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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nitrogen: May 21, 2004; Oh, what's a 217°C difference between friends?

BnT posted:

The text editor you pick, however...

gently caress y'all, I 'll weigh in on this, too.

LEARN vi. you don't have to love it, or use it, but for god's sake, at least LEARN it.

One of my best engineers uses nano. But she can use vi if she has to. You should be able to, also.

# ? Aug 1, 2011 21:28

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:41

angrytech: Jun 26, 2009

I guess that no matter how much we all differ on distro choice, we can all come together and agree that emacs sucks. :911:

# ? Aug 1, 2011 22:08

Modern Pragmatist: Aug 20, 2008

I guess this kinda belongs here.

I have a file server that I'm trying to setup. I really like the idea of using ZFS for managing all of my storage needs, and FreeNAS looks pretty good for doing all of that. It seems to me that it is just a variant (probably stripped down) of BSD.

Is it possible to install some video converting software such as HandBrakeCLI on such a system?

I know most people will say to let the file server setup files and use another machine for converting and then just transfer the result, but it's kinda nice to have it all in one place.

If FreeNAS won't work, what would be the best distro for this use. Preferably with support for ZFS.

# ? Aug 1, 2011 22:10

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Speaking of distros, I'm starting a new project soon (nginx, node.js, redis) and I'm wondering what distro I should be using for my server. This will most likely be on a VPS. I've used Fedora & CentOS in the past, sounds like maybe I should try something else.

# ? Aug 1, 2011 22:35

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

Debian or Arch

# ? Aug 1, 2011 22:44

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

taqueso posted:

Debian or Arch

I guess I should have said what distro and why.

# ? Aug 1, 2011 23:03

text editor: Jan 8, 2007

fletcher posted:

I guess I should have said what distro and why.

Debian, because it is stable in ways that Ubuntu and Arch aren't, is stupid easy to install/upgrade, and receives regular, non-system breaking patches.

Also it had packages for node.js, redis, and nginx - but I'd assume they all do.

# ? Aug 1, 2011 23:09

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

fletcher posted:

Speaking of distros, I'm starting a new project soon (nginx, node.js, redis) and I'm wondering what distro I should be using for my server. This will most likely be on a VPS. I've used Fedora & CentOS in the past, sounds like maybe I should try something else.

It seriously does not matter. If I took all the time I wasted loving around with distros, installing and re-installing and reading why I should use X, and spent that time actually DOING stuff...

Unless of course you have a 64MB VPS and want to run some stripped down distro and spend a few hours tuning Apache or installing tiny web servers, but then you could just pay $2 more a month and get a 256MB or 512MB VPS...

# ? Aug 1, 2011 23:37

JHVH-1: Jun 28, 2002

It isn't going to cost you much just try some of the popular ones or just find one that works and use it. People always ask the question about which distro and there is no definitive answer, even if you know what people plan to do with it.

Its not like the 90s where you won't have any way to look up something online or get help. You don't have to order CDs from cheapbytes and wait for them to show up in the mail to try something because our 56k modem is too slow. You won't be stranded without a computer because your linux won't boot. There are also a lot less hardware issues unless you are on a laptop or have to figure out wireless, so most likely it will just work in a lot of cases.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 02:17

TheGopher: Sep 7, 2009

If you're just starting out the distro doesn't matter, you're still going to be absolutely clueless as to how to do most things on it. I would highly recommend just picking a distro that isn't source based (sorry Arch, Slackware, Gentoo) and playing with it for awhile. If you're curious what using another distro is like, install it and play around.

If you're just starting out the differences you'll find from distro to distro are so minor it won't really affect anything you do.

To echo previous sentiments about vi/vim, it's really not that hard to learn. Everybody should just sink some time into it and you'll wonder why you ever used a GUI text editor to begin with.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 02:49

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

JHVH-1 posted:

It isn't going to cost you much just try some of the popular ones or just find one that works and use it.

