TRiG's questions

I upgraded Ubuntu, and my Thunderbird has lost all its mail accounts. (I had one profile, but multiple mail accounts within it.) Some searches reveal that the new Snap version of Thunderbird stores its settings in a different location. I could perhaps copy the old directory to there to see whether it would work, but on looking at the current directory, there are ImapMail directories for a whole bunch of old mail accounts which no longer exist, and I think perhaps it would be neater to start from scratch. Can I easily extract just the actual mail accounts (account names and login details) from the old place, and put them in the new directory so that it syncs the IMAP emails again?

Incidentally, this appears to be a bug in the upgrade process. Old mail accounts should not be lost in an Ubuntu upgrade. Should I report that somewhere, or is it already known?

I have speakers built into one of my two monitors, headphones, and a USB microphone which for some reason is also detected as two different speaker options (there is no output if I select those options). I usually use the HDMI output, sometimes the headphones. But the selected Output Device constantly resets itself to the microphone, so whenever I join an online meeting, or try to play audio, I first have to open settings and reset it. Why does this happen, and how can I stop it? I'd like it to just stay on whatever it was last on.

Incidentally, if Zoom is set to use the default output device, and I change the default output device, Zoom does not pick up that change unless I change the Zoom output device and then change it back to default. But that's a minor irritant in the scheme of things.

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release:    20.04
Codename:   focal

I've found some guides which say that this used to be complicated, but is now as simple as

sudo apt install obs-studio && sudo apt install v4l2loopback-dkms

This does indeed give me a "Start Virtual Camera" button on OBS Studio. When I click it, I am prompted for a password. And that's it. Nothing else happens. The button still says "Start Virtual Camera" (it should change to "Stop Virtual Camera"). And no virtual camera is detected by Firefox, Zoom, or Cheese.

Am I doing something wrong?

I don't know much about ruby.

I was trying to get jekyll running on this computer a few months ago. I remember that I installed jekyll and several ruby gems following different tutorials and without taking proper notes. To add to the confusion, only some of it was through apt install. Some of them were gem install.

I want to try again, and I think I'd be better off with a blank slate to start with. As I'm not currently using ruby for anything else, I'm happy to remove it. But will this also remove all ruby gems?

rvm implode

Command 'rvm' not found, but there are 19 similar ones.

sudo apt purge ruby has removed a lot, but I don't know whether gems are still around.

It downloads Chromium correctly, but then fails to configure it.

$ sudo snap refresh && alert; alert
[sudo] password for webdev: 
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Run configure hook of "chromium" snap if present (run hook "configure": 
-----
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/65-nonlatin.conf", line 8: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 4: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 5: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'translate'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'selector'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'xmlns:its'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/69-unifont.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'version'
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 4: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 5: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'translate'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'selector'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'xmlns:its'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'version'
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf", line 8: unknown element "description"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 4: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 5: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'translate'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'selector'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'xmlns:its'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/80-delicious.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'version'
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 4: unknown element "its:rules"
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 5: unknown element "its:translateRule"
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'translate'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 5: invalid attribute 'selector'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'xmlns:its'
Fontconfig error: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/90-synthetic.conf", line 6: invalid attribute 'version'
/usr/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 10 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 4 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings/large: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc: caching, new cache contents: 89 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/util: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/cMap: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/cmap: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/eot: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/eot/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/fonts-go: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 20 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/cabin: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/cantarell: caching, new cache contents: 5 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/ebgaramond: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/fonts-hosny-amiri: caching, new cache contents: 6 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/freefont: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/gentiumplus: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/ipaexfont-gothic: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/ipaexfont-mincho: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/ipafont-gothic: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/ipafont-mincho: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/linux-libertine: caching, new cache contents: 13 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/lobster: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/lobstertwo: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/malayalam: caching, new cache contents: 7 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/noto: caching, new cache contents: 73 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/stix: caching, new cache contents: 29 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/stix-word: caching, new cache contents: 5 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/tlwg: caching, new cache contents: 58 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/opentype/urw-base35: caching, new cache contents: 35 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/svg: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/svg/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 84 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Gargi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Gubbi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Nakula: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Navilu: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Sahadeva: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/Sarai: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/abyssinica: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/adf: caching, new cache contents: 41 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ancient-scripts: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic-bkai00mp: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic-bsmi00lp: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic-gbsn00lp: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/arphic-gkai00mp: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/artemisia: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/asana-math: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/baekmuk: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/baskerville: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/bodoni-classic: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/comfortaa: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/complutum: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/croscore: caching, new cache contents: 12 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/crosextra: caching, new cache contents: 8 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu: caching, new cache contents: 22 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/didot: caching, new cache contents: 4 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/didot-classic: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/droid: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/ebgaramond: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/font-awesome: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-beng-extra: caching, new cache contents: 6 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-deva-extra: caching, new cache contents: 3 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-gujr-extra: caching, new cache contents: 5 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-guru-extra: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-kalapi: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-orya-extra: caching, new cache contents: 1 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-telu-extra: caching, new cache contents: 2 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/fonts-yrsa-rasa: caching, new cache contents: 10 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/freefont: 
<exceeded maximum runtime of 5m0s>
-----)

