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 are many waiting, and I do them, first-come, first-served.
I recently sat down to read something to take my mind off of life. I grabbed “Stellaris infinite frontiers”, which I’m sure you can tell is related to the game “Stellaris”. As I enjoy playing the game with my friend, I thought it may be a way to immerse myself in the lore. The author is supposedly “Steven Savile”, but I am 100% sure it was ChatGPT. Not only is the whole thing structured like Reddit HFY AI slop, it even kept all those m-dashes. The three part statements, everything AI. Why even have an editor and a proofreader? It blew my mind. They then proudly add their web URL for more books. But it figures, Paradox is a profit only company. If you look at their games, it is never complete, always requiring more paid DLC’s to play the full thing. Now on top of never buying a game from them, I’ll never bother getting a book from them. If I wanted to be fed AI slop, I’d head over to Reddit. Why do companies do this? Do they really think it will bring in more money from stolen data? Makulu Linux was one of the first to incorporate AI into Jacques’s distro, but he is not the only one. I, for one and I’m sure many others, don’t want glue holding our cheese on our pizza. Can AI make / save you money? Maybe? Can AI lose you money and customers? 100% …
Q: My 14” Dell has a blue version of the red Lenovo nipple. However, it is terrible. On my Lenovo, if I add pressure, the cursor accelerates, and it is more accurate than the mousepad. The Dell nipple is sluggish and inaccurate. I’m using Gnome on my Dell, but I don’t mind switching if you say so. I’m not aware of any driver I would need to install and Ubuntu is up to date. The only difference between the two is the screen sizes, the Lenovo is FHD while the Dell is 2K.
A: Hahahaha, thanks for the laugh. It’s called a trackpoint, heh and a trackpad. (just so we are all on the same page, mousepads are what the rodents glide on, don’t worry, English is not my first language either.) You can try to install Gnome Tweaks – it has a separate acceleration option for trackpads and trackpoints, other than the “mouse acceleration” of the Settings app. You can try that, however, I cannot tell you if it works or not, usually those are tied to their manufacturer, Elan or Synaptic pointing devices, it may be an option to find out which you have and look them up on the web. Open a terminal and check, eg: sudo apt-cache search synaptics
Q: I’ve installed the “privacy quick settings” addin for gnome. https://github.com/stuarthayhurst/privacy-menu-extension/ It adds it to my drop down menu with location, microphone and camera. However, I added Whatsapp to Opera and Telegram to my desktop, and both still work fine, whether I toggle it or not. I’m on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS that was upgraded from 22.04 LTS, when it was installed. Could it be something in the upgrade that went wrong?
A: I’m not familiar with the Gnome extension, but I installed it from the Gnome extensions website and it did absolutely nothing for me either. I’d turn off microphone, but I was still able to make calls with FAgram, and Telegram Desktop. My suggestion is to log a ticket with the developer on his github page.
Q: Whenever I drag my window to the left or right center of my screen, on the opposite side, there is Document viewer and Firefox and VLC popping up like I pressed control and alt, but only in Gnome, it goes away when I go back to Cinnamon?
A: If you want to get rid of it, you need to open ‘Settings’ in Gnome, then go to ‘Ubuntu Desktop’ and on the right under ‘Enhanced Tiling’ you will find the settings.
Q: My laptop is only a dual core i3 with 4Gb of Ram, so I tend to stick with lightweight apps. The other one my daughter uses is an i5, but it has 2Gb of Ram. To keep things simple, we use Abiword. As my eyes are giving me trouble I prefer to use a dark background with a light font. I have Xubuntu and she has Kubuntu, but neither of us can figure out how to change the i-bar to a light version. Can you help?
A: At first I changed my background to dark blue and my font to yellow. My I-bar remained like it was as it is a mouse theme thing, not an Abiword theme thing. Then I realised the flashing cursor was black. I suspect this is what you meant. I can see that being a problem on a black or dark grey page. However, I have no idea how to change it. If there are any of our smart readers out there who can help, please reach out to us, it would be appreciated.