The good news is they all pretty much just work these days. The bad news is that it does actually take some time to figure out what you like and don't like about each distro.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 03:05

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

TheGopher posted:

If you're just starting out the distro doesn't matter, you're still going to be absolutely clueless as to how to do most things on it. I would highly recommend just picking a distro that isn't source based (sorry Arch, Slackware, Gentoo) and playing with it for awhile. If you're curious what using another distro is like, install it and play around.

Arch isn't source based.

But yeah, I agree. I mean, as long as you start with a distro that has a fairly competent wiki, you'll probably do just fine. You'll run into problems and solve them, and hopefully learn something in doing so.

Personally, I'd probably second the recommendation for linux mint, just because most things work right out of the box with it.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 09:52

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Is there a distro with better video acceleration or something in VirtualBox? Fedora and Ubuntu rape my i3, 58% CPU usage just sitting here with the forums open. My Windows VM's crawl along at 2-3%

# ? Aug 2, 2011 13:17

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

I'm trying to set up exim4 so that either of the following can send mail:

- IPs whitelisted in dc_relay_nets
- Authenticated users

That is, if whitelisted, authentication is not needed. Only authentication for non-whitelisted IPs. Anyone tried this?

# ? Aug 2, 2011 13:48

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

Bob Morales posted:

Is there a distro with better video acceleration or something in VirtualBox? Fedora and Ubuntu rape my i3, 58% CPU usage just sitting here with the forums open. My Windows VM's crawl along at 2-3%

Installed lubuntu. Holy smokes.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 15:03

nitrogen: May 21, 2004; Oh, what's a 217°C difference between friends?

Bob Morales posted:

Is there a distro with better video acceleration or something in VirtualBox? Fedora and Ubuntu rape my i3, 58% CPU usage just sitting here with the forums open. My Windows VM's crawl along at 2-3%

What process is eating all that CPU? is it udev?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1491332 etc

# ? Aug 2, 2011 15:06

Underflow: Apr 4, 2008; EGOMET MIHI IGNOSCO

Bob Morales posted:

Is there a distro with better video acceleration or something in VirtualBox? Fedora and Ubuntu rape my i3, 58% CPU usage just sitting here with the forums open. My Windows VM's crawl along at 2-3%

I had seamless screens with VirtualBox on Slackware in XFCE. Sure it's not a proc?

# ? Aug 2, 2011 16:30

Bob Morales: Aug 18, 2006; ~~Just wear the fucking mask, Bob~~

I don't care how many people I probably infected with COVID-19 while refusing to wear a mask, my comfort is far more important than the health and safety of everyone around me!

nitrogen posted:

What process is eating all that CPU? is it udev?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1491332 etc

There isn't much going on in the actual VM. I was thinking it was re-draw or something.

# ? Aug 2, 2011 16:37

muskrat: Aug 16, 2004

Carthag posted:

I'm trying to set up exim4 so that either of the following can send mail:

- IPs whitelisted in dc_relay_nets
- Authenticated users

That is, if whitelisted, authentication is not needed. Only authentication for non-whitelisted IPs. Anyone tried this?

I do this. All of my servers are whitelisted. Mail clients (i.e., real users) have virtual accounts using userdb.

Not sure what distro you're using, but here's the relevant part of my config.

code:

# Defines the access control list that is run when an
# SMTP RCPT command is received.
acl_smtp_rcpt = acl_check_rcpt

...

acl_check_rcpt:
  ...
  # Note that, by putting this test before any DNS black list checks, you will
  # always accept from these hosts, even if they end up on a black list. The
  # assumption is that they are your friends, and if they get onto black
  # list, it is a mistake.
  accept
    hosts = +relay_from_hosts
    control = submission/sender_retain
    control = dkim_disable_verify


  # Accept if the message arrived over an authenticated connection, from
  # any host. Again, these messages are usually from MUAs, so recipient
  # verification is omitted, and submission mode is set. And again, we do this
  # check before any black list tests.
  accept
    authenticated = *
    control = submission/sender_retain
    control = dkim_disable_verify
  ...

