Hello new to Ubuntu MATE from FL, with a few questions

Support & Help Requests
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Hello, my name is Nickman and I live in Florida, I’m new to this forum and I really love all the Ubuntu Mate reviews, I think it’s a very good distro and I will defiantly see about giving ubuntu mate a try due to it’s stability

My Linux journey started in 2015 around there when I first saw Ubuntu advertised in a Consumer Reports magazine, I liked what I saw about ubuntu but I never downloaded it, then I heard about Linux Mint I liked what I saw but same thing, I never did step up to the plate and download.

Then I came across Trisquel and I really liked it due to the fact that I am big on privacy, however same thing, I never downloaded it, the reasons for not downloading the first 3 were because I did not have a big enough flash drive

Then a few months ago I came across Solus (it was posted on the trisquel forum) and I finally got a big enough flash drive to be able to install it, however I ran into an issue with it (Solus Budgie) I could not get past the Examine local storage devices on the installer, and a user believed it was due to two things, The ISO itself was corrupt or I could not get past it due to my wifi broadcom card, I plan on getting a Intel wireless chip to soon to solve that issue, hopefully it can be solved by Solus at some point.

Then a user on the hexchat for Solus suggested ubuntu mate specifically due to it being stable and ease of use and that he believes either wifi broadcom cards work out of the box on ubuntu or there is a workaround, another user suggested monjaro but I’ve seen a lot of people say Arch is not good for the new Linux user (such as myself).

I want to be able to dual-boot Ubuntu Mate with Windows 10 and use Ubuntu Mate for a good period of time say 3 months to get used to Linux, maybe even longer depending on college classes

My questions for the users are

  1. I have Solus written on the flash drive I bought a Sandisk 32 GB, and I used Rufus to write Solus on it, how do I rewrite the image for Ubuntu Mate to be on the flash drive instead of Solus?
  2. Does Ubuntu Mate support wifi broadcom cards out of the box, or is there a workaround that I should be aware of?
  3. Does Ubuntu Mate support a Canon MG 7720 printer?

(I apologize if this post is long I just wanted to space my post out to avoid an enormous wall of text lol), if anyone can answer my questions that would be greatly appreciated :slight_smile:

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@Nickman 1. Use Rufus to write MATE's iso/image on your flash drive. Rufus can deal with writing over the Solus image quite easily. See Rufus help if there are questions.
2. Broadcom wireless drivers rarely work "out of the box" in my experience. See - Broadcom wireless tip
for a direction to get your wifi working.
3. I don't have the slightest idea if this printer is supported either directly or indirectly. Perhaps someone else can answer this question. Good luck Nickman.

Edit: For help with canon printer drivers please read -

2 Likes
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@mdooley thank you for the reply I appreciate it, I’ll be working on my flash drive to writing over the Solus image soon, probably in a few days or so, once I get Ubuntu Mate dual booted with Windows 10, I’ll use the tip you posted.

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Thanks for the tip, I looked on both websites for printing and for some reason my specific model is either not supported or it’s not listed on the site

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As it happens, I have a Canon printer and it is not supported by Linux. My solution has been to instal lan old Windows XP or Win7 7 instllation inside a program called “Virtualbox” inside my Linux OS. This allows for a virtural Wiondows to run inside Linux. I install my printer driver in there. The virtual machine can be connected to my real-world external canon printer and so I can print anything I need form there.

Obviously , it’s not as ideal as having the printer work directly in Linux. But, it definitely works. Typically, it will add a minute or so to the time it takes to print any document.

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Hmm, I’ve actually never done a VM because since it would be tied into the host OS (In my case it would be Windows 10) then viruses could screw something up on the VM, I’ll see about doing that though

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Having once installed the Windows OS and the Windows printer driver on the VM, shut down it’s internet access. If it is only ever going to be used as means to print, then you will never need it to access the Internet since you will do that on your host machine

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[quote=“Nickman, post:6, topic:13001”]then viruses could screw something up on the VM[/quote]As suggested, you could simply disallowed the virtual Windows access to the Internet but additionally, as long as that virtual Windows is just used to print, there is very little risk in it actually becoming infected.

Windows 10 does come with its own package to deal with suck risks and it actually does do quite an OK job of it. OK enough to at least ensure you shouldn’t become infected from using it to print documents. The virus situation isn’t as harsh as you make it out to be.

Obviously I’m currently using Ubuntu MATE (why else would I be here) but I used MS operating systems for a few decades (starting with MS-DOS, then moving to Windows 9x, Win ME, Win 2k, XP, 7, 8.1) and in all that time I never once was infected. Responsible use wins over any and all risk and risk mitigation.

1 Like
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Hello @Nickman. Welcome to forum :slight_smile:

I have completely different experience then Steve with Canon printer (MP520, well it’s All in one device). It’s been working every time I have plug it in right from the start, so you should try that first, before downloading/changing anything. Also scanner worked right from start with no problem, using Simple Scan, which stopped worked a while ago under Windows XP with official drivers around 3 years ago.

I checked online and on many sites it’s reported that your Printer support Linux, so you should be good to go.

Otherwise you can also change drivers under Printers > Preferences > and look at Manufacture and Model (or something like that) and click Change, there you can find and change drivers.

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Yeah, I didn’t mean to make the virus situation out as bad as I did

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Okay, thanks ele, I’ll be sure to do that