Is there a known way around this, or is this a bug which I should report on Launchpad?

This morning, I launched Slack from the program list. Once it was up and running, I clicked a link therein, which launched Firefox. In fact, it launched four Firefox windows, each with many tabs, because Firefox remembers my previous session, and I'm disorganized like that.

However, in the program switcher (Alt+Tab), the Firefox windows are bundled in with the Slack window. So too in the launcher bar, where the Firefox icon shows with no dots underneath, and the Slack icon with five. I visited about:profiles in Firefox and restarted the program, but it’s still associated with Slack.

I often start Firefox by clicking a link in an email, but I’ve never had it grouped in with Thunderbird. I often start Slack from Firefox, by opening the Slack webapp, and selecting the “Open the Slack App” option therein. This sometimes causes Slack to be grouped within the Firefox windows (the opposite of what I have today).

I find this somewhat irritating. Is there an easy way to fix it? Should I be reporting this as a bug instead of / as well as asking about it here?

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release:    18.04
Codename:   bionic

Ubuntu is nagging me to update. Looking around, I see that 16.04 LTS has now reached the end of “hardware and maintenance updates”, but continues to supply “maintenance updates” for some time. Is there any pressing need to update my machine, or can I hang on for a while longer?

If I set “notify me of a new Ubuntu version” to “never”, do I still get a reminder when my current version reaches end of life?

There’s a command line built into Firefox, which allows various options such as taking screenshots and restarting the browser. It used to open with Shift+F2, but since the upgrade to Firefox 57, that no longer does anything.

I have seen the command line since the upgrade (it was open in one Firefox window, and remained open after the upgrade), so I know that it does still exist in Firefox Quantum. However, I have since closed that window, and cannot get it back. Is there now a different keyboard shortcut to reveal the command line?

The Mozilla documentation for the command line still says Shift+F2.

I am using Firefox Quantum 57.0 on Ubuntu 17.10.

For some godforsaken reason, Twig files in our source code are saved with a .html extension, instead of a .twig extension. I followed guidelines to add custom highlighting to Gedit, and the Twig highlighter I found does attach to .html files (with <property name="globs">*.twig;*.html;</property>). However, the inbuilt HTML highlighter also attaches to .html files (with <property name="globs">*.html;*.htm</property>). This is the ruleset that Gedit uses for .html files (possibly because html.lang is earlier alphabetically than twig.lang).

I don’t often edit either HTML or Twig, so I don’t need some sort of automated solution which works out what type of file it really is and applies the correct highlighting. Picking the highlighting from a Preferences menu would be sufficient. Is there any way to do that?

