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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 was chatting with a neighbour who asked me about reviving his old laptop. Naturally, I proposed Linux. He said sure, but Linux always has ‘stupid’ names. I thought about it for a second. It’s true there are things like Slackel or Stacer or Suse, (Sssomebody, Ssstop me…) but they need to be searchable and more importantly, findable, specially on the internet. I recall looking for a good book I once read, “Invisible man”, but I forgot the author’s name. Trying to find it only brought up H.G. Wells and when I read that, it was disappointing. Nowhere near what I remembered, had I dreamt it all? Then I found another one written by Ralph Elison and that was worse. When I couldn’t find it, I realised I had the name wrong, it was “Memoirs of an Invisible Man” by H.F Saint, which incidentally was the first time I heard the name “Epstein”, before it was all over the news. I understand the naming of Linux apps and distro’s may sound funny, but to me it is simply a way to try stand out? Taking the books example, of how difficult it was to find something with “invisible man” in the title, imagine if all the Linux distro’s had similar names? Geany is a good example, Genie? Jeanie? … or aseprite, asprite? Are weird naming conventions holding Linux back from mass adoption or actually bad spelling making things difficult to find?
Q: I use ubuntu in English as the local language is poorly supported, but I noticed another issue, when I choose different languages, my calendar changes too. First day of the week becomes Sunday instead of Monday. I don’t see a way to change that? A: There are a few ways to do that, the easiest is via Gnome extensions, https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1720/weeks-start-on-monday-again/ or you can simply edit your /etc/default/locale file, but that will require you to reboot for it to take effect. Q: I have Chromium hang up on me in Ubuntu 24.04. I just installed and run it, I didn’t change anything or added any addons yet. It’s just dead in the water. <removed> A: Ok you gave me very little to go on, but if it is the Snap version, I suggest checking the “permissions” settings under “Apps” in your Gnome settings. A bit of digging also revealed this: https://issues.chromium.org/issues/442860477 -so you may just have to wait of a newer version.
Q: I’m still on Unbuntu 18.04 on my PC, as I have power issues and newer versions of Ubuntu does not allow me to easily add forcefsck to the drive to fix it. I’m old and cannot afford a UPS. My issue is with dpkg tho, sudo dpkg -configure -a dpkg: error: unknown option -o I’m using the guake terminal. A: Honestly in my life, I have never used -configure. However I have used –reconfigure many times. I suspect that the configure option, just like the reconfigure option needs two dashes. Q: I have been faithfully writing every Ubuntu release to DVD, sometimes I go back to a certain release to run software that no longer works on Ubuntu 25.04. Thing is, I have noticed that some are not 100%. Is there a way for me to confirm this? I suspect my DVD drive needs a clean or my batch of DVD’s are duds. I’m willing to re-write them as I’m retired and have plenty of time. A: Sure, go to this page: https://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/ and scroll all the way down to the directory listing. Find your release, say, 12.04, click on that and again, scroll down until you see a directory listing. You should find the MD5SUM’s or SHA256SUMS for you to verify your written DVD’s with.
Q: My question is about the Snap store. I have noticed that software list as “confinement: classic” in the case if intellij. Why is it there and should I be concerned? Should I rather install another IDE? How safe is VS Code then? A: Whoa, hold your horses. Once question per answer, or things get out of hand pretty fast. There is a long explanation here, but a simplistic way to look at it is that when you see that, install your application, like so: sudo snap install <application name> –classic -See our article on Snap packages. (Personally, when Bill Gates says “good moring”, I check if the sun is shining) Q: My PC runs Ubuntu 24.10 “Oracular Oriole” and for some reason, the file roller will not run. I’m too scared to uninstall as people tell me to do. I’m not very computer savvy. A: Uninstalling file roller will not break Ubuntu. Do yourself a favour and install Engrampa. Use that as the default compression application and leave file roller where it is. The zip or rar file you usually just click on to extract, right click this time and pick “open with” and choose engrampa, and then set it as the default application for files of this type. Just an FYI, Ubuntu 24.10 is end-of-life since June.
Q: When I add https://launchpad.net/~gladky-anton/+archive/ubuntu/lammps to my fresh installation, it says no candidate or something and I’m stressing out. It was just something I have done for the last few upgrades, but what are my options now? A: I surfed to the documentation for lammps, https://docs.lammps.org/Install_linux.html#ubuntu and I see they say you can just install it with: sudo apt-get install lammps so I’m assuming it is in the general repo’s now and does not need a PPA any more? I’m not familiar with the software, but I would say read the documentation provided and if necessary, ping them directly. Q: How can I bypass cloudflare with Ubuntu? I find https://installati.one/ubuntu/ a valuable resource and they are always in the way. I heard they are 1.1.1.1 but I use 8.8.8.8 as my DNS, so I don’t understand how they are always in the middle? A: Some websites use cloudflare for DDOS protection and to hide their true IP’s. If they do this, there is no way for you to bypass that. Should the website come under attack, Clouldflare will block the IP’s used. If your IP falls in that range, you will not be able to access the website.
Q: When I use LibreOffice Writer, and I click on my menu to launch a fresh copy of writer, it just brings up my current document. How do I make a new one. Sorry for my English. A: Do you mean a new instance or a new writer document? (I am confused as to what it is you want) You don’t need to launch it from the menu again, you can simply use the keypress, CTRL+N to launch another writer document in its own window? The long way is, in your open writer window, click on file→New→Text document. Since LibreOffice writer is launched from LibreOffice base application, that contains all the “tools” such as writer and calc and so forth, you can’t really launch a new instance of writer by itself. Each new “text document” is unto itself.