Fern Moss's questions

The Ubuntu font was redesigned to be thinner and, to my eyes, it is harder to read than the old one (yet the bold version looks extra chunky now?). This new thinner version is was introduced in Ubuntu 23.04.

I thought I might just download the older font and install it with ttf files, but can't since the new ones are installed. Removing the fonts-ubuntu package tries to take desktop package with it, so I couldn't do that.

How do I remove that font and replace it with the old version? Or have them side by side, that'd be just fine too as long as I could distinguish between the two. Yes, I could just change to another font, but I liked the old one!

In Kubuntu 21.04, how can I apply a color theme so that it affects all (or at least most) components of the desktop?

In the Settings, I went to Appearance -> Colors -> edit theme button -> Common Colors, where I changed the selection background, along with the focus and hover decorations.

This affects most programs, but not the highlights in the panel nor the selection of desktop icons. In the screenshot I set the highlight color to pink, which is shown in the Settings window and file manager, but the default blue of the Breeze theme remains in the panel and desktop.

Restarting those components does not do anything. This does work correctly in the older Kubuntu 20.04, and it's not an issue in KDE Neon (I upgraded Plasma in Kubuntu via backports to see if that would fix it, but it does not).

I wanted to test Unity out on a live-USB image of Ubuntu 18.04.

Obviously Unity is no longer the default, so after booting, I used sudo apt install ubuntu-unity-desktop to install Unity and configured lightdm to be default display manager.

After logging out, however, the default display manager did not change. And rebooting meant losing all of the changes on the live-USB.

How can I use Unity on a live-USB image of Ubuntu 18.04?

I would like to play midi files in Firefox.

For example, I'd like to click on the files on this Wikipedia page and have them play in the browser and not have to download them and use a separate player.

I did get a plugin for VLC to play them, but even when it is set to handle midi files in Firefox's preferences either Totem still opens (and does nothing) or VLC opens it in a separate window (depending on the setting).

Is there a cleaner way of playing them embedded in the browser?

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 and font hinting works perfectly as usual, except for a couple of applications: Dropbox's preferences and Dwarf Therapist. Since they are both Qt apps, I figure that's where the issue is.

Here's a picture of Dropbox's preferences:

If you zoom in you'll see that the font hinting is in greyscale:

I created a ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf file with this in it:

<match target="font">
   <edit name="rgba" mode="assign">
     <const>rgb</const>
   </edit>
</match>

That seems to get some color subpixel hinting, but then the letters look even thinner and wispier (here set in comparison with Diodon's preferences, which displays the system font properly):

Is there a way to get these fonts to display correctly? Ideally the application would obey Ubuntu's defaults (hinting, the font itself, etc.).

I did install qt4-qtconfig, as explained here, but that did nothing. I'm not sure if this is a bug (under what package would I file one?), or something weird with my install. I feel they should just work without without editing a font.conf file (since every other program in Ubuntu ignores those), though if someone can give me the right settings for the font.conf file I'll be happy.

What exactly is Ubuntu Core, and how does it relate to Ubuntu itself (i.e. the main desktop and server distribution)?

I've read the answer to this question, which says it's just a minimal install of Ubuntu, but it says nothing about the "snappy" transactional updates that Mark Shuttleworth mentioned in his blog post.

I have a laptop with an extra battery. Currently the smaller one in the bay normally reserved for a CD/DVD drive drains first, leaving the main one untouched until the smaller one is totally discharged.

How can I change the order in which the batteries drain so that the main battery discharges first?

Using the command line, I want to mute the sound effects in Ubuntu 14.04.

The GUI way of doing so is going to System Settings (unity-control-center), then going to the Sound Effects tab:

The answer to this question outlines a way to do so using gconf (sudo su gdm -c "gconftool-2 --set /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds --type bool false"), but that no longer works in newer versions of Ubuntu.

I also looked for a clue at the output of pacmd info, but couldn't find anything useful either.

There is what seems to be a relevent setting that can be changed in dconf (org/gnome/desktop/sound/event-sounds), but it is set to false and changes nothing. There are some Ubuntu settings, especially for Unity, that don't have visible dconf settings. Still, they can be seen when changed with a GUI while running dconf watch /. But it shows nothing when muting/un-muting that setting.

I know I could just remove all the sound effects, but there must be a proper way of doing this...

Every time I start Inkscape, no matter what, it starts up in an unusably small window.

Each and every other program I use remembers its window size. Why won't Inkscape? Is there a way to force Inkscape to do so?

Firefox used to be better integrated with Unity: when downloading it would show the number of files and a progress bar. This was achieved through the Unityfox add-on, but it no longer works and the development seems to have ceased.

Is there any way to achieve this in a current version of Firefox (say, version 31 in Ubuntu 14.04)?

Even the newest version of Thunderbird seems to work just fine, displaying the number of unread emails in the launcher, so I imagine there's some way for that functionality to be added back into Firefox.

How can I suspend my computer from the command line and, once it wakes up, display Unity's lock screen? I want to replicate exactly what happens when I click on the system cog icon at the top right of the Unity panel and go to Suspend in Ubuntu 14.04 (not an earlier version!).