Basically, when I open a .html file, I want a way to tell Gedit that this file is actually Twig.

I had three Firefox windows, each with a few tabs. One of them also had a “restore previous session” tab which I was planning to open once I had dealt with and closed all of the current tabs. I hit ... something (I’m really not sure what I did: I think I did something with the keyboard while the wrong window was in focus), and suddenly two of the windows (including the one containing the previous session) disappeared. The “Recently closed windows” under the History menu is greyed out: there is no sign of these two windows anywhere. What happened, and is there any way to get them back short of manually going through my entire history of all visited pages for the past week and a half?

I did grab a copy of my ~/.mozilla folder, but I don’t know how to read it. I’m capable of parsing JSON if that’s necessary, but I’d rather not.

As of today,

• Shift+2 gives me the @ symbol and Shift+' gives me ". (The at sign and the double quotation mark have swapped places.)
• Alt Gr+4 no longer produces the € symbol.

This tells me that my keyboard has switched to some non-Irish mode, probably American. And yet, up at the top right of my screen I see an Ie, and if I click on it I see that the Irish option, which is the only option, is selected. What gives?

The keyboard layout chart shows much as I’d expect, with the ", @, and € symbols where I’d expect to see them:

And the text entry settings also show Irish as the only available option:

So if everything tells me that I have an Irish keyboard, and if it worked as an Irish keyboard till yesterday, why is it suddenly not an Irish keyboard today? And what can I do about it?

I am not experiencing the problem in How to create a new blank file in Nautilus 3.6 and above?, perhaps because I have a newer version of Nautilus.

$ nautilus --version
GNOME nautilus 3.14.2

I can create a blank file very easily in most directories: find some blank space, right click, and select New Document » Empty Document. However, if a folder has enough content to fill the screen, there is no blank space. If I switch to icon mode, there is blank space between the icons, but in list mode there is no blank space anywhere. I don’t recall having this difficulty in the past. Right clicking in list mode used to work. Is there any way I can restore older behaviour?

I quite like Oxford spelling. This is British/International English spelling, but preferring -ize endings to -ise. It has the language tag en-GB-oed. Is this supported by the spellchecker in Ubuntu?

I am runnung Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. If I have a few windows open (say four to six, not a large amount), and minimise all by pressing Ctrl+Super+D, they all minimise immediately with no problems. However, if I minimise them one at a time, by clicking the minimise button with my mouse, the last one often hangs.

Usually it will appear as a ghost on the screen for a while, semi-minimised (in other words, shrunk toward the Unity launcher bar, half-size or smaller, and semi-transparent). Usually it will eventually clear; sometimes the computer just freezes and I have to restart it.

It doesn’t seem to matter what the window actually is. Just now, I had to restart my computer with Skype* semi-minimised. I’ve seen it freeze before with the Terminal semi-minimised (and the Terminal wasn’t even doing anything at the time). The only pattern is that it’s always the last window minimised which freezes, and that minimising all windows together using the keyboard shortcut works fine.

What on earth is going on, and how can I stop it?

Graphics information

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset DRAM Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4
00:1a.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5
00:1a.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6
00:1a.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 1
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 3
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) PCI Express Root Port 4
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev 90)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801JIR (ICH10R) LPC Interface Controller
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SATA AHCI Controller
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801JI (ICH10 Family) SMBus Controller
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV635 [Radeon HD 3650/3750/4570/4580]
01:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RV635 HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 3600 Series]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
04:00.0 PCI bridge: Creative Labs [SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio] CA0110-IBG PCI to PCIe Bridge
05:00.0 Audio device: Creative Labs [SB X-Fi Xtreme Audio] CA0110-IBG

glxinfo is too long to fit, so I popped it into the Ubuntu pastebin.

_{* I hate Skype, but I need it for work.}

I’ve just installed Lubuntu 14.04 on my laptop (replacing the previous dual boot Ubuntu 13.10 / Windows 7, which my poor little laptop really didn’t have the space for). As part of the installation process, I was asked to select my keyboard layout. I selected Irish, and double-checked that the problematic keys (", @, €) worked correctly. Everything seemed fine.

