My wife was dissatisfied with the default file manager, GNOME Files, aka Nautilus, on her Ubuntu Linux desktop system. You can determine the default file manager from a terminal window by issuing the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory, which will show you what application opers directories.

$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory
org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
$

You can also check on whether one of several common file managers, such as Nautilus, Thunar, Dolphin, or Nemo, which is a fork of Nautilus, is currently running with ps aux | grep -E 'nautilus|thunar|dolphin|nemo'. I saw that I had previously installed the Krusader file manager when I checked for file manager desktop entries with grep -l "inode/directory" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop.

$ grep -l "inode/directory" /usr/share/applications/*.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.gnome.baobab.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop
/usr/share/applications/org.kde.krusader.desktop
$

But I didn't think the Krusader interface would appeal to her as she wanted a file manager that provided an interface more similar to the one for the Windows Fle Explorer that she had on her Windows 11 system, so I issued the command sudo apt update and then sudo apt install thunar, which installed thunar 4.20.7 — after installation, you can check the version of Thunar with thunar --version. I then made Thunar the default file manager with xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory. If you run the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory, you should see thunar listed when it has been made the default handler for directories.

$ xdg-mime default thunar.desktop inode/directory
$ xdg-mime query default inode/directory
thunar.desktop
$

I then unpinned the GNOME Files (Nautilus) app by right-clicking on the icon for it and selecting Unpin. I then pressed the Super key along with the "A" key, and typed thunar in the "Type to search" filed and then right-clicked on thunar when I saw it returned and selected "Pin to Dock" so she could open it the way she was opening GNOME Files.

To make the left pane of the Thunar window act like Explorer on Microsoft Windows operating systems, I configured it to expand a directory to show subdirectories if she clicked on it. To do so, I changed Thunar's sidebar style from the default "Shortcuts" to "Tree, which can be done by selecting View, then Side Pane and then selecting Tree, which changes the left pane to provide an expandable directory tree. As with the Windows File Explorer, you can toggle the display of hidden files. I turned that option on by pressing the Ctrl and H keys simultaneously — the option can be toggled off again by using the same key combination.

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A couple of days ago, when my wife tried to play Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam on her Ubuntu Linux system, when she clicked on "Play" it would appear that the game was going to start, but it never did. When I checked on whether the executable program for the game, ddv.exe, was running using the ps command and piping its output through grep with ps -aux | grep -i 'ddv.exe' | grep -v grep in a Terminal window, I could see it ran briefly, but when I reissued the command a few moments later, it was no longer running. To troubleshoot the problem, I closed Steam and then killed all running instances of it with pkill command, i.e., pkill Steam, in a Terminal window. The system has a NVIDIA Quadro P2000 and the problem seems to have been an issue related to Vulkan graphics software on the system. When I upgraded the operating system and rebooted, the problem disappeared.

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Drawing is a simple raster image editor for Linux systems that is similar to Microsoft Paint. The program is free and open-source software (FOSS) released under the GNU General Public License, version 3. It is available as a Snap package for the GNOME desktop on Ubuntu and other Linux systems and on Ubuntu systems can be installed by opening the App Center and searcing for Drawing.

To create an arrow in the Drawing application, take the following steps:

1. With the file containing the image you wish to edit open, click on the line tool on the menu bar on the left side of the Drawing window.

   

2. Click on Line options, which you will find at the bottom of the window, and select simple arrow.

   

3. You can adjust the width of the line and arrowhead by changing the value of the number you see to the left of Line options by clicking on the plus or minus buttons (the value is in pixels) or you can type the number you want in the field. With the color you wish for the arrow selected (you will see the color in a square near the lower, left-corner of the window, click at a point where you wish the back end of the arrow to be located and, while holding down the left mouse button, move the mouse pointer upwards to where you wish the arrow to end. Then release the mouse button. You should then have a line with an arrowhead at the end.

