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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adante: Sep 18, 2003

I just scored a free toshiba te2100. Unfortunately the hard drive is wiped and unbootable, the dvd-rom drive is broken, I have no usb-floppy, and I can't netboot seemingly because of this problem (I have intel netboot agent version 4.0.18).

What are my options for getting xubuntu 8.10 onto it?

I have a usb-caddy for it but no other computer can fit the small IDE plug. Is it possible for me to, with my other laptop (which is windows & SATA), disconnect the sata hdd (maybe not necessary?), plug in the usb-caddy, boot livecd and install linux on it, then take the hdd and plug it into the ATA interface on the te2100, boot and be happy? I thought this might be possible MAYBE because intrepid uses uuid's (I think?) but quite possibly there is other stuff that I don't understand, like the entire boot process

Last time I did something like this it involved some very odd low level sector-by-sector copying that while eventually working I neither fully understood nor remember.

# ? Jan 28, 2009 15:33

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:05

yippee cahier: Mar 28, 2005

adante posted:

There's a bootable USB stick or external drive option if you have one laying around:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_to_create_Live_USB_systems

# ? Jan 28, 2009 17:03

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

I had a backup script that I modified to clean up old backups. It was trucking along just fine when it broke for no particular reason earlier this month.

This is the script:

code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;


my $date = `date +%Y_%m_%d`; #Store the date in a variable
chomp($date); #Remove the new line that gets added at the end
find /home1/website/public_html/backups/ -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \;  #Maintain 2 week backup
print `tar -cvvzhlf "/home1/website/public_html/backups/site-$date.tar.gz" /home1/website/public_html/ --exclude=backups --atime-preserve --label WEBSITE`;

The error I'm getting sent to my email (I have it configured to send me the log of each run in case something like this happens)

code:

Unquoted string "rm" may clash with future reserved word at /home1/website/scripts/fbackup.pl line 8.
Backslash found where operator expected at /home1/website/scripts/fbackup.pl line 8, near "} \"
       (Missing operator before  \?)
syntax error at /home1/website/scripts/fbackup.pl line 8, near "} \"
Execution of /home1/website/scripts/fbackup.pl aborted due to compilation errors.

I know that it's caused by this line:
find /home1/website/public_html/backups/ -mtime +14 -exec rm {} \

But I'm not sure how to fix it, I'm also hella scared of tweaking it as only real way to test it is to run it again on the site, and I don't want to risk blowing away everything.

# ? Jan 28, 2009 22:34

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

I think you could do it with xargs. Just
find /home1/website/public_html/backups/ -mtime +14| xargs rm
or something. As usual, haven't tried this so be careful.

Try it somewhere else first to make sure it does what you need and only what you need.

# ? Jan 28, 2009 22:49

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

Someone, please lay some knowledge on me. I am new to Linux and servers and am trying to stumble through learning both...

I figured I would be brave tonight and try and give my Ubuntu 8.10 Server a static IP address. I succeeded in that quest, but now I have a different problem. I can ping computers in my home network, but I cannot ping out. Other computers can access the server just fine.

The only things I've edited our my interfaces file and my resolv.conf and I have their contents listed below:

Interfaces:

code:

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0     <----- Should this be my router's internal IP?

resolv.conf

code:

domain setup
search setup
nameserver 208.67.220.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

# ? Jan 29, 2009 05:33

Cosmopolitan: Apr 20, 2007; Rard sele this wai -->

I updated my Linux kernel to 2.6.27-11 today, and it seems to have broken all my themes. During the install, my theme changed, and after the reboot, they were all missing from the Appearance menu. I copied all the themes from /usr/share/themes to /home/myusername/.themes, so I have the windows and stuff back, but all the buttons are still the same (crappy looking). Here's a screenshot:

These buttons are really an eye sore. I've tried downloading Control themes from Gnome Art, but when I switch it, it doesn't seem to do anything. I've tried reinstalling all the themes, and every gtk2-engines I have installed, but to no avail. How the hell did all my themes break to begin with? I seem to recall seeing a video driver update, if that helps.

Also, the Trash icon is gone from the Panel. I went into "Add to Panel," but nothing happens when I select "Trash" and click Add, or drag it down. :confused:

It also seems to have broken my Creative sound drivers. I don't think updates are supposed to break this much stuff. Booting into an earlier kernel doesn't fix anything.

