland. https://gabrielstaples.com/ydotool-tutorial/#gsc.tab=0 or https://askubuntu.com/questions/1413829/how-can-i-install-and-use-the-latest-ydotool-keyboard-automation-tool-working-o
Q: When I’m playing a Steam game on Windows, I can press F12 to take a screenshot, but, with the same game on Ubuntu 22.04, that function does not exist. I press F12 and nothing happens. Someone suggested it may be that I’m offline, and I tested it on Windows and F12 does not work when I’m offline. How do I keep Ubuntu online long enough to take a screenshot?
A: I think we are looking at correlation here, not causality. I suspect in Ubuntu, you are running in Wayland, and Wayland has issues with things like screenshots at the moment, as all those utilities were written for X. Try booting into a X11 session, and try that again. On windows, the technology is different – i.e. DirectX, and you probably run on Vulcan for the Linux version. Post this question in the Steam forums for your game.
Q: I was renaming files and in my haste I typed = by mistake and then hit \ which is right next to delete, before hitting enter. Now I have a weird filename on my Ubuntu server that I cannot delete. Rm says there is no such file, but it exists.
A: You have to use quotes around the filename when you delete the file.
Q: First of all, I don’t have sudo permissions, so I can’t install anything. It’s a long story, so don’t ask. So is there a way I can play sound on Ubuntu without a graphical user environment??
A: Type sox at the command prompt, and if you get something back, you are good to go. See: https://ubunlog.com/en/sox-reproduce-mp3-terminal/
Q: I have installed some packages with Gdebi and see: a newer package is available in the repository, but I want this version. Can I see what versions they are then? (The newer versions have stuff added to them that I don’t particularly like, but I still want to know).
A: You can try:
apt policy perl
for instance, replacing perl with your application.
Q: Suspend, Hybernate or Hybrid Sleep is not working in XUbuntu 22.04 on a Dell 9510. I found some posts online that claim it's the nVidia drivers, but I don't have any proprietary drivers installed, just mesa. There is nothing I can see in the BIOS that would prevent this. Closing the lid and putting it in my bag just gets me a hot laptop when I get home. Any ideas?
A: I found something online: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1483865/suspend-not-working-ubuntu-22-04 (very similar, you?). Though it is the opposite of what you want, I suspect it is a bug in Xubuntu, as I am sure our ones at work do suspend with vanilla Ubuntu. I will check and let you know.
Q: I’m following this, https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/ubuntu/, to get docker installed, but frustration is making me pull my hair out. <removed> <removed>. Also just tried dpkg <removed>, and Ubuntu Jammy 22.04 (LTS) is in the list, I don’t understand why they don’t update the tutorial if they change something. Help me please.
A: Thanks to user @Daniel –
sudo apt install docker.io
and it is done!
Q: Question, I installed Ubuntu flavours in VirtualBox on my laptop, but I do not have any internet connection. I can not ping anything. What am I doing wrong here? I tried different versions but still no internet connection. I do not have a firewall running <removed>.
A: Try switching from NAT to bridged adapter in your VirtualBox network settings per virtual machine.