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.
Sorry, but today is a rant, rather than a thought provoking or funny story. The ‘boycott Russia’ thing is getting really ridiculous. I check German, Russian and Indian sources when compiling the news. (It is usually where you find interesting nuggets) My rudimentary understanding of the languages lets me read the articles, but I rely on Firefox translations to translate them so I can turn them into articles. To my surprise this week, (yes, you will only see this in December and this is mid November) the site - https://www.linux.org.ru/news/ -did not translate any more. The message was that Russian was not supported yet. This is the same plugin/extension I have been using for six months plus, to auto translate the site with. Luckily Librewolf has a built-in translator, so I’m not dependent on Firefox Translate, but it is flawed and does not work if, say the first letter of the article is simply a “B” and you cannot open a translation in a new tab. This means I will have to wash some articles through the abortion that is Google direct translator, meaning I need to get used to the wrong translations again. Not to mention the wasted time and me trying to be free of Google as much as possible. This means I now have to keep two tabs open, one for the translation and the original to be able to copy the page link. Can tech not be free of politics??? It feels like for every step forward humanity takes, as soon as politics gets involved, we take two steps back. Am I the only one?
Q: I just installed oh my giraffe from the app store. Nothing happens when I run it. Can one do a traceback in the terminal for Snaps? Ubuntu 22,04 64Gb memory, 1TB SSD i9. Should be more than enough? Snaps are supposed to be universal and it worked fine on Ubuntu 16.04.
A: I also installed it on vanilla Ubuntu, to test and it does not run. You can open a terminal and type snap run ohmygiraffe and see the output. For me it is some libGL error. You should be able to grab the source code and run it with Love2d. https://github.com/2439905184/oh-my-giraffe
Q: I just installed yt-dlp on Ubuntu 22.04. It is broken. I then checked Github and saw it is out of date. I did a yt-dlp -U, but it is disabled in Debian based builds. Any idea as to the way forward?
A: Here’s what you do. Go here: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/yt-dlp and grab the latest .deb-file even if it is from “noble” and install that. I just tested it here: yt-dlp –version 2022.04.08 ; ed@IT1:~$ yt-dlp –version 2023.11.16 -as you can see it works on 22.04
Q: I was cleaning up ubuntu, removing packages I don’t use and when I was done, Ubuntu has only a login option for command interface. What can I do to fix it? I tried BingAI, but I think I am asking the wrong questions. Oh and I use 22.04 Gnome.
A: Without knowing what you have done, I cannot really help. Try: sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop
Reboot
Q: My laptop’s brightness changes automatically the whole time and it is driving me nuts. I read up on it and it senses via the camera. My camera’s in-use light is off, so how is it seeing? Is this a privacy issue with my Dell or is it Ubuntu??
A: Usually there is a light sensor *next to your laptop camera that does the sensing, but you can turn that off in the Ubuntu settings under power.
Q: I am trying to install Ubuntu on my sister’s laptop, but she dropped it and now her USB ports are not working. I used Balena Etcher to write the image to a SD card I had lying around, but I cannot seem to get it to boot. I have checked the integrity of the SD card on my laptop, so I know it is good. I have now tried with Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Ubuntu Mate, no luck so far. Can you help?
A: Some machines just do not have the ability to boot from SD card. You can go through the BIOS settings with a fine-toothed comb and see if you find anything, (maybe update it) but if there is nothing, there is no way to make it boot from SD card, regardless of OS.
Q: Something weird on my Ubuntu 22.04.03that I just noticed. It says; model hp-color-laserjet-pro , driverless. I have printed on it before without issue. How come it went driverless?
A: Ubuntu has generic drivers for a lot of printers. If yours works fine as is, I suggest leaving well enough alone. Linux drivers for printers, even from manufacturers, are notoriously out of date and even cause segfaults. Unless there is something your driver does, that the kernel cannot do, be happy and carry on.
Q: I installed Ubuntu 220.04.01 and my laptop has a funny screen, 1440×900. Ubuntu only shows 800×600, so not making it properly. I watched a youtube show xrandr, but I couldn't fix. This is problem for me. Two times I make install and two times it make 800×600. I am recovering from Windows 7. I edit file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d, still not working.