   

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A user reported that she could not access her email from her Windows 11 system, which she normally would do by clicking on a shortcut on her desktop which would open the Microsoft Edge browser to the webpage where she could log into her email account on outlook.com. When I clicked on the shortcut, I saw a blank, white area appear above the taskbar. I found statements online about opening Microsoft Edge in a restricted "Safe Mode" that disables extensions and custom settings, by starting it in InPrivate mode by openng the Windows Run dialog, which you can do by pressing the Windows key and the "R" key. Then type msedge --inprivate in the Run dialog window and then pressng Enter (I wasn't certain whether there should be one dash or two before "inprivate" since I found both listed when I searched online for a method to open the browser in safe mode). However, with either option, Edge still crashed shortly after opening with a blank, white window. I was able to correct the problem by repairing the application, which can be done through the following steps:

1. Type settings in the Windows "Type here to search" field and press Enter.
2. When you see Settings returned, click on it.
3. Select Apps.
4. Select Apps & features.
5. Scroll down through the list of applications until you see Microsoft Edge and then select it and click on Modify.

   

6. Provide the credentials for an administrator account when prompted for a userid and password.
7. Click on Repair.

   

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My wife had been playing Disney Dreamlight Valley under Windows 11. When I installed Ubuntu 25.10, I installed Wine, then Steam as a Snap package, and then installed Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam. She was able to use the Cloud Save option to log into the game with all of the progress she had made under Windows. She needed to switch back to Windows for a while and didn't switch back to Ubuntu for several weeks. When I started Steam and Disney Dreamlight Valley again under Ubuntu and then tried the Cloud Save option, it did not work with the message below displayed when I was prompted to provide login credentials:

Login Error

Cannot connect to online services. Continue playing in offline mode

If I entered the wrong password, I got a response indicating that the system was able to check the credentials, which I presumed were being checked on a remote server. And I was able to successfully use the change password option, which sent a password reset code to my wife's email address. I was able to resolve the problem by uninstalling Disney Dreamlight Valley under Steam and then reinstalling it.

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My wife has been using Filename Magic Pro for Windows for many years; she has version 1.00, which still appears to be the latest version. The software "offers robust functionality for batch renaming files within folders. It streamlines the process for organizing large collections of documents, music, or images." I transitioned her desktop PC from Microsoft Windows 11 to Ubuntu Linux 25.10 and installed Wine so that she could run Windows applications that she might want to still use on the Ubuntu system. I was able to install Filename Magic Pro and use it without any problems on the Ubuntu system. If you choose to have the program create a desktop shortcut during the installation, you will see two shortcuts on the desktop, Filename Magic Pro.desktop and Filename Magic Pro.lnk. If you right-click on Filename Magic Pro.desktop and choose Allow Launching, you can then double-click on the shortcut to start the application. You can delete the Filename Magic Pro.lnk by right-clicking on it and choosing Move to Trash.

When you start the program, if it is unregistered, you will see a countdown timer that counts down from 15.

You can wait to the countdown gets to zero or just close the countdown window to proceed, which will then lead to the display of the window below.

There is a "click here to purchase" link, but that no longer works; if you click on it, you will see a HTTP 404 error indicating the page no longer exists. But if you previously purchased a license as we had, you can transfer it from an old system to a new system or, in our case, from Windows to Linux by exporting the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\L5 Software Group registry keys, which you can do with the Windows registry editor, RegEdit, or you can download or copy this L5SoftwareGroup.reg file and edit it with a text editor, such as Windows Notepad and replace the AppRegKey Xs with your license key (be sure to save it with just the .reg extension and not a .txt file extension tacked on). You can add the registry keys to the registry used by Wine by opening a Terminal window and running the command wine regedit filename.reg where filename is the name of the .reg file.

jim@Wonderland:~$ wine regedit ~/Downloads/L5SoftwareGroup.reg 
jim@Wonderland:~$ 

When you then open the program, you won't see the countdown timer and can just click on OK. You can press Alt-Tab afterwards to get to the main Filename Magic Pro window.