# ? Jan 29, 2009 07:08

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Hughmoris posted:

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.100
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.0 <----- Should this be my router's internal IP?

No.

It's likely much simpler than that. You haven't set a default route.

route add default gw ip.of.router.here

Should take care of that.

# ? Jan 29, 2009 14:50

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

Zom Aur posted:

No.

It's likely much simpler than that. You haven't set a default route.

route add default gw ip.of.router.here

Should take care of that.

"gateway ip.of.router.here" in your "static" entry in /etc/network/interfaces.

# ? Jan 29, 2009 15:32

Lexical Unit: Sep 16, 2003

Ashex posted:

exec startx -- :$display

I was able to use this to get a WM/X-session on different TTYs where there usually isn't a WM/X-session. However, if I switch to another TTY and then switch back, I'm back at the terminal where I ran the command and not in my WM. How can I start a WM on a TTY, switch away from it, and then switch back and re-pull-up the WM I had before I switched away?

# ? Jan 29, 2009 16:22

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Lexical Unit posted:

I was able to use this to get a WM/X-session on different TTYs where there usually isn't a WM/X-session. However, if I switch to another TTY and then switch back, I'm back at the terminal where I ran the command and not in my WM. How can I start a WM on a TTY, switch away from it, and then switch back and re-pull-up the WM I had before I switched away?

It doesn't quite work that way. When you start X, it selects the next available virtual terminal for its use. If you're running six gettys (which is typically the case), then X will take tty7 for itself. To check, do an "Alt-Ctrl-F1" in X11 to switch to tty1, then do "Alt-F7" to switch back to X.

In addition, when you start your first X session, it locks "screen 0" for itself. An X screen is a totally unrelated concept to virtual terminals, so don't be confused on that point. The relevant part is that if you try to start a second X session, it will still try to lock screen 0 for itself. That's why you have to do "startx -- :OTHER_SCREEN_NUMER". However, regardless of which other screen number you use, it still allocates the next available virtual terminal for its use (typically tty8). So you can switch to your second X session with an "Alt-Ctrl-F8" (or "Alt-F8") from a console.

If you want X to use a specific virtual terminal, you should be able to specify it with "startx -- :OTHER_SCREEN_NUMBER vtOTHER_VIRTUAL_TERMINAL" (e.g., "startx -- :1 vt9") although I've not tried before.

# ? Jan 29, 2009 16:58

Lexical Unit: Sep 16, 2003

Ah ok that makes sense. I guess that means I have another problem. I tried to find the TTY with my WM but it's not any of TTY7-12, and I don't have a F13 key... is it even possible for there to be TTYs past 12? How can I switch to them?

Holy crap there's a lot of ttys in /dev. Thanks y'all, I think I'm set.
\/\/

Lexical Unit fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jan 29, 2009

# ? Jan 29, 2009 17:05

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

Lexical Unit posted:

Ah ok that makes sense. I guess that means I have another problem. I tried to find the TTY with my WM but it's not any of TTY7-12, and I don't have a F13 key... is it even possible for there to be TTYs past 12? How can I switch to them?

chvt n

# ? Jan 29, 2009 17:31

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

Edit: Double Post

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 13, 2017

# ? Jan 29, 2009 22:48

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

covener posted:

"gateway ip.of.router.here" in your "static" entry in /etc/network/interfaces.

Thanks, this fixed the problem. Could you explain what

code:

network 192.168.1.0

means in simple speak?

# ? Jan 29, 2009 23:23

falz: Jan 29, 2005; 01100110 01100001 01101100 01111010

Hughmoris posted:

Thanks, this fixed the problem. Could you explain what
code:
network 192.168.1.0
means in simple speak?

It's the network address, which is just a term in IP. It's always the first address on a subnet, and is never usable by a host. Network address is the start of a network, broadcast address (192.168.1.255 in your example) is the last address of the range, also not usable by a host.

# ? Jan 30, 2009 02:18

NZAmoeba: Feb 14, 2005; It turns out it's MAN!; Hair Elf

falz posted:

It's the network address, which is just a term in IP. It's always the first address on a subnet, and is never usable by a host. Network address is the start of a network, broadcast address (192.168.1.255 in your example) is the last address of the range, also not usable by a host.

