johna's blog

Moving from Linux to Windows - little annoying issues

2024-11-06T12:00:00+10:00

So far in the move from Windows to Ubuntu things are going okay, but there have been several small annoying issues.

Problem: An external hard drive used on the previous Windows PC, worked once or twice in Ubuntu and then failed to mount with the following error.
"Error mounting /dev/sdb1 at /media/user/disk name: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1, missing codepage or helper program, or other error"

Solution: Open up the Disks app, select the device from the list of disks, click the cog icon, and then click Edit Mount Options from the pop-up menu. Then turn User Session Defaults to off and press OK.

Problem: An external hard drive used on the previous Windows PC, will not mount after having been incorrectly removed, and showing error "Failed to Mount... Error mounting system-managed device... Unknown error when mounting...".

Solution: Make note of the device shown in the error message, for example "sdb1" and open up a terminal and type the following (replace sdb1 with your device name/partition number) and then press enter. Enter your password if requested.
sudo ntfsfix /dev/sdb1
If this doesn't work you could also try running "Repair File System" from the "Disks" application (follow the instructions in the previous problem to find the app and access the device settings).

Problem: Folders in Home folder became locked as indicated by a red padlock symbol at the top right corner of each folder. This may have happened as a result of copying some folders from another storage device into the Home folder.

Solution: Right-click each folder and then click Properties. In the next window click Permissions at the bottom. In each section (Owner, Group and Others), if access has changed to Access Files, change it to Create and Delete Files. The change is immediate so you can close the window. This applies to the Documents, Photos, Music and Video folders. Desktop only has the Create and Delete Files access as Access Files by default for the first section, Owner.

Problem: Ubuntu does not allow selection of the monitor's native resolution of 1920x1080.

Solution: Currently unsolved. The PC will show 1920x1080 on other monitors but not one specific monitor. I have tried suggestions found online but none worked so far.

Problem: Skype has two icons on the dash. When first installed, the Skype icon on the dash was correct and worked normally. After a Skype update, a second but incorrect icon appeared for Skype. The original icon still opens Skype when clicked but does not indicate when Skype is open. The second cog-style icon now indicates when Skype is open.

Solution: Currently unsolved.

Moving from Windows to Linux - Outlook email on Ubuntu Desktop

2024-11-01T12:00:00+10:00

I have been trying to transition all of the family computers from Windows to Linux and the latest issue was with transitioning one computer running Outlook 2003.

I planned to replace Outlook with Thunderbird as I found resources online that indicated that Outlook PST files could be imported into it, but this must apply to a past version of Thunderbird, and techniques for the current version involve using mail file converters and add-ons.

I had a few failed attempts and then discovered a mail client called Evolution. My next plan was to import the PST file into Evolution and then export to a MBOX file that could be imported into Thunderbird.

Unfortunately I couldn't find Evolution in the App Center unless I changed the filter to Debian packages instead of Snap packages, but the Evolution Debian package failed top install. I then found Evolution could successfully be installed through the terminal.

sudo apt install evolution -y

After installation it appeared in the Show Apps menu and could be pinned to the Dash.

The PST file imported easily into Evolution but exporting to MBOX didn't go smoothly so I thought if Evolution is good enough to import PST files then it's good enough to use as the mail client. So I have now switched to Evolution.

Problem solved.

Simplest file sharing for Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 for non-Linux users

2024-10-26T12:00:00+10:00

With Windows 10 coming to an end in 2025, Linux has its best opportunity yet to capture a more significant share of the desktop market.

However, Linux makes some things difficult that are so easy to do in Windows.

For example, file sharing. In Windows, you can just right-click on a folder and share it without ever having to leave the GUI (graphic user interface).

I have tried a few flavours of Linux, those particularly aimed at Windows users such as Linux Mint and Ubuntu desktop, and so far I haven't found any that make file sharing easy.

For this post, I will look at Ubuntu Desktop 24.04. It appears to have some file sharing out of the box, but I couldn't make these work.

In Settings there is Sharing options. Well just one option: Media Sharing because File Sharing is not installed by default.

On Ask Ubuntu people told me I could use Media Sharing to share a folder and access through Windows. I tried this, and although easy to set up, I could only access the shared folders through Media Player on a Windows PC. Not so useful for non-media files.

So on to File Sharing. The installed help page told me to click to install the necessary gnome-user-share package but no matter how many times I clicked there was no action and no message indicating why. Some searching later I found I could install using the terminal with sudo apt install gnome-user-share.

This got me the File Sharing option in Settings and I was able to enable file sharing of one special Public folder. But I had no success finding or accessing the folder from my Windows PC. The settings page mentions a dav://computer-name address that I was to use but I had no luck with that or any of the usual Windows conventions for accessing shared folders.

I searched the forums and asked questions hoping to find a simple equivalent to Windows file sharing but I mostly got long-winded instructions on installing Samba and configuring via the terminal, or outdated information on Local Network Share that I assume was available on earlier versions of Ubuntu.

But eventually I came across this article on using Nautilus Samba on Ubuntu 24.04. This apparently adds the nice Sharing Options option to the right-click menu of folders.

I followed the instructions to the letter – which unfortunately involve a few entries in the terminal – and saw and tried to access the newly shared folder on Windows and amazingly it appeared on the local network so I double-clicked and... "Windows cannot access"!

So close, yet so far. More searching and I found this Stack Exchange question and answer that suggested an edit to the /etc/samba/smb.conf file might fix this. Not great that I have to make this change but at least I could do it using the GUI.

Much to my amazement, it worked! I could access the shared folder finally.

I am no Linux expert (far, far from it), and I'm sure somebody out there knows easier ways to do this or another Linux distribution that does this out of the box so don't take my advice on this being the best method. But if you are here because you have become as frustrated about this as I was then give those two resources a try.

Following is a brief summary of the instructions, but see the links above for more information.

1. Open a terminal window. You can press Ctrl+Alt+T to do this or access through the menu.

2. Update the APT package database cache:
sudo apt update

3. Install Nautilus file sharing plugin:
sudo apt install nautilus-share
Press y when asked to confirm installation.

4. Add the user to the sambashare group:
sudo usermod -aG sambashare $(whoami)

5. Restart the computer either through the normal menu or from the terminal:
sudo reboot

6. Set a password for the Samba share:
sudo smbpasswd -a $(whoami)
Enter your current password and choose a password for the share.

7. You should now have Sharing Options available when right-clicking on a folder where you can control sharing and who has access.

8. To access from a windows device open a file explorer window and navigate to the Linux PC using the computer name or IP address, eg:
\\192.168.0.99 or \\MyLinuxPc

If you don't know the IP address you can find it by typing hostname -I into the terminal.

If you didn't chose to enable guest access then you will be prompted for your user name and the password you set in step 6.

9. If this didn't work, like it didn't for me, then you need one more step. Open a File window find your way to the folder /etc/samba/ (you can start by going to Other Locations) and open the file smb.conf in the text editor just by double-clicking.

Find the line workgroup = WORKGROUP and add a few line below it:
force user = John (replace John with your username)

Then restart Samba with:
sudo service smbd restart

You should now be able to access the shared folder.