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I installed Wine on an Ubuntu Linux system to be able to run Microsoft Windows applications on it. I installed Sumatra PDF to view PDF and EPUB files. When I double-clicked on EPUB files in the Wine File Explorer window, which you can run by issuing the command wine explorer in a Terminal window, or wine explorer &, if you wish to open it and immediately return to the shell prompt, I saw an Error window which stated "There is no Windows program configured to open this type of file." If I double-clicked on a PDF file, it would open in the GNOME Document Viewer application. I was able to set the default application for opening those files under Wine with the following steps:

1. From the Bash prompt in a Terminal window, run the Wine registry editor program to modify the Windows Registry with wine regedit.
2. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.epub and set (Default) = epubfile. If you don't see a .epub entry, right-click on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and choose New. You can press the F5 key or choose View and Refresh to refresh the display to show the new entry in alphabetical order.
3. If you then click on the .epub entry, you will see (Default) under Name, REG_SZ under Type, and (value not set) under Data.
4. Double-click on the entry and then type epubfile in the Value data field and then click on OK.
5. Then navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\epubfile\shell\open\command, if it exists. If there is no epubfile entry you can create one by right-clicking on HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and selecting New and Key giving the new key a name of epubfile. Then double-click on the (Default) entry under the new key and type EPUB Document in the Value data field. Then right-click on the epubfile key and choose New and Key and type shell for the name. Right-click on shell and create a new, open beneath it. Then right-click on open and create a new key, command beneath open.
6. Then right click on the command key and choose New then String Value.
7. Double-click on the new (Default) entry under command and then type the location and file name for the application that you wish to use to open .epub files within double quotes followed by a space and then "%1", e.g. "C:\Program Files\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe" "%1", if you wish to open the files with Sumatra PDF and you installed it so that it is accessible to all users of the system. Or use "C:\users\username\AppData\Local\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe " "%1", where username is the relevant username, if you chose to install it just for the current user when you installed it.

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Collectorz now appears to be focusing on their mobile and web-based products for managing book collections, but they also provide a desktop Book Collector desktop application for systems running Microsoft Windows, though I don't even see a link for it on the homepage of their website nor do I see one in their sitemap webpage. However, if you are using the desktop product and need to update your Book Collector database if the location of cover images, thumbnails, list item images, templates, and/or local files for entries already in the datbase, you can take the steps below. You can specify the directories for new entries by clicking on Tools, Options, Folders to set the directories Book Collector should use by default.

Inside the Book Collector program, click on Tools then select Update File Links. In the Update File Links window you can "choose the kind of files you would like to repair". I left the default value of All Types, but you can also select Front Cover, Back Cover, Pick List Image, Pick List Template Image, Local File, or Backdrop. When you click on Next Step, you can choose to have the program automatically update the old folder to the new folder or you can choose to do it manually. With the automatic option, you can "Select a base folder and let the program find the missing files automatically" while with the manual option you can "Use a find and replace action to manually fix your file paths". For the "Choose folder where to find files", browse to the appropriate directory where the files are now located. Check the box next to "Include subfolders", if that is appropriate, and then click on Next step. The program will then show a "Finding best matches for missing files" window with a progress bar as it updated links.

At the next step, Step 4, you can see the resulting file paths and click on the Update File Links button to finalize the changes. You will then see the number of file links that will be updated and asked if you are sure to proceed. I saw a window with a message that Book Collector was not responding, but I chose "Wait" several times and it finally completed. When all the links are updated, you should see a window informing you of the number of file links updated. If you updated the location for the images for books already in the database, you should now see the images appear for book entries.

If you just need to update the links for a particular kind of files, e.g., the local files, or the location of those files differs from the location of other files, e.g., if they are on a different drive than the images, etc., at Step 1 where you "choose the kind of files you would like to repair", you can choose that file type instead of "All Types".

I was able to use the above steps when transitioning my wife's desktop computer from Windows to Ubuntu Linux, after I installed Book Collector under Wine, to specify the new location of image and local files.

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