Category: Ubuntu Desktop

How to fix Skype can’t connect – Ubuntu 16.04

james 3 Comments

I just updated to Ubuntu 16.04 and tried to make a Skype call.  It said that “Skype can’t connect”.  The error message looks like this:

Skype Can't Conect Ubuntu

To fix this you need to remove Skype completely from your system including your settings.

1) Remove the skype and it’s settings

sudo apt-get remove –purge skype skype:i386

2) Remove any settings in your home directory:

rm -rf ~/.Skype

3) Reinstall the application:

sudo apt-get install skype

You should then launch Skype and see the following term dialogue box.

Terms of Use_026

If you don’t see this box when you first launch Skype then you didn’t remove all the settings.  Your Skype should now connect 🙂

How to move the Unity menu to the bottom – Ubuntu 16.04

james Leave a comment

There are two ways of move the Unity menu from the side to the bottom.   You can either move the launcher to the bottom using a single command line statement or dconf.  The best way is just to cut and paste this command into a terminal

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Bottom

This setting will stay and the Unity menu with stay at the bottom even after a reboot.  You can also move the menu back to the left hand side like so:

gsettings set com.canonical.Unity.Launcher launcher-position Left

Voila.  You are good to go 🙂

 

A window stuck in the top menu Ubuntu Unity 14.04

james Leave a comment

Some of my windows (for example libre office) have been getting stuck on the top left of the screen because Ubuntu Unity was appearing to eat the menu controls. I could not minimise, maximise or close the windows simply because the menu button weren’t visible.

The solution is to hold down the ‘alt’ key and drag the windows away from the top.

I didn’t know about alt-drag but is a really useful little tip.

Let me know if you find another solution.

The Teamviewer daemon is not running – please start the daemon ubuntu

james 17 Comments

I have just started using Teamviewer on Ubuntu 13.10 to help a few people setup some software on their computers. When I try and launch it pops up a dialogue saying:

The TeamViewer daemon is not running!

Please start the daemon (needs root permissions) before running TeamViewer

teamviewer –daemon start
….

Trying “sudo teamviewer –daemon start” doesn’t actually do anything – so the solution is to:

sudo teamviewer --daemon enable

How to repair / restore Grub on Ubuntu using Live CD

james Leave a comment

I just upgraded Ubuntu and selected the wrong location to install Grub onto. Basically, I installed Grub on /dev/sda1 and not /dev/sda and so I need to repair and installing grub.

I got out an Ubuntu installer cd which is essential a live cd and booted in it up. Then mounted the sda1 partition:

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

Grub then needs to have access to /dev so:

sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev

To install Grub on sda then:

grub-install /dev/sda --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

Note: we are using the –root-directory option rather than changing the root directory using the chroot command which sometimes doesn’t work on a live CD.

For a tutorial with more words these two pages might helped you learn more: