Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
Q How can I get my Nvidia GTX 960 to work properly with Ubuntu?
A Google this: gtx 960 ubuntuforums
The first result should point to a post which says “SOLVED”. The procedure can probably help people with other recent Nvidia graphics cards.
Q I'm remotely mounting a shared Windows 8 partition from Ubuntu 14.04.2 using an entry in fstab. When I look at the file permissions, it looks as if I should be able to write to the partition. However, when I try to write to the folder I get “Permission denied.”
A (Thanks to Mark Phelps in the Ubuntu Forums) Check in Win8 to ensure that you have disabled FastStartup – that is NOT the same as Fast Boot. Also, when you leave Win8, make sure you choose ShutDown, not Restart, because the latter automatically enables hibernation.
Q I am setting up a new web/game server and want to have remote access, but we want it more secure than SSH. What should we do?
A (Thanks to TheFu in the Ubuntu Forums) I don't know of anything more secure than SSH using ssh-keys. Never allow passwords for Internet connected systems; that is TOTAL FAIL.
Lots of ways to lock down SSH further: - install fail2ban (blocks brute force attacks) - block all external IPs except from the people who should have access - use an iptables rule that slows down access from IPs with multiple login failures.
If you want more security with ssh, you could force two-factor authentication with something like Google-authenticator or Ubikey.
Q How can I have a plain background in Xubuntu 15.04?
A In Settings, Desktop, there is a drop-down called “Style.” Select the top item, “None.” The line below that lets you pick the color for your plain desktop.
Q I have an ATI Radeon HD 2400XT, and, when I installed Ubuntu 14.04, the graphics card driver was installed automatically. Did Ubuntu install the latest ATI graphics driver or is it a generic driver?
A (Thanks to QIII in the Ubuntu Forums) That is an older card and it no longer enjoys Linux support from AMD. The legacy driver will not work with the current version of X Server. When you installed Ubuntu, the default open source Radeon driver was installed – otherwise you would not be seeing anything. That is the driver you will need to use.
Q I need to mount my laptop upside down. With the Nvidia 331.113 drivers my games perform well but I cannot rotate my screen.
A Run Nvidia X Server Settings. Select “X Server Display Configuration” on the left. The fourth item on the right is “orientation”.
Q I added LibreOffice to a fresh install of Xubuntu 15.04, but the spell check did not work.
A Run Language Support and follow its suggestion to complete the installation. Restart LibreOffice.
Q I am interested in donating some old computers.
A (Thanks to Veddox in the Ubuntu Forums) That is a good idea, if they are still reasonably good. Speaking as a teacher at a school in Africa, we sometimes get old computers donated by somebody in the West. A few are still usable, but all too often they have about 128MB RAM, broken touchpads and an Intel Pentium from 1999. I'm sure the people who send these out do so with the best intent, but they don't help, we can't do anything with them. In short: don't give away junk. (If they have enough power to run Windows 7 reasonably smoothly, or Ubuntu or Linux Mint, they are very much welcome. But if you can't even start AbiWord on them without crashing them, no thank you!)
Top questions at Askubuntu
* How is 'rm -rf /' able to delete all files in the system? http://goo.gl/z3bbEn
* What does this 'apt-get remove' instruction do? http://goo.gl/UO621J
* How can I create a video file from a set of jpg images? http://goo.gl/Fdspz8
* How do I prevent one user in particular from accessing my home directory? http://goo.gl/M7qOpi
* “mv file” and now it's missing http://goo.gl/qSBKH2
* Can I emulate graphical DOS applications inside a TTY? http://goo.gl/rtO7HF
* How does Ubuntu know the make and model of my laptop? http://goo.gl/ZrQcWS
* How to install Visual Studio Code on Ubuntu? http://goo.gl/pl0Gxw
* How can I merge files on a line by line basis? http://goo.gl/3sRV81
Tips and Techniques A new member of the family
Ubuntu Mate is now an official community distribution in the Ubuntu family. I have an Acer Aspire One netbook which wasn't up to the task of running Ubuntu Kylin, and Mate has a reputation of being fairly lightweight, so I decided to have a go.
What do I want from a computer? Remote desktop host (x11vnc) and client (KRDC), file server (samba) and print server, web browser (Chrome), media player (VLC), productivity applications (LibreOffice), webcam recording (guvcview), and system monitor (conky). Everything worked just fine. It felt a bit slower than Xubuntu on the same computer, but not by much.
When you start Mate, it has panels at the top and bottom of the screen. With the tiny screen of the netbook, only 600 pixels high, one panel had to go. A few minutes of work did the job, although there is still room for improvement. (I lost network manager and the volume control in the shuffle, but they are both available in Settings.)
After installing Synaptic Package Manager, I searched for “samba” and installed everything which looked relevant. Five minutes later, I had a shared folder which allowed everybody to read and write files. (This was the area where Mate had an advantage over Xubuntu.) The netbook isn't very powerful, but it has a 160 GB hard drive, which is enough to be useful for backing up current projects. (I may even set up Own Cloud, as per the last issue of FCM.)
I plugged in my Brother laser printer, and eventually got it shared. The trick: in Printers, Server Settings, enable “Publish shared printers connected to this system.”
Six years ago, this netbook was the slowest computer on the market, so I'm not planning to make heavy use of it. Even so, with Mate it is a usable ultra-portable, small file server or even a remote camera.
On the other hand, the advantages over Xubuntu were very limited.