A: OK, right after install, if Ubuntu cannot identify your display it goes to 800×600 as not to damage older screens. I suggest updating first and then only trying to change your display properties, after rebooting it. The path you are editing files in is for X11-sessions, so if you boot into Wayland , as is the default, it will have no effect. Please give a bit more details if you have a question, it helps with identifying the problem. Also, try using 22.04.03 when installing, it fixes some errors.
Q: I want to rename my /home folder to /users as it is not intuitive, but I can't. I’m new to Ubuntu so explain it slowly.
A: Don’t. You will break your desktop session. Too many things rely on /home.
Q: When I watch Youtube on my Ubuntu laptop (my bf loaded it as Windows7 was getting slow), my mouse is in the way. Someone suggested I scoot it out of the way off screen, but mine reaches the end and stays there. I don’t want my bf to say I’m a dumb blond, so I’m not going to ask him. Please tell me how? This also happens when I connect it to my TV with the HDMI cable.
A: The mouse cursor only stays on screen if pushed to the top or the left. Try right hand side or bottom.
Q: I have loaded Ubuntu on my Raspberry Pi. In the pi OS, you run vcgencmd on the command line for temps. I am new to Ubuntu and in Ubuntu I get command not found.
I installed lmsensors as per the internet, but It is only a snapshot, it does not update. Is there a better way?
A: I don’t know a better way, but you can use “watch” to keep it looking at those temperatures. Open a terminal and type: watch sensors
Q: I am doing a course and I need to install Ubuntu 18.04. When I go to ubuntu.com downloads all I see is the latest versions. Is there a way to get it?
A: Dude!! It is literally the first result in Google when I search. https://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/
Q: I find that when I remove a snap package from Ubuntu 22.04/23.04 I get a blank Icon and the name is still visible in the gnome search options. Is there a way to remove it? <removed>
A: When you uninstall a Snap package, use the - - purge option.
Q: I was trying to find out what wifi card I have in my old laptop. Ip add just shows wlpxxx, which means nothing to me. Is there a way I can see which I have as the manufacuter lists 5 different models for my laptop. If I run lshw, it says I need to run it as superuser, but I can’t. I will only reinstall once I know what I am dealing with. This time I want to do things right.
A: OK if you cannot install anything I suggest trying lspci like so: lspci -nnk|grep -iA3 network -Just look for “network controller” if you have multiple entries.
Q: In stock Ubuntu 22.04, when I’m watching a youtube video, and I check something in my gnome-extensions quickly, the sound in the video continues to play, but the motion stops at the point of me fiddling . I have to go back to the video in Firefox and skip backwards a bit for the video to continue. It’s driving me wild.
A: I have seen this before, and 9/10 times it was the FireFox Snap, especially if you have customized pointers and themes installed. I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it, but you can fix it by installing another browser that is *not a Snap, like Librewolf and keep the Snap browser closed.
Q: I’m having trouble figuring out how to run xpenguins on Ubuntu 22.04. I am using a X-session, not Wayland. I Have an i9 with 32GB of memory and a dedicated gfx card that is 3 years old. Ubuntu is updated to the nines, no issues there. I installed a gfx card switcher, and tried on both, but still no penguins appear.
A: Wow, just wow. I recall getting xpenguins fron Tucows back in the day. I suspect it is like twenty years old and probably written for GTK2. I did find this though: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/429606/why-is-xpenguins-not-generating-any-penguins-on-my-desktop
Q: I want to install the latest version of Ardour 7, but the repositories only have version 6. Everywhere it is advertised as “free”, but everywhere I go to get 7, even on the main page, they want lots of money. Where is the free?
A: Wait until you see version8 next month, I read somewhere it will be paid only. I really *hate it when people say free, but it is not. (Windows loves that, saying “free download” the download is free, but the program is not, but the second part is never mentioned.) Anyway, digging a little, I found this via Ubuntu Studio: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuStudio/BackportsPPA