The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

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Megaman: May 8, 2004; I didn't read the thread BUT...

Ziir posted:

I want to try out Ubuntu but I'm confused. What's the difference between ubuntu and kubuntu? From google I see that it's a matter of Gnome vs KDE. Well that's great if I knew what Gnome or KDE were but I don't (other than that they are two different desktops).

I'm a lifelong windows user.

Edit: I forgot to say, I installed ubuntu on my laptop a few months ago and haven't really played around with it. I just remembered about it today and drat does it take a long time to boot. It takes a lifetime to boot compared to my vista installation it seems. Is there anyone to speed this up?

Ubuntu has Gnome, Kubuntu has KDE, and Xubuntu has xfce

These are all window managers, which are similar to EXPLORER.exe in windows. Explorer.exe can be replaced by other "shells" such as bblean or blackbox to give windows a different look and feel but the underlying kernel is still running under it. This is the same thing with linux, the kernel is still there, gnome, kde, xfce, and many others are there to change things up depending on whether you like light weightiness. Don't forget, though, that there are some applications that are defendant on gnome or kde, so if you have xfce or fluxbox/etc. you may not be able to run them but for most programs you won't have this issue or there will be ports or alternatives for these defendant programs.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 00:01

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# ? May 10, 2024 16:13

covener: Jan 10, 2004; You know, for kids!

FugeesTeenMom92 posted:

I really like Ubuntu, and it runs pretty well on my machine. It's just the few small problems that are pissing me off. Like not being able to convert FLAC to mp3 without an act of god.

Aren't flac and lame packaged? Are you hunting for a GUI instead of learning how to use the native tools?

# ? Oct 19, 2008 00:22

AzraelNewtype: Nov 9, 2004; 「ブレストバーン！！」

The Remote Viewer posted:

They work fine for basic usage, but I'm using 90% of the functionality of uTorrent that simply isn't present in most clients. I may be downloading to a very specific directory, changing the directory name while the torrent is downloading, setting different priorities for different torrents, stopping a torrent automatically after certain conditions are met, setting specific maximum upload/download rates on an individual torrent basis, etc.

Every one of these things is possible in KTorrent, I have no idea what you're on about.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 00:44

The Remote Viewer: Jul 9, 2001

AzraelNewtype posted:

Every one of these things is possible in KTorrent, I have no idea what you're on about.

KTorrent is one of the ones I didn't bother trying. I'll file that away for future reference.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 00:47

I Hate Admin !!: Jan 19, 2007; by Nutt Hogg

covener posted:

Aren't flac and lame packaged? Are you hunting for a GUI instead of learning how to use the native tools?

Yes, instead of having to type in a command line to convert each and every single file.

"Learning to use the native tools" = There is no easy way?

# ? Oct 19, 2008 01:10

covener: Jan 10, 2004; You know, for kids!

FugeesTeenMom92 posted:

Yes, instead of having to type in a command line to convert each and every single file.

"Learning to use the native tools" = There is no easy way?

Dunno, never bothered to look. It's pretty common/useful to iterate over a set of files with commands like this in the shell.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 01:18

chizad: Jul 9, 2001; 'Cus we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

Sartak posted:

Gnome and KDE have different looks and feels. Different things are customizable. They come with different applications. Do a google image search for both and you can see which you like better.

I prefer KDE but it's really a preference. If you don't care either way you might as well go Gnome as it's the default.

Yeah, look at some screenshots and decide which you think you'll like better. After you install if you don't like it or just want to see if the grass is greener, you can always install the other by going into Synaptic/Adept and installing ubuntu-desktop/kubuntu-desktop.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 02:49

The Remote Viewer: Jul 9, 2001

Gnome is generally considered the 'safe but stale' one, while KDE is the 'Buggy but cutting edge' one.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 03:00

bitprophet: Jul 22, 2004; Taco Defender

FugeesTeenMom92 posted:

Yes, instead of having to type in a command line to convert each and every single file.