Q: I wanted to change my default Terminal in Gnome Ubuntu. However, there was no option for it in “default apps”. I then used the “Apps” part to see what I could set, but it had less than nothing. If I went to app details, it said “potentially unsafe, provided by a third party” and at the top it said the app is not sandboxed, so settings cannot be enforced? I’m more confused than ever.
A: Think of those app settings as for Snaps only. If your installed .deb files show up there, you will not be able to manage them. That is part of the Snap ecosystem that is built into Ubuntu Gnome.
Q: I’m really trying to dip my toes into Ubuntu. I installed it on my crappy chromebook tablet thing and it worked! The best part is Ubuntu only uses 12 Gb compared to Windows using almost all of my 32Gb. How can I find out more about getting started, like what is the best way?
A: You can start with F1, yep, hit F1 on your desktop and you will get the help manual. You can also visit the Ubuntu website, they too have manuals on anything you may need. You could also trawl Youtube, look for “10, 15 or 20 things to do after installing Ubuntu”. Then grab back issues of FCM, it is not in sequence, but it is meant to inspire you rather than be textbook. (Try: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/ubuntu/index.htm)
Q: Where can I get a typing tutor for Linux? I had one on Windows 98/XP and now I want one for my kids. Only, none of those work on Ubuntu. We moved to Ubuntu with Windows 8 when Windows 7 stopped supporting. I haven’t really wanted for anything, until now.
A: I can recommend an app called Klavaro. I think it is free for personal use. There are also terminal-based typing tutors if you would prefer, but I think Klavaro may be the most rounded. I will get it and add an article to the magazine.
Q: Quick one, I’m running Ubuntu server on a machine with a Xeon CPU. I just want to check on the battery every so often as it is a few years old and plugged in permanently. Is there a way if there is no GUI?
A: Check on the battery, eh? When you check the power, you should see all the info on the battery too. Type: upower -i /org/freedesktop/Upower/devices/battery_BAT0 (assuming your battery is BAT0) and obviously you can use grep to grab or highlight what you need.
Q: I’m running Ubuntu 24.04 on my HP laptop. While everything seems fine, I have no sound whatsoever. I have been reading up on ALSA and Pipewire, but I’m not sure what I need. <Removed> I can also confirm that sound works when I install Windows on there.
A: It seems that you need to downgrade/upgrade your kernel, I found this: https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/821982 -Regarding an HP Envy 360.
“Use the Ubuntu HWE kernel (6.11-generic):
sudo apt install linux-generic-hwe-24.04”
Q: I’m pulling my hair out with Ubuntu Nobel and SM Player. When I do a sound test, it is loud. I can go turn on overamplification, that just changes the graphical output of the settings volume slider. I’m not sure if it is related to an update. When I listen to books in SM player as the speed control is better than VLC, it is soft now and there is nothing I can do to change the maximum volume. Inside the settings SM Player also has overamplification that does nothing. I have been told it is because of the underlying audio bus, but this only started happening in the last two months, so that does not make sense to me. Please point me to something I can look at?
A: You mentioned VLC and a known issue (since 18.04) is that if you turn the volume down in VLC on Ubuntu, it sort of messes with the overall sound for other media players. (Global volume) I will bet that your volume in VLC is low, play something, turn the volume to 100% and quit VLC. Now open your movie in SMPayer and the sound there too, will be louder.
Q: When I right click in Ubuntu I only see: Change background, Display Settings, and Settings. I’m sure there used to be more? How do I edit it? I’m sure there must be a way? I’m using Ubuntu Gnome 24.04 with 32Gb RAM and 1Tb SSD and everything is up to date.
A: It took me a while, until I realised you meant right clicking on your desktop. I had no idea, so I surfed the web a bit. It turns out the desktop options are not provided by the file manager, that is why it is different. If you want to manage files on your desktop, you can do that from the file manager. If you want more, I suggest searching the extensions.gnome.org website.