It's kind of the 'name' of the network you are on, in this case saying you belong to the 192.168.1.0 network, and something with the IP of 192.168.1.34 would therefore be a same-network-buddy

# ? Jan 30, 2009 03:34

gregday: May 23, 2003

I recently setup smartd and I'm using rsyslog to email me serious errors. Problem is I just don't have a good idea of what the "bad" smart errors look like in a log. Right now I'm having rsyslog send me every line smartd generates, including temperature changes.

Does anyone know where there's a list of the more serious smartd errors to worry about? I need to know specifically what appears in the log so rsyslog can match it and send it.

# ? Jan 30, 2009 16:52

musclecoder: Oct 23, 2006; I'm all about meeting girls. I'm all about meeting guys.

I'm running Ubuntu Hardy and have a question on compiling from source.

The version of PHP in the repositories is 5.2.4 which is a little out, and with 5.2.8 out, I want to compile it and build from source (I also started to play around with building my own extensions, and well, I'm not too familiar with C development on Linux).

How do I go about finding the ./configure flags that the version I have was built with?

I downloaded the source and can get it to compile just fine with something like:

code:

./configure --prefix=$HOME/php528 --disable-all

However, I want it built like it was originally. Is there a quick way to find the previous configure flags, or do I have to go through all of them and use the ones I want?

# ? Jan 31, 2009 13:53

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

musclecoder posted:

I'm running Ubuntu Hardy and have a question on compiling from source.

The version of PHP in the repositories is 5.2.4 which is a little out, and with 5.2.8 out, I want to compile it and build from source (I also started to play around with building my own extensions, and well, I'm not too familiar with C development on Linux).

How do I go about finding the ./configure flags that the version I have was built with?

I downloaded the source and can get it to compile just fine with something like:
code:
./configure --prefix=$HOME/php528 --disable-all
However, I want it built like it was originally. Is there a quick way to find the previous configure flags, or do I have to go through all of them and use the ones I want?

apt-get source foo to start with the debian-ized package, you will see all the original flags in a flat file in the debian/ subdirectory of the build tree. You can then dpkg-buildpackage, install it, and dpkg --set-selections to hold it.

# ? Jan 31, 2009 14:01

Grigori Rasputin: Aug 21, 2000; WE DON'T NEED ROME TELLING US WHAT TO DO

This has probably been answered, but I couldn't find it in the parts of the thread I've read. I'm thinking about making the switch to Ubuntu but I need a few crucial apps and don't know what's good/out there.

1) Music player (with some kind of support for ipod). I like itunes a lot, it's a little bloated but the library controls are great.

2) Bittorrent client - I'm using uTorrent on win32 which I love.

3) Daemon tools - using Alcohol 120% now.

4) Good CDR/DVDR tools - using Nero.

5) DVD ripping tools - using DVD Fab now.

6) Cygwin replacement

7) Best RDP equivalent? Does VMWare still have the best non-native tools? Are their native ones?

# ? Jan 31, 2009 22:44

falz: Jan 29, 2005; 01100110 01100001 01101100 01111010

Grigori Rasputin posted:

This has probably been answered, but I couldn't find it in the parts of the thread I've read. I'm thinking about making the switch to Ubuntu but I need a few crucial apps and don't know what's good/out there.

1) Music player (with some kind of support for ipod). I like itunes a lot, it's a little bloated but the library controls are great.

2) Bittorrent client - I'm using uTorrent on win32 which I love.

3) Daemon tools - using Alcohol 120% now.

4) Good CDR/DVDR tools - using Nero.

5) DVD ripping tools - using DVD Fab now.

6) Cygwin replacement

7) Best RDP equivalent? Does VMWare still have the best non-native tools? Are their native ones?

I'll answer a few.

#3 - 'mount' and 'loop': `mount -o loop file.iso /mnt/disk`

#4 - I've always liked K3b, but it requires KDE libraries.

#5 - dvd::rip or k9copy

#6 - are you serious?

#7 - `rdesktop` for remote desktop. Unsure what this has to do with VMWare, but the vmware tools require .NET, so they don't run under wine.

# ? Feb 1, 2009 00:08

julyJones: Feb 12, 2007; Stopped making sense.

I hope I'm in the right thread. . .
I installed Moonlight (Linux Silverlight implementation) hoping I could use the new Netflix Silverlight option to watch instant movies on my eeePC. Netflix keeps bitching about the OS though and won't let me try, so I'm hoping to find some way to get Firefox to pretend it's Windows XP when identifying itself to HTTP servers. Is there a way to do that? (I already searched the add-on pages, no dice.)