All .flac files in your current directory:

code:

for file in `ls -1 *.flac`; do lame -some -args $file; done

All .flac files, recursive, in your current directory or any subdirectories:

code:

for file in `find . -name "*.flac"`; do lame -some -args $file; done

Don't remember the actual usage/name of the LAME binary, but that part's inconsequential -- the point here is that you don't need to run a single simple command for every file

# ? Oct 19, 2008 03:18

Ziir: Nov 20, 2004; by Ozmaugh

Megaman posted:

Ubuntu has Gnome, Kubuntu has KDE, and Xubuntu has xfce

These are all window managers, which are similar to EXPLORER.exe in windows. Explorer.exe can be replaced by other "shells" such as bblean or blackbox to give windows a different look and feel but the underlying kernel is still running under it. This is the same thing with linux, the kernel is still there, gnome, kde, xfce, and many others are there to change things up depending on whether you like light weightiness. Don't forget, though, that there are some applications that are defendant on gnome or kde, so if you have xfce or fluxbox/etc. you may not be able to run them but for most programs you won't have this issue or there will be ports or alternatives for these defendant programs.

Ah, that makes sense then.

So how do I speed up Ubuntu? I mean, reading through the netbook megathread, I'm led to believe that linux is suppose to boot extremely fast and just be generally more responsive than XP/Vista. But on this laptop, Ubuntu takes at least twice, if not three times, as long to start up as Vista does.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 04:22

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

FugeesTeenMom92 posted:

I really like Ubuntu, and it runs pretty well on my machine. It's just the few small problems that are pissing me off. Like not being able to convert FLAC to mp3 without an act of god.

Have you tried soundconverter? Worked great for me.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 07:22

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

The Remote Viewer posted:

Gnome is generally considered the 'safe but stale' one, while KDE is the 'Buggy but cutting edge' one.

thats weird, I LOVE gnome and dont feel like its stale at all. Then again, I havent used KDE in a long rear end time, whats cool about it now?

Megaman posted:

How DARE you sir, apt-get update/apt-get install/apt-get update is the coolest part of Linux

UGH! Im about to use aliases to re-write apt-get install to just apt-get or maybe even yum install. Once I type 'get' my brain translates it as install. Like "Apt Get that poo poo" so half the time i forget to type install too. just apt-get xmms

# ? Oct 19, 2008 15:29

Modern Pragmatist: Aug 20, 2008

I have a question regarding renaming directories that are referenced in /etc/fstab

When I initially set up my box a couple years ago, I decided that it would be a great idea to create a separate partition for all of my multimedia that I share via samba with my home network. Initially I assigned a path for the partition (e.g. /sambashare/music), now I am wanting to change the path to something else (/music).

The main partition information in /etc/fstab is:

/dev/hda2 / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda3 /home reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 2
/dev/hda4 /sambashare/music vfat users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/hda1 swap swap defaults 0 0

/dev/hda4 is the one that I would like to change the directory. How can I go about doing this without losing any of my data that exists on the partition?

It always makes me nervous fooling around with partitions with data on the drive but this has been driving me nuts. Thanks.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 21:42

ShoulderDaemon: Oct 9, 2003; support goon fund; Taco Defender

thesuever posted:

How can I go about doing this without losing any of my data that exists on the partition?

I'll assume you want to move that mount to /foo. All these steps should be done as root.

First, mkdir /foo to create the target mountpoint.
Second, umount /sambashare/music to unmount the filesystem.
Third, edit /etc/fstab and change /sambashare/music to /foo.
Fourth, mount /foo to remount the filesystem.
Fifth, rmdir /sambashare/music to remove the old mountpoint.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 22:35

Modern Pragmatist: Aug 20, 2008

ShoulderDaemon posted:

I'll assume you want to move that mount to /foo. All these steps should be done as root.

First, mkdir /foo to create the target mountpoint.
Second, umount /sambashare/music to unmount the filesystem.
Third, edit /etc/fstab and change /sambashare/music to /foo.
Fourth, mount /foo to remount the filesystem.
Fifth, rmdir /sambashare/music to remove the old mountpoint.

Thank you very much for the fast reply. Worked great. Now I have learned something new.