I've found many answers that do not work, such as those found here and here. All of them are for older versions of Ubuntu or invoke either gnome-screensaver or xscreensaver's lock screen.

This command, for instance, suspends the computer, but does not lock the screen: dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.UPower /org/freedesktop/UPower org.freedesktop.UPower.Suspend, despite Require my password when waking from suspend being checked in the Brightness & Lock system settings.

Actually, I don't even know how to invoke Unity's lock screen at all in 14.04: the closest I can come to is dm-tools lock, but this is not quite the same, as it allows you to sign in as a different user and shows more indicators.

I recently installed Ubuntu 13.10 on an SSD drive using the "encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security" option. I wanted to enable TRIM, so was following the guide provided here.

One step says to add the discard option to /etc/crypttab. However, the crypttab man page somewhat vaguely states:

WARNING: Assess the specific security risks carefully before enabling this option. For example, allowing discards on encrypted devices may lead to the leak of information about the ciphertext device (filesystem type, used space etc.) if the discarded blocks can be located easily on the device later.

What exactly are the security risks of enabling TRIM on an encrypted SSD partion/drive?

Ever since I upgraded to 13.10, the software updater does not show all the available updates. Some will appear and can be installed just fine, but once it claims that all software is up to date, using sudo apt-get upgrade shows that there are still more packages waiting to be updated. I can update them via the command line, but that only solves things temporarily. I'm not sure why some show up and others don't. How can I make Update Manager update all packages?

Update-manager shows this:

But apt-get shows this:

Thanks!

In Ubuntu 13.04 I had my compose key set to pause (by going to System Settings, then keyboard layout, option, and changing the compose key setting). In 13.10 the keyboard settings have been totally rearranged: the compose key is now set by going to Keyboard in System Settings, hitting the Shortcuts tab, then the Typing menu.

However, there is no option to select pause. How can I set the compose key to whatever key I want? Thanks!

I've recently upgraded from Precise to Raring and noticed that Nautilus 3.6, when displaying files and folders in list mode, no longer has alternating grey lines (there's probably a better name for these, but I don't know it; see pictures below). This used to be the default, and helped me to easily distinguish between particular files and their attributes.

Is there a way to reenable this? Is it maybe theme dependent?

The old list view with clearly demarcated lines:

The new, unclear list view:

The list view of Nautilus 3.6 shows the dates files were modified in a variety of ways: the hour and minute if modified on the current day, and the month and day if modified during the current year, and the year tacked on if modified during a previous year. I would like to see the entire date and time consistently on all the files (e.g.: Sat 20 Apr 2012 01:28:34 PM EDT).

I had this set up before, but I can't figure out how to do so with version 3.6. I did find this question, but the answers no longer apply to Nautilus 3.6: How to change the date format in Nautilus list columns?

How can I do so in Nautilus 3.6+?

Staring with Ubuntu 13.04, the outline around windows when scale/spread (Super+W) and the switcher (when viewing different windows of an application using Alt+`) are invoked is red. See the pictures below. The outline stays red even when I change themes. Using the CompizConfig Settings Manager I can change the color of the outlines that appear when expo is invoked, windows are set into a grid, and windows are resized, but I can't find an option for scale/spread or the switcher.

How can I change the outline's color?

This has bugged me for a while, but on many pages viewed with Firefox on Ubuntu (but not on Windows or OSX) any é (e with an acute accent) is replaced by a й (the Cyrillic Short I). There are probably other examples, but this is the one I encounter all the time.

Why is this, and is there anything I can do to get Firefox to display the characters properly?

A screenshot that should read résumé:

Here's an example of a page where this happens: http://www.theonion.com/articles/company-immediately-calls-job-applicant-upon-seein,31669/

Interestingly, the title displays fine. Looking at the page source the characters that display correctly are simply é while those that do not are written as &eacute, &eacute or &#233 (I think).

I use MPD, along with the GUI client Sonata to play all my music. It works quite well, but none of my music shows up in the music lens (since I don't use Banshee or Rhythmbox, it's just empty). Has anyone created an MPD scope for the music lens so that my music would show up? I thought I read in some now-forgotten place that someone was working on one.

Thanks!

I have a problem where a one-pixel high white line is displayed through certain letters of text. Almost always only a single character type is affected at once, and only in one font size (though that size can change over time). Most of the time things are fine, but this happens several times a day. It happens frequently in Firefox, but system dialogs, menus, etc. can also be affected. It's been happening ever since I upgraded to 10.10. Only restarting seems to fix it.

Two examples (in the first, only the larger "r" is corrupted):

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Edit: I've since noticed that I can (sometimes) make the fonts appear correctly by zooming in/out all the way and returning to the default in Firefox (one or two steps, then going back, does nothing) seems to make the problem go away temporarily.

Edit 2: I figure it's worth noting that the solution below doesn't fully work for me any longer (I'm now using Ubuntu 11.10). It does significantly reduce the frequency of this problem occurring.

Edit 3: Still around in 12.04. The fix provided by Vanni works perfectly now for me, but apparently doesn't for some.

Edit 4: This seems to be an xorg problem, with Vanni's answer fixing it for many Intel video cards. I've had this occasionally happen with AMD graphics cards in 13.10 and 14.04, but very rarely (only two or three times).