# ? Aug 3, 2011 00:42

TheGopher: Sep 7, 2009

Zom Aur posted:

Arch isn't source based.

Welp, I've been horribly misinformed. Time to go install Arch!

# ? Aug 3, 2011 05:26

Mantle: May 15, 2004

Bob Morales posted:

Installed lubuntu. Holy smokes.

I just looked up lubuntu. It looks perfect for my VIA C7 with 512mb ram. However I have ubuntu 11.04 on there already running just the way I like it, albeit a bit sluggishly. Is there a way I can convert it to lubuntu and retain the ability to switch back if I don't end up liking it?

# ? Aug 3, 2011 05:36

text editor: Jan 8, 2007

Mantle posted:

I just looked up lubuntu. It looks perfect for my VIA C7 with 512mb ram. However I have ubuntu 11.04 on there already running just the way I like it, albeit a bit sluggishly. Is there a way I can convert it to lubuntu and retain the ability to switch back if I don't end up liking it?

There is no lubuntu-desktop package, if that is what you are asking. You are going to have to get lxde and the associated packages separately, and then install the lubuntu theme after that.

By the way, can I ask what hardware and configuration you have on your C7 setup? I have an old C7-D at 1.5ghz with S3/unichrome graphics, but even with the openchrome drivers (I last tested this a year ago) it has terrible trouble driving a 1600x900 desktop running a simple tiling desktop.

# ? Aug 3, 2011 05:49

Mantle: May 15, 2004

ClosedBSD posted:

There is no lubuntu-desktop package, if that is what you are asking. You are going to have to get lxde and the associated packages separately, and then install the lubuntu theme after that.

By the way, can I ask what hardware and configuration you have on your C7 setup? I have an old C7-D at 1.5ghz with S3/unichrome graphics, but even with the openchrome drivers (I last tested this a year ago) it has terrible trouble driving a 1600x900 desktop running a simple tiling desktop.

I have an everex gPC2 which has the same CPU as yours but instead of the integrated graphics I am using a PCI voodoo3 2000 in order to reclaim 64mb of shared video ram. However, both graphics setups are equally slow and I can only run ubuntu classic desktop or unity 2d. My monitor is a 720p tv running at 1360x768. It's usable as long as there is no flash running.

# ? Aug 3, 2011 05:57

Longinus00: Dec 29, 2005; Ur-Quan

ClosedBSD posted:

There is no lubuntu-desktop package, if that is what you are asking. You are going to have to get lxde and the associated packages separately, and then install the lubuntu theme after that.

By the way, can I ask what hardware and configuration you have on your C7 setup? I have an old C7-D at 1.5ghz with S3/unichrome graphics, but even with the openchrome drivers (I last tested this a year ago) it has terrible trouble driving a 1600x900 desktop running a simple tiling desktop.

...

http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/lubuntu-desktop

# ? Aug 3, 2011 06:10

text editor: Jan 8, 2007

Longinus00 posted:

...

http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/lubuntu-desktop

I searched for that 3 times and never found it, my bad

# ? Aug 3, 2011 06:18

Mantle: May 15, 2004

Longinus00 posted:

...

http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/lubuntu-desktop

So if I install this package, I should be able to select it at the login screen and then it will be EXACTLY as if I were running lubuntu?

e: OK it seems to be working... however, Ubuntu uses vino for remote desktop and there is no equivalent installed under LUbuntu (vino requires gnome I think). I tried installing tightvncserver but after I authenticate with my client I can't manage to make a connection. It was working fine with vino under Ubuntu.

What's the best VNC server to run on a low powered box? There are so many to choose from. FWIW I'm running the TightVNC client on my Windows machine.

Mantle fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Aug 3, 2011

# ? Aug 3, 2011 06:36

taqueso: Mar 8, 2004

Mantle posted:

What's the best VNC server to run on a low powered box? There are so many to choose from. FWIW I'm running the TightVNC client on my Windows machine.

