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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waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Ensign Expendable posted:

Is there a browser that can work from