My wife had been using DVDFab 13 under Microsoft Windows 11 and wanted to continue to use it for ripping DVDs after we converted her desktop PC to Ubuntu Linux. DVDFab 13 seemed to be working fine after I installed it using Wine until after I updated Wine to version 11.0 (you can see which version of Wine is present by issuing the command wine --version in a Terminal window). When I tried to run DVDFab afterwards, though, I saw the message “A debugger has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.”

When I queried ChatGPT about the issue, it replied “This error is usually not caused by an actual debugger running on Ubuntu. DVDFab contains anti-debugging / anti-tamper checks, and under Wine or Proton those checks can sometimes incorrectly conclude that a debugger is attached.” It also stated that, for DVDFab 13 specifically, there is an issue when trying to run the program on later versions of Wine with the problem appearing with version 10.3 or later. The problem occurs on newer versions, even when no debugger is running. I decided to install the application under Bottles, which I had previously installed on the system with Flatpak, to see if the problem might not occur if I tried to run the application under Bottles, but the problem still occurred. I.e., I saw the "A debugger has been found running in your system. Please, unload it from memory and restart your program.” message. It took me a considerable amount of time to resolve the problem, but I was finally able to fix the issue by disabling DXVK and VKD3D in the settings for the DVDFab bottle.

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The file command can be used on a Linux system to determine what type of data a file holds, e.g., file Untitled.png. You can determine the media type, aka MIME type, by using the --mime-type option for the file command. E.g., file --mime-type Untitled.png. You can determine which application is the default application for opening files of that file type using the xdg-mime command — the xdg-mime program is a command line tool that can be used to determine what application handles a particular file type. E.g., xdg-mime query default image/png — you need to specify the filetype in the "minor/major" format that xdg-mime expects, which is what you see in the output of the file --mime-type command.

$ file Documents/Untitled.png
Documents/Untitled.png: PNG image data, 597 x 113, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
$ file Documents/tea.html
Documents/tea.html: ASCII text, with very long lines (6229)
$ file --mime-type Documents/Untitled.png
Documents/Untitled.png: image/png
$ xdg-mime query default image/png
org.gnome.Loupe.desktop
$ file --mime-type Documents/Cocoa-Lead.odt
Documents/Cocoa-Lead.odt: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
$ xdg-mime query default application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text
libreoffice-writer.desktop
$

The default file manager for Ubuntu Linux is GNOME Files. You can make another application the default file manager, if you like. Some alternatives are Thunar, Nemo, Krusader, or Dolphin. You can determine which application is the default file manager with the command xdg-mime query default inode/directory. You can set the default file manager with the command xdg-mime default fmgr.desktop where fmgr is the filemanager you wish to use.

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I had installed MakeMKV from source files on an Ubuntu Linux system . It had been working then, but when I tried to run the program today, I saw the message "Application failed to initialize NO_ANSWER_FROM_MAKEMKVCON".

I had updated the operating system and other applications on the system in the intervening months, so I knew it was possible that the upgrade changed or removed libraries that makemkvcon depends on. I had upgraded the operating system from Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing Quokka) to 26.04 LTS (Resolute Racoon). The error means the MakeMKV graphical user interface (GUI) can't communicate with its backend console process, makemkvcon. I.e., the GUI is waiting for a response from makemkvcon and that process isn't starting or is crashing, possibly because of a missing required dependency such as a missing or changed library file. To try to determine if that was the case and, if so, which library might be associated with the problem, I ran makemkvcon from a terminal window.

alice@Wonderland:~$ which makemkvcon
/usr/bin/makemkvcon
alice@Wonderland:~$ makemkvcon
makemkvcon: error while loading shared libraries: libavcodec.so.61: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
alice@Wonderland:~$

I was able to resolve the problem by reinstalling MakeMKV from the source files. When I did that and re-registered the application, it started normally.

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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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I downloaded a YouTube video on a Ubuntu Linux with yt-dlp. When I tried to view the downloaded WebM file with the default video application, Videos, also known as Totem, which is an application for playing videos that is provided with Ubuntu, I saw the message below:

When I opened the video with VLC, which I had previously installed, I heard audio, but no video was displayed. I checked to see if the Nvidia driver was up-to-date since the system had an Nvidia graphics card, but they were up-to-date. You can check that by clicking on the Show Apps button at the lower-right-hand corner of the screen Ubuntu desktop. Then type Software Updates in the "Type to search" field. Click on Software & Updates and then click on the Additional Drivers.

To resolve the problem, I added the following line to the /etc/environment file with a text editor:

GDK_GL=gles

When I rebooted the system, I was then able to view the video with the default Videos application, though when I tried playing it in VLC I could hear audio, but did not see video.