Any of them should be fine, but you will probably want to turn off jpeg and zip encoding or at least do some tests to see how much cpu it takes.

# ? Aug 3, 2011 14:12

Carthag Tuek: Oct 15, 2005; Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
sl�gt skal f�lge sl�gters gang

muskrat posted:

I do this. All of my servers are whitelisted. Mail clients (i.e., real users) have virtual accounts using userdb.

Not sure what distro you're using, but here's the relevant part of my config.

code:

# Defines the access control list that is run when an
# SMTP RCPT command is received.
acl_smtp_rcpt = acl_check_rcpt

...

acl_check_rcpt:
  ...
  # Note that, by putting this test before any DNS black list checks, you will
  # always accept from these hosts, even if they end up on a black list. The
  # assumption is that they are your friends, and if they get onto black
  # list, it is a mistake.
  accept
    hosts = +relay_from_hosts
    control = submission/sender_retain
    control = dkim_disable_verify


  # Accept if the message arrived over an authenticated connection, from
  # any host. Again, these messages are usually from MUAs, so recipient
  # verification is omitted, and submission mode is set. And again, we do this
  # check before any black list tests.
  accept
    authenticated = *
    control = submission/sender_retain
    control = dkim_disable_verify
  ...

Excellent, thanks!

# ? Aug 3, 2011 14:22

angrytech: Jun 26, 2009

Well I decided that I absolutely had to mess with BIND, and now my poo poo is once again hosed.
I have two servers: example.com and email.example.com. Is it possible to have email.example.com serve mail for the domain example.com?
I've tried modifying the example.com zone file that's hosted on example.com to have the following line:
example.com. IN MX 0 ip.of.email.example.com
Will that cause email sent to accounts @example.com to be directed to the server at email.example.com

# ? Aug 4, 2011 20:04

BnT: Mar 10, 2006

angrytech posted:

Well I decided that I absolutely had to mess with BIND, and now my poo poo is once again hosed.
I have two servers: example.com and email.example.com. Is it possible to have email.example.com serve mail for the domain example.com?
I've tried modifying the example.com zone file that's hosted on example.com to have the following line:
example.com. IN MX 0 ip.of.email.example.com
Will that cause email sent to accounts @example.com to be directed to the server at email.example.com

Okay editing my post after a little review; Don't point your MX record to an IP address, it's not intended to be a valid way to route mail even if it works. Also, try to avoid using 0 as a priority, it makes it difficult when you need a new primary mail exchanger later on. You'll need these records:

code:

example.com.	IN      MX 10  email.example.com.
email.example.com.           IN      A      ip.of.email.example.com

Assuming the zone is example.com, you can shorthand these:

code:

@	       IN      MX 10  email.example.com.
email          IN      A      ip.of.email.example.com

BnT fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Aug 4, 2011

# ? Aug 4, 2011 23:11

angrytech: Jun 26, 2009

BnT posted:

Yes, but I rarely see IPs in MX records and wouldn't recommend it. Also don't use 0 for a priority unless you have to, using 10 will give some you flexibility later on if you decide to implement a new primary MTA. So I'd use:

example.com. IN MX 10 email.example.com.
(or assuming the zone file is example.com):
@ IN MX 10 email.example.com.

Make sure you have an A record for email.example.com as well. Again, assuming example.com is the zone file:

email IN A ip.of.email.example.com

Ok, I suddenly understand *why* those numbers are chosen.
I've got sweetcorn to grill and beer to drink, so I'll gently caress with this later tonight. Thank you very much, DNS is one of those things that I was always mystified by, but messing around with it has allowed me to understand it a lot better.

# ? Aug 4, 2011 23:22

angrytech: Jun 26, 2009

angrytech fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Oct 17, 2013

# ? Aug 5, 2011 03:41

JHVH-1: Jun 28, 2002

Your DNS entries are look good. I queried it with dig and it replied with that. The issue it looks like if you look at those two interface IPs, neither of them match the public IP you are going to be actually sending as.