Edit: I found a link to a site that explains "user agents" and found an add-on that lets you switch them on-the-fly. I switched to a Firefox XP version to browse the site. So now I can get as far as pressing play and Netflix telling me I need to install Silverlight.exe (it didn't detect Moonlight, I guess). I'll let you know if I can get past that part, in case anybody else decides to give this a shot some time. . . :P

julyJones fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Feb 1, 2009

# ? Feb 1, 2009 00:16

Grigori Rasputin: Aug 21, 2000; WE DON'T NEED ROME TELLING US WHAT TO DO

falz posted:

I'll answer a few.

#6 - are you serious?

thanks for the tips

# ? Feb 1, 2009 00:39

EasyEW: Mar 8, 2006; I've got my father's great big six-shooter with me 'n' if anybody in this woods wants to start somethin' just let 'em--but they DASSN'T.

julyJones posted:

I hope I'm in the right thread. . .
I installed Moonlight (Linux Silverlight implementation) hoping I could use the new Netflix Silverlight option to watch instant movies on my eeePC. Netflix keeps bitching about the OS though and won't let me try, so I'm hoping to find some way to get Firefox to pretend it's Windows XP when identifying itself to HTTP servers. Is there a way to do that? (I already searched the add-on pages, no dice.)

Edit: I found a link to a site that explains "user agents" and found an add-on that lets you switch them on-the-fly. I switched to a Firefox XP version to browse the site. So now I can get as far as pressing play and Netflix telling me I need to install Silverlight.exe (it didn't detect Moonlight, I guess). I'll let you know if I can get past that part, in case anybody else decides to give this a shot some time. . . :P

Is it possible that Netflix is looking for Silverlight 2.0? According to mono-project.com, Moonlight 2.0, the one that's supposed to be compatible with Silverlight 2, isn't even ready for alpha, and it might be a few months before anything resembling a beta is ready to roll.

Just because Microsoft says it's cooperating doesn't mean they're going to make it easy...

# ? Feb 1, 2009 01:11

julyJones: Feb 12, 2007; Stopped making sense.

EasyEW posted:

Is it possible that Netflix is looking for Silverlight 2.0? According to mono-project.com, Moonlight 2.0, the one that's supposed to be compatible with Silverlight 2, isn't even ready for alpha, and it might be a few months before anything resembling a beta is ready to roll.

Just because Microsoft says it's cooperating doesn't mean they're going to make it easy...

Good catch! A blog indicates Silverlight 2 is required for its DRM capability, so looks like I'm out of luck for now.

# ? Feb 1, 2009 01:33

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Grigori Rasputin posted:

This has probably been answered, but I couldn't find it in the parts of the thread I've read. I'm thinking about making the switch to Ubuntu but I need a few crucial apps and don't know what's good/out there.

1) Music player (with some kind of support for ipod). I like itunes a lot, it's a little bloated but the library controls are great.

I'd recommend either amarok or exaile. Both use a music library thing that works awesome. Amarok also has support for ipods, but I'm not sure if it's just for playing music or actually transerfing music.

Otherwise, there's gtkpod.

Grigori posted:

2) Bittorrent client - I'm using uTorrent on win32 which I love.

Transmission for GNOME, ktorrent for KDE. Or rtorrent if you want something awesome.

Grigori posted:

3) Daemon tools - using Alcohol 120% now.

You can use playonlinux or q4wine if you need this for windows programs. They have built-in support for it.

Grigori posted:

4) Good CDR/DVDR tools - using Nero.

5) DVD ripping tools - using DVD Fab now.

K3B for KDE, Gnomebaker for GNOME. I'm fairly sure both can handle ripping, though I haven't tested it for that purpose.

Grigori posted:

7) Best RDP equivalent? Does VMWare still have the best non-native tools? Are their native ones?

Vinagre for GNOME, krdc for KDE. I think both support RDP.

Not sure what you mean by that, but VMWare exists for linux. There's also things like qemu and virtualbox.

# ? Feb 1, 2009 03:28

Sgs-Cruz: Apr 19, 2003; You just got BURNED!

I have a fairly involved dual-boot question, I made a thread for it in the Tech Support subforum here. If any of you GRUB magicians could help me out I'd be much obliged

# ? Feb 1, 2009 04:52

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Grigori Rasputin posted:

no

thanks for the tips

Check out quod-libet for a music player. There is nothing it doesn't do that I need and nothing it does that I don't.