# ? Oct 19, 2008 23:42

Scaevolus: Apr 16, 2007

rugbert posted:

UGH! Im about to use aliases to re-write apt-get install to just apt-get or maybe even yum install. Once I type 'get' my brain translates it as install. Like "Apt Get that poo poo" so half the time i forget to type install too. just apt-get xmms

this is in my ~/.bashrc

code:

function i {
	sudo apt-get install $@
}

# ? Oct 20, 2008 00:51

Filburt Shellbach: Nov 6, 2007; Apni tackat say tujay aaj mitta juu gaa!

Why involve functions? alias i="sudo apt-get install"

But yes, using aliases or functions to shorten long commands, or to compose commands, are really useful features. Use them!

# ? Oct 20, 2008 06:00

Jose Pointero: Feb 16, 2004; We're not just doing this for money. We're doing it for a SHITLOAD of money!

Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Aug 28, 2019

# ? Oct 20, 2008 06:33

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

Here is what I have:

An Ubuntu Laptop with the entire disk (except for a /boot partition) encrypted and LVM'ed. I used the default encryption option when I installed, so the entire installation is on one logical volume, file system is ext3. I'm using about 1/4 of the hard disk.

Here is what I want:

Keep the entire encrypted drive as the physical volume for LVM. Have separate logical volumes for root, /home, possibly /temp, as well as one or two slim extra Linux installations to fool around with.

Here is how I plan to do it:

Boot with the alternate Ubuntu install CD and go to shell
Load the modules needed for encryption (and LVM?)
Unlock the main hard drive partition
Activate my volume group
Resize the file system on it to maybe half the size
Resize the logical volume accordingly
Make a new logical volume to fill the now empty half of the disk
Make a new file system on that new logical volume
Mount both LVs and move the /home folder on the new disk
Adjust the sizes some more and make more partitions (I should have the hang of that by now)
Configure fstab to mount /home from the new partition
Make sure /boot/grub/menu.list still has the right root
Try to boot into the new config

I'm not nervous about losing data as I have everything backed up, but I'm pretty new to encryption and LVM, so could you guys please point out the more blatant errors in my plan before I get started on this? Thanks in advance!

# ? Oct 20, 2008 15:04

Postal: Aug 9, 2003; Don't make me go postal!

rugbert posted:

thats weird, I LOVE gnome and dont feel like its stale at all. Then again, I havent used KDE in a long rear end time, whats cool about it now?

I'm with you there. Many of my co-workers prefer KDE, but it always feels old fashioned to me. Probably because one of our generic builds uses KDE on Slackware and Slackware was the first Linux I ever used (hello box of 50 floppies). Since picking up RedHat and transitioning to Fedora, I've just gotten much more accustomed to Gnome. I think it's just personal preference.

# ? Oct 20, 2008 17:24

cr0y: Mar 24, 2005

is it possible when public keys for authentication to not have putty prompt for a username? currently the key works as it should, but it asks for my login (root), and then logs in without a password. i would like it to just connect and drop me to #

# ? Oct 20, 2008 17:35

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

cr0y posted:

is it possible when public keys for authentication to not have putty prompt for a username? currently the key works as it should, but it asks for my login (root), and then logs in without a password. i would like it to just connect and drop me to #

Not sure about Putty but try to log in to root@yourserver.name

Edit: or with the option -u root

Lucien fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Oct 20, 2008

# ? Oct 20, 2008 17:49

cr0y: Mar 24, 2005

Lucien posted:

Not sure about Putty but try to log in to root@yourserver.name

ah very nice. thanks!

# ? Oct 20, 2008 17:53

Eyecannon: Mar 13, 2003; you are what you excrete

Jose Pointero posted:

I'm having a weird problem trying to install ubuntu 8.04. Been googling for about an hour and can't even find a mention of this specific problem. If someone can shed any light on this, I'd be delighted. Here's the system:
3.0 P4 w/hyperthread
3 gb ram
geforece 7600 gt
HDD1: 160GB SATA
HDD2 (the one I'm trying to install on): 200GB IDE
HDD3: 180GB IDE
ASUS board/intel chipset

Basically, the installer starts off like normal, then for whatever reason, starts going vvvveeeerrrryyyyyy sssssllllooooowwwww. With the "regular" CD, the installer gets to the Ubuntu splash screen with the moving bar going back and forth. Then all of a sudden the bar slows down to like 1 FPS as it moves back and forth, I can actually SEE every frame of the bar being drawn as it is animated. If I let it sit, it eventually goes to a terminal that says "Type HELP for list of commands". Obviously, it's hosed up somewhere.

