Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Q When I installed Ubuntu 11.04, I selected automatic login. I think I can be more productive by using the Gnome desktop. How can I switch to this desktop?
A Run System > Administration > Login Screen. Choose “classic” and restart.
Q How can I get accurate .doc contents using Open Office Word? Sometimes when I open .doc files in Open Office, indention and spacing would differ compared to MS Word.
A (Thanks to The Cog) Perfect compatibility will probably not happen. Even the same version of MS Word on two different computers can render differently, depending on which version of Windows, or even which type of printer it has.
Q I just installed Ubuntu 11.04 on my machine, an HP DM4 with core i5-430m. The CPU usage on System Monitor is really high (60+% on at least 2 cores) and I'm not doing anything.
A (From the same person) The reason for the high CPU usage was gnome-system-monitor itself, if you have the same problem try using ´top´ in a terminal session instead.
Q I installed Wine in Ubuntu 10.10 x-64, and I use it to play my Windows games, but some games, like Planet vs Zombies, work so slow, and some games, like World of Warcraft, don't work. Do I have to install any other software to use Windows games on Linux?
A (Thanks to Mark Phelps in the Ubuntu Forums) In a word – NO. There is Winetricks and Play on Linux, but both are add-ons that attempt to improve the Wine experience by making it easier to install and configure certain apps and games.
Check the WineHQ app database for the games and versions you want to run, to see their ratings. Low, or no, ratings means you are wasting your time trying to run that app or game.
Q I've started seeing something called “kworker” listed recently when I run top. What is it?
A (Thanks to Llawwehttam in the Ubuntu Forums) Kworker is what controls the ACPI wakeup signals from the BIOS. The latest kernel, well, all of them since 2.6.35, have had issues with too many wakeups. This is an issue across ALL Linux distributions. Hopefully it's going to be fixed soon.
Q I want to start a process (boinc manager) on boot, without logging in.
A (Thanks to sanguinoso in the Ubuntu Forums) If you put the startup command in /etc/rc.local it will start on boot. See http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/28 for more info.
Q I'm running Ubuntu 10.04. and suddenly the Alt-Gr key stopped working, meaning I cannot get @ and many other symbols on the German keyboard.
A Check your keyboard layout settings in System > Preferences > Keyboard to make sure it’s still correct. Q My wireless connection would work fine unless I played a video from Youtube, or a flash source in general, through Firefox 3.6 or Chromium. My wireless connection would disconnect.
A (Thanks to baceman007 in the Ubuntu Forums.) What fixed my problem was to go to the settings on my router. I enabled Security>Firewall>Filter Multicast. (The router is a Linksys E3000). There might be other router settings which could affect this.
Q How can I identify my USB devices?
A Run Accessories/Termina,l and enter the command:
lsusb
The result will be a list which looks like this, but longer:
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0bda:0158 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. Mass Storage Device Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b1aa Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
The real information is the nine characters which follow “ID”. For example, “04f2:b1aa” is my Chicony device. If you Google the ID and “USB” it will probably take you to the web site: usb-ids.gowdy.us/index.html
You might get a warning about his “certificate,” which I chose to ignore. The page should describe your device.
Q Does the Natty kernel offer out-of-the-box support for TRIM on a TRIM-capable SSD drive?
A Run Accessories/Terminal and enter this command:
gksudo gedit /etc/fstab
Find the line for your EXT4-formatted Solid State Disk, and make the options look like this:
discard,noatime,errors=remount-ro
Q After upgrading my MSI U135 to Natty, the wireless connection repeatedly asks for the password, and never connects.
A Open Accessories/Terminal and enter the command: gksudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Add this line: blacklist rt2800pci
Save the file and reboot.
Tips and Techniques To Natty or not to Natty
Every time a new version of Ubuntu appears, there's a flurry of activity in the Ubuntu Forums. This time (Natty Narwhal 11.04, with its new user interface), there is good news and bad news.
Normally, most of the traffic about a new version is along the lines of, “such-and-such is broken on my computer, how can I go back to the old version?” With Natty, a lot of messages ask, “how do I do such-and-such?” Some are, “it has changed, and I don't like change.” Relatively few say, “such-and-such does not work,” although there are a few.
My plan is to skip 11.04 on my production environment; I expect that community feedback will make 11.10 much more usable. It will also give me time to consider Gnome 3, which also represents a major interface change. I might even take KDE for a spin. If you're happy with what you have, I suggest you avoid changing to 11.04.
Despite this, I have installed 11.04 on a persistent flash drive, just to see what people are talking about. (Thanks, Multisystem!)
This does affect the Q&A column. More than ever, I will be reporting on solutions which I have not tried myself. Please bear with me.