Brasero is gtk based burning app that takes care of all the bases.

As for a torrent app, the cool kids use rtorrent in a screen session.

# ? Feb 1, 2009 08:31

yippee cahier: Mar 28, 2005

Grigori Rasputin posted:

2) Bittorrent client - I'm using uTorrent on win32 which I love.

deluge is a light, full-featured GTK client that does everything I use uTorrent for.

# ? Feb 2, 2009 03:55

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

I am a bit confused.

I have updated the dns records of a few domains I own. When I ping them from my terminal it resolves to the new location. When I open a browser on the same computer and attempt to go to any of the domains it goes to the old location.

I don't have any sort of dns cache, the machine is set to use the router dns which is static and has been reset a few times now. I don't understand how each app can be getting a different address for the same domain I am so confused.

There is some simple as hell answer for this, right?

edit: it seems most every program goes to the old domain except for ping.

other people fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Feb 2, 2009

# ? Feb 2, 2009 18:44

duckstab: Jun 19, 2004

I don't suppose anyone has experience getting perl to work within a chrooted lighttpd, do they? The permissions and whatnot are all correct for the script, and I just get 500 - Internal Server Error when trying to access the page, and 'CGI failed: Not a directory /home/lighttpd/cgi-bin/test.pl' in the error logs.

Any ideas?

# ? Feb 2, 2009 23:32

bitprophet: Jul 22, 2004; Taco Defender

Kaluza-Klein posted:

I am a bit confused.

I have updated the dns records of a few domains I own. When I ping them from my terminal it resolves to the new location. When I open a browser on the same computer and attempt to go to any of the domains it goes to the old location.

I don't have any sort of dns cache, the machine is set to use the router dns which is static and has been reset a few times now. I don't understand how each app can be getting a different address for the same domain I am so confused.

There is some simple as hell answer for this, right?

edit: it seems most every program goes to the old domain except for ping.

Is this on Linux specifically? I've seen this all the time with the workstations at my office (OS X, so not Linux, but not super far removed) and it drives me absolutely bonkers. Routinely a recently updated DNS record will show up one way in e.g. Firefox and another way via ping. Can't remember which one 'host' usually shows but it's one or the other.

Haven't looked it up yet so I don't know if it is an OS X specific thing or a more generic "some apps cache their own DNS lookups" or what.

# ? Feb 3, 2009 02:46

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Kaluza-Klein posted:

I don't have any sort of dns cache

Are you sure nscd isn't running?

Do your primary and secondary nameservers return the same result as one another?

# ? Feb 3, 2009 05:46

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Yes, nscd isn't even installed.

I went out for a few hours and now everything is working. Who loving knows. It's nice that it is working, but I feel like there is some explanation I am missing now.

# ? Feb 3, 2009 06:46

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

Edit: Double Post

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Mar 13, 2017

# ? Feb 3, 2009 23:08

spiritual bypass: Feb 19, 2008; Grimey Drawer

GregNorc posted:

What's the best distro to use if I'm setting up a home server (SSH, SFTP, VNC, etc)

Ubuntu has served me well in this capacity.

# ? Feb 3, 2009 23:16

Grigori Rasputin: Aug 21, 2000; WE DON'T NEED ROME TELLING US WHAT TO DO

Ok, I've got ubuntu up and running along with the most basic things I need to operate for the short term. I've been using Linux on and off for a long time and have been using it a lot for development/light administration lately. I'm to learn a little more about ubuntu holistically and just generally about apps - where do I look? I know a lot will come with experience, but I'd rather be proactive a bit.

# ? Feb 3, 2009 23:25

Harokey: Jun 12, 2003; Memory is RAM! Oh dear!

Anyone know of a decent, cheap flatbed scanner for Linux? I mostly want it for scanning in technical drawings/notes from class. OCR stuff would be nice too if for scanning in handouts and whatnot.

# ? Feb 4, 2009 04:32

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

Edit: Double Post

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Mar 13, 2017

# ? Feb 4, 2009 05:33

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# ? May 17, 2024 19:05

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

GregNorc posted:

Other than using less flashy graphics, is xbuntu comparable? Or is Ubuntu fine for an older rig if I'm mostly going to be on the command line?

If it's mostly going to be commandline, I'd recommend Arch or Debian as usual. They should suit your needs without any real bloat.

# ? Feb 4, 2009 05:45

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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