So I tried the "Alternate" install CD. After an eternity, the installer finally gets to the first menu asking which language, but again it's going super loving slow. When I hit enter to go to the next screen, the ASCII text box is slowly cleared LINE-BY-LINE and the new one is then drawn line-by-line. It's as if I'm trying to use a 286 or something and I can't loving figure it out. It seems as if it's normal until the installer is about half-way loaded, then goes into slow-mo for some reason.

This baffles me. Any ideas?

Your CD/DVD drive is bad. Try another one.

# ? Oct 20, 2008 18:57

Jose Pointero: Feb 16, 2004; We're not just doing this for money. We're doing it for a SHITLOAD of money!

Jose Pointero fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Aug 28, 2019

# ? Oct 20, 2008 23:58

The Remote Viewer: Jul 9, 2001

How can I get started packaging my own .debs?

# ? Oct 21, 2008 00:38

ShoulderDaemon: Oct 9, 2003; support goon fund; Taco Defender

The Remote Viewer posted:

How can I get started packaging my own .debs?

The Debian New Maintainers Guide is probably your best bet, and you're likely to want to read the documentation for the debhelper suite of tools as well. Once you get the mindset down, packaging for Debian is relatively straightforward and there are lots of tools to assit you in whatever workflow you find works best.

# ? Oct 21, 2008 00:50

Ashex: Jun 25, 2007; These pipes are cleeeean!!!

On the note of creating debian packages, has anyone used equivs to create a fake package?
Awhile ago I tried to use it to create fake packages to make a chunk of packages a dependency for tutorials I would write (so I could say, grab this package and use gdebi to install it, it will grab all the required packages!).
I figured this was genius since if the user found they didn't like X app, they could uninstall the app, then remove the fake package, and their manager would then mark these packages for removal.

However, I tried working with equivs, and it absolutely refused to build a package, it would use the demo one that came with the install, but wouldn't use a package info I gave it.

# ? Oct 21, 2008 00:59

Mr. Eric Praline: Aug 13, 2004; I didn't like the others, they were all too flat.

Lucien posted:

Not sure about Putty but try to log in to root@yourserver.name

Edit: or with the option -u root

In the "data" menu of Putty, you can specify a username. Then manually type Default Settings the saved session box, and save. That username will now be used by default on any new sessions. You'll need to manually update any other sessions.

# ? Oct 21, 2008 16:05

Eyecannon: Mar 13, 2003; you are what you excrete

Jose Pointero posted:

Really? It's only about 6 months old and works great in XP... I'll try that just for the heck of it though, thanks.

This is pretty common in my experience. Let us know if it fixes it!

# ? Oct 21, 2008 16:37

StrikerJ: Oct 8, 2001

Say I have two text files with the following contents:

code:

File 1:
Apple
Banana
Tomatoe
Potatoe

File 2:
Tomatoe
Potatoe

Now I want to remove the lines from File 1 that are also present in File 2 (i.e end up with only "Apple" and "Banana" in File 1). Any ideas how to easily accomplish this (from the command line)?

And in the same vein, do you have any suggestions on how to learn/practise stuff like regular expressions, sort, grep, cut, sed, awk etc.? Websites or book recommendations would be appreciated.

# ? Oct 21, 2008 18:50

There Will Be Penalty: May 18, 2002; Makes a great pet!

StrikerJ posted:

Say I have two text files with the following contents:
code:
File 1:
Apple
Banana
Tomatoe
Potatoe

File 2:
Tomatoe
Potatoe
Now I want to remove the lines from File 1 that are also present in File 2 (i.e end up with only "Apple" and "Banana" in File 1). Any ideas how to easily accomplish this (from the command line)?

See join(1).

EDIT: But quick summary: both files must be sorted. Then: join -v 1 file-1.txt file-2.txt

There Will Be Penalty fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Oct 21, 2008

# ? Oct 21, 2008 18:57

StrikerJ: Oct 8, 2001

There Will Be Penalty posted:

See join(1).

