Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Q Is there a guide to Ubuntu on the new UEFI motherboards?
A Yes: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI
Note that the starting point is 64-bit Ubuntu, versions 12.10 or 12.04.2 – and the point two is important.
Q Can I run the latest Adobe Flash plugin on an old Athlon XP CPU?
A (Thanks to Troon2 in the Ubuntu Forums) No, the plugin requires a CPU instruction set extension called SSE2, which the Athlon XP does not include. If you can find version 10.2 of the plugin, it should work.
Q How can I download the “Ubuntu Desktop Manual” so that I can get a printout?
A (Thanks to deadflowr in the Ubuntu Forums) You can use the print option for Ubuntu Manual: http://ubuntu-manual.org/downloads
Q We have a network which includes Mint 12 and 13, and Windows XP and 7. The Mint 12 computer has a printer attached, how can we use that printer from the other computers?
A There's an excellent writeup in the community docs: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingWithUbuntu
When I went through it, the only discrepancy I found was that my shared printers appeared after a few seconds in the Windows “add a printer” dialogue. The author calls that a miracle!
Q I'm building a high-performance computer, what size SSD do I need?
A If you will also have a hard drive, 120 GB should be more than enough. Even if you dual-boot with Windows, it should be happy with 80 GB, and then use 40 GB for /, and put /home on the hard drive. If you don't plan to have a hard drive, the important factor is how much media (pictures, songs and videos) you expect to have. I consume a lot of media; my Music and Pictures folders contain about 15 GB each, but my Videos folder, and sub-folders, is over 200 GB.
Q How can I run Ubuntu from a USB stick without the shopping lens? I have tried a “persistent” stick, and it's very slow.
A Install Ubuntu onto the stick, formatted as EXT2. You might also want to use “noatime,” as explained here: http://tldp.org/LDP/solrhe/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-RH-Edition-v1.3/chap6sec73.html
Then, of course, turn off the shopping lens: sudo apt-get remove unity-lens-shopping
Q My goal is to install the original Tomb Raider game that I have on CD, and that runs on both Windows 95 and MS-DOS. I tried to install it under WINE, but the window immediately closed.
A (Thanks to ibjsb4 in the Ubuntu Forums) For old DOS games, use DOSbox, it's in the software center.
Q I am using ClamAv with Linux Mint 14 and have just run it on some old files that were produced using Windows MS Word. ClamAv found viruses in 3 files, and it lets you quarantine or delete the file but not to repair it. My question is, are there no Linux Viruses that we should worry about?
A There was one Linux trojan mentioned in the news a few issues back, and there was a follow-up describing how to ensure it can not be installed on your system. (FCM#67, Q&A)
ClamAV searches for Windows malware, so you avoid the embarrassment of infecting your friends. Also, a lot of people run mail servers on Linux, with Windows clients. To the best of my knowledge, Word viruses can not infect a Linux system.
There are mixed opinions about Java. I'm no expert, but it appears that Java is inherently insecure; many experts suggest removing it from your system. However, that means some web sites don't work. I have it installed on my system, and visit sites which use it. Note that Java is not the same as Javascript, which is OK.
I am convinced that the biggest danger is responding to fake emails. If you get an unexpected email, hover over any links, and you will find they don't go where they say they will.
Q How can I run the Shrew Soft VPN client in Ubuntu 12.10?
A See post 4 of this thread: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2078420
Q How can I find Keyboard/Mouse serial number or information through terminal?
A This is from a source who should know: “keyboards do not, as a rule, communicate about what they are to the computer.” Mice are even worse.
Q What do you sages use for automatic backup of your systems?
A Good question! I don't use an automatic backup. Somewhere around here, I have a 250 GB hard drive which contains my historical “good stuff.” I don't bother with backup of downloaded videos; if they all disappeared, I would say, “oh, well.” I use Dropbox for the stuff I'm currently working on, which means it gets synched to my other computers.
The downside of Dropbox: if I delete a file, it gets deleted everywhere.
Tips and Techniques So Easy
Sometime around 2006, I couldn't resist buying a Lexmark X1240 multi-function printer/scanner at Walmart, for about $60 (Canadian) if memory serves. It was connected to the XP machine, and worked fine. However, it had the usual problem of ink cartridges drying out when you don't print much, so by 2009 it became a scanner, and I bought a networked Brother laser printer WITH NO INK CARTRIDGES.
Soon after getting the X1240, I moved to Ubuntu. When I upgraded my wife to a newer computer running Windows 7, I couldn't find the driver disc for the Lexmark. OK, go online, I still couldn't find the drivers. (I later found not just the drivers, but all the software which was included with the multi-function unit – but it took several tries.)
Today I wanted to scan something, so I decided to try the Lexmark. I connected it to my computer, turned it on, Linux said, “a Lexmark 1200 series has appeared.” The ink cartridges have been dry for years, so I wasn't able to test that it can actually print, but I could run “simple scan” and scan documents to my heart's content. Total setup time, 30 seconds to plug in the power cord and the USB cable.
The Lexmark software had an OCR option, which Simple Scan doesn't include. However, there are a couple of programs I could use to go from image to text, if I ever need to.
Everything should work this easily.