So I guess you have to look up a proxy or whatever setting. (Not familiar with what you are configuring) Like here in the postfix docs for example:
http://www.postfix.org/BASIC_CONFIGURATION_README.html#proxy_interfaces

Its for security reasons so the default config won't allow just anything to pretend to be coming from any domain, it sounds like its checking to make sure they match what is actually configured.

# ? Aug 5, 2011 07:05

BnT: Mar 10, 2006

angrytech posted:

I feel like I'm missing something really obvious here, but I can't put my finger on it.

It's complaining because of NAT. On the comm host, try adding an entry to the /etc/hosts file for itself maybe:

code:


10.1.4.138 comm.binaryash.net

If that doesn't work, you'll have to split zone files, which I'll post more about when I'm not on a mobile!

# ? Aug 5, 2011 12:44

angrytech: Jun 26, 2009

angrytech fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Oct 17, 2013

# ? Aug 5, 2011 14:50

Needs More Ditka: Dec 3, 2005; We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism.

On 4 different distributions (OpenSUSE, Ubuntu, Mint, and now Fedora), I have found my laptop randomly locks up when playing Flash videos, all with Adobe's actual Flash player, regardless of whether I'm using Konqueror, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, or Chromium and whether I'm using Unity, KDE, Gnome 2, Gnome 3, or XFCE. I have no idea what's causing it or even where to start looking for it. The last time this happened, the graphical environment disappeared and a bunch of terminal text showed that I couldn't copy because the system completely locked.

I don't know whether the text is even relevant to what happened, but once it happens again (and I'm sure it will), I'll be sure to write the last few lines down and copy them here. Since this seems to happen no matter what software I'm using (it also happened in Windows, but not nearly as often), I'm starting to worry if it's a hardware problem.

# ? Aug 6, 2011 00:59

JHVH-1: Jun 28, 2002

The Flash 11 plugin is 64 bit native might be worth giving it a go if you are on 64 bit:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

# ? Aug 6, 2011 01:29

Needs More Ditka: Dec 3, 2005; We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes we shall not disguise our terrorism.

JHVH-1 posted:

The Flash 11 plugin is 64 bit native might be worth giving it a go if you are on 64 bit:
http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer11.html

Thank you, but I'm on a lowly Gateway FX MG1. I'm not sure if they even knew 64 bits were possible when they made this dinosaur. That's why I'm starting to worry it's hardware related.

# ? Aug 6, 2011 01:37

spankmeister: Jun 15, 2008

Needs More Ditka posted:

Thank you, but I'm on a lowly Gateway FX MG1.

It's better to post the real specs of the machine instead of some made-up name that the manufacturer gave it, since now everybody has to google that model to find out what kind of PC you have.

But if it also happens on Windows then it's probably a hw problem. Try running memtest:

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
Get pre-compiled bootable iso, burn to CD and boot from that CD

Just let it do its thing for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.
If there is just one error (or more of course), that means that you PC has a hardware issue.

Memtest test memory but since the test uses various components within the PC (CPU, cache, memory controller, the actual memory itself etc.) it could be indicative of a problem with any of these.

spankmeister fucked around with this message at 09:20 on Aug 6, 2011

# ? Aug 6, 2011 09:08

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 21:41

Xenomorph: Jun 13, 2001

CentOS 6 / RHEL 6 issue.

I just got a new install to authenticate against our LDAP server. It reads users, passwords, home, etc from the database.
Homes are mounted locally via NFS.

On a GUI login, the user is logged in correctly. Their Desktop is there, Documents, all files.

On a text login, they get the message that it can't load /share/home/user, and are dropped at root /.

Now, the thing is, "/share/home/user" does exist, and they can immediately change to that directory. It loads it correctly when they log in via the GUI.

Where should I be looking at to see what the problem is? I have the same config under CentOS 5, and it just works.

# ? Aug 6, 2011 10:16

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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