EDIT: But quick summary: both files must be sorted. Then: join -v 1 file-1.txt file-2.txt

Works great. Thank you!

# ? Oct 21, 2008 19:05

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

whats the best way to find out where my space free space is going too via termina?

I have a 120 gig drive (on a server that I ssh into) used JUST for torrenting but even tho my torrent folder only contains 47 gigs, df -h shows 77 gigs used on that drive.

# ? Oct 22, 2008 02:27

JoeNotCharles: Mar 3, 2005; Yet beyond each tree there are only more trees.

rugbert posted:

whats the best way to find out where my space free space is going too via termina?

I have a 120 gig drive (on a server that I ssh into) used JUST for torrenting but even tho my torrent folder only contains 47 gigs, df -h shows 77 gigs used on that drive.

"man du"

# ? Oct 22, 2008 02:33

Peanutmonger: Dec 6, 2002

There Will Be Penalty posted:

EDIT: But quick summary: both files must be sorted. Then: join -v 1 file-1.txt file-2.txt

To be a bash ninja, you can use here-files and do join -v 1 <(sort file-1.txt) <(sort file-2.txt)

# ? Oct 22, 2008 08:29

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

Peanutmonger posted:

To be a bash ninja, you can use here-files and do join -v 1 <(sort file-1.txt) <(sort file-2.txt)

I just learned something new, thanks!

Lucien posted:

Here is what I have:

An Ubuntu Laptop with the entire disk (except for a /boot partition) encrypted and LVM'ed. I used the default encryption option when I installed, so the entire installation is on one logical volume, file system is ext3. I'm using about 1/4 of the hard disk.

Here is what I want:

Keep the entire encrypted drive as the physical volume for LVM. Have separate logical volumes for root, /home, possibly /temp, as well as one or two slim extra Linux installations to fool around with.

Here is how I plan to do it:

Boot with the alternate Ubuntu install CD and go to shell

Load the modules needed for encryption (and LVM?)

Unlock the main hard drive partition

Activate my volume group

Resize the file system on it to maybe half the size

Resize the logical volume accordingly

Make a new logical volume to fill the now empty half of the disk

Make a new file system on that new logical volume

Mount both LVs and move the /home folder on the new disk

Adjust the sizes some more and make more partitions (I should have the hang of that by now)

Configure fstab to mount /home from the new partition

Make sure /boot/grub/menu.list still has the right root

Try to boot into the new config

I'm not nervous about losing data as I have everything backed up, but I'm pretty new to encryption and LVM, so could you guys please point out the more blatant errors in my plan before I get started on this? Thanks in advance!

Any input about this at all? A simple "looks okay" from someone who has done anything at all with LVM before would be very much appreciated.

# ? Oct 22, 2008 10:53

Eyecannon: Mar 13, 2003; you are what you excrete

^^^ It looks like you want to shrink an LVM partition while it has data on it and you want to maintain that data? Bad idea, not even sure if it will work. The tried and true method is to backup your data to an external HDD, then reorganize your partitions, then copy the data back over.

Growing LVM = no problem
Shrinking LVM = problems

# ? Oct 22, 2008 16:17

The Remote Viewer: Jul 9, 2001

Why does my system usability tank every time I do a file operation involving large files (>20GB)? Firefox starts becoming unresponsive, programs take 5x longer to install, etc.

# ? Oct 22, 2008 20:49

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# ? May 10, 2024 16:13

bitprophet: Jul 22, 2004; Taco Defender

The Remote Viewer posted:

Why does my system usability tank every time I do a file operation involving large files (>20GB)? Firefox starts becoming unresponsive, programs take 5x longer to install, etc.

....because the software on your computer (FF, installers, etc) needs to access the hard drive pretty darn often, and if the hard drive is occupied copying a 20GB file, it's not going to be terribly responsive to these other requests?

This seems like such a basic thing I'm hoping there's another aspect to your question I'm overlooking

# ? Oct 22, 2008 22:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Linux Questions Thread: a bunch of pitfalls, but technically it's possible

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