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Then from the Behavior tab, I changed the setting from Follow System to Always, which resulted in the scrollbar appearing where it had been missing, but I could not scroll back any further than the text that had been appearing in the tab before I changed the settiing and that remained the same whenever I issued another command and text moved upwards, so that I could no longer see it or scroll back to see it, so I closed the tab.

When I opened another tab, the scrollbar was there and operated as expected.

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You can run the Big Fish Games Game Manager on an Ubuntu Linux system under Steam. You can install Steam as a Snap package from the Ubuntu App Center.

Steps:

1. Download the Big Fish Games App (Game Manager) for PC
2. In Steam on the Ubuntu system, click on Add a Game, which is at the lower, left-hand corner of the Steam window, then select Add a Non-Steam Game, then browse to where you downloaded the .exe installer for the game manager, click on it, and then click on Add Selected Programs.
3. You should then see the Big Fish Game Manager in the "Uncategorized" list of games at the left side of the Steam window, e.g., you may see bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe listed. Right-click on it and then select Properties, then Compatibility, and then, from the drop-down list that becomes available, select Proton Experimental or the latest stable version — I selected Proton Experimental.
4. You can then close the Compatibility window by clicking on the "X" at the upper, right-hand corner.
5. Then with the Big Fish Game Manager selected in the Uncategorized list, click on the Play button to launch the Big Fish Game Manager Setup and agree to the License Agreement when you see it appear.

When I started the install process, the installation appeared to hang at "Execute: C:\Program Files (x86)\bfglient\epoch.exe". When I clicked on the title bar for the window, I saw "About Wine", so it appeared to be using Wine, which I had previously installed on the Ubuntu system. But I waited and eventually the installation succeeded, though I think it took over 15 minutes. I closed the window and then went back to the Steam window, I saw bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe was still there. This time when I clicked on it, the Big Fish window where I could sign in to Big Fish Games opened fairly quickly.

Note: if the window goes blank or displays just a white background, minimize it by clicking on the "-" in the upper, right-hand corner of the Big Fish window and then switch to it again, which you can do with Alt+Tab — continue to press the Tab key while continuing to hold down the Alt key to cycle between open open windows until you get to the Big Fish window.

Initially, you will see "No games to play," but if you have already purchased games that you've played on another system, you can click on Purchase History and install them on the Linux system. When I installed the Big Fish Games Manager under Steam, I had my wife check one of her games, Aquascapes, and that ran fine. I then closed the Big Fish window and the Steam window and reopened it. Note: if you want to change the name that appears for Big Fish Games in the Uncategorized list, you can right-click on the entry, e.g., bfginstaller32_s1_l1.exe, and choose Properties and then change the "Shortcut" value to something you prefer, such as "Big Fish Games". When I reopened Steam and started Big Fish Games, I saw the Aquascapes game under "My Games".

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To access a directory that is shared from a Microsoft Windows system in a Windows domain, you can take the following steps on a Ubuntu Linux system. Note: you will need to have a package installed that provides Server Message Block (SMB) support. If the libsmclient0 package is installed, you should be able to use these steps. You can check if it is installed by opening a Terminal window and issuing the command dpkg -s libsmbclient0. If it is not installed, you can install it with sudo apt install libsmbclient0.

alice@Wonderland:~$ dpkg -s libsmbclient0
Package: libsmbclient0
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: libs
Installed-Size: 259
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Multi-Arch: same
Source: samba
Version: 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2
Replaces: libsmbclient
Provides: libsmbclient (= 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2)
Depends: samba-libs (= 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2), libbsd0 (>= 0.0), libc6 (>= 2.38), libndr6 (>= 2:4.17.2), libtalloc2 (>= 2.0.4~git20101213), libtevent0t64 (>= 0.15.0)
Breaks: libsmbclient (<< 2:4.22.3+dfsg-4ubuntu2.2)
Description: shared library for communication with SMB/CIFS servers
 This package provides a shared library that enables client applications
 to talk to Microsoft Windows and Samba servers using the SMB/CIFS
 protocol.
Homepage: https://www.samba.org
Original-Maintainer: Debian Samba Maintainers <pkg-samba-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org>
alice@Wonderland:~$

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If you need to list all of the accounts on an Ubuntu Linux system, there are many commands that you can use.

1. cat /etc/passwd
2. grep -oE '^[^:]+' /etc/passwd - for just the account names
3. cut -d: -f1 /etc/passwd - for just the account names
4. awk -F: '{print $1}' /etc/passwd - for just the account names
5. lslogins
6. compgen -u - for just the accunt names
7. getent passwd

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