Now that the installation is complete, however, I have a US keyboard with no obvious way to change it (and no obvious way to type the € symbol). I am, of course, interested in fixing this, but I’d also like to know why this happened in the first place.

If I insert an audio CD into my computer nothing happens. Nothing at all. According to the Banshee documentation, the CD should "automatically appear within Banshee in your sources list, beneath your Music Library and Video Library sources". It doesn't.

Within Banshee, Edit > Preferences > Extensions > Core > Audio CD Support is turned on.

I stuck an SD card in the card reader, imported my photos with Shotwell, deleted the photos from the card (again, with Shotwell), then right-clicked on the desktop icon and safely removed the card.

I then physically removed the card and inserted another. The computer is ignoring it. How can I tell Ubuntu that there's a new card in there now and I want to look at it? I know that rebooting the computer will work, and I'll do that this time, but there must be a better way for next time.

So, I have a folder on my computer which contains these two files (and other files)

disc membership.pdf
disc membership.pdf (Case Conflict 1)

And I have a folder on an external drive which contains the file

DISC membership.pdf

I copy the file from the external drive to the computer harddrive, and find that it is renamed

disc membership.pdf (Case Conflict 2)

Why?

The folder on the computer is contained within a Dropbox folder. Could that be a reason?

I had an Ubuntu 9/Windows 7 dual boot. (I almost never use the Windows side, actually.)

Ubuntu was bugging me to update, so I tried it (backing up everything first). Somehow, the update failed (I think because someone turned the computer off at the socket half way through). The computer now refuses to boot into Ubuntu.

Now I have an Ubuntu 10.10 install disk. I want to use it to overwrite the existing Ubuntu installation, while leaving the Windows installation alone. I got as far as the advanced "select a partition" section, but I had no way of knowing which partition was which.

What I have is

/dev/sda
  /dev/sda1   nfts
  /dev/sda2   nfts
  /dev/sda5   ext4
  /dev/sda6   swap

So, I want to leave the NFTS partitions alone (why do I have two of them?) and install Ubuntu 10.10 on /dev/sda5. Is that right? I'm not sure what /dev/sda6 is used for. What is a "swap area" anyway? I think I'll leave it alone.

So I selected /dev/sda5 and told the installer to use it as the "Ext4 journaling file system". The Install button lights up, but when I click it I'm told that no root file system is defined. How do I go about defining a root file system?

GParted shows this slightly differently:

(Click to enlarge.)

I have a CD with Ubuntu 10.10 and a laptop with Ubuntu 8.10. The laptop had all sorts of crud on it, and anything I wanted to keep was backed up on an external drive, so I was happy to do a wipe and reinstall instead of an update. So after a bit of faffing about trying to work out how to get the thing to boot from the CD drive, I did that.

So the screen comes up with the choice: the options are Try Ubuntu and Install Ubuntu. I choose to install and to overwrite my current installation. So far so good. I then get a progress bar labelled something like copying files (I forget the exact wording) and further options to fill in for my location, keyboard locale, username and password. On each of these screens there are forward and back buttons. On the last screen (password), the forward button is greyed out. Well, I think to myself, no doubt it will become active when that copying files progress bar completes.

The progress bar never completes. It hangs. And the label changes from copying files to the chirpy ready when you are. The forward button remains greyed out. The back button is as unhelpful as you'd expect it to be. And there's nothing else to click. We have reached an impasse.

I tried restarting the laptop, to test whether it actually was properly installed. It wasn't. I tried to run Ubuntu live from the CD, to test whether the disk was damaged. That wouldn't work either, but I suspect it's just because the laptop is old and has a slow disk drive. I'm typing this question on another computer using the Ubuntu live CD and it's working fine. So there's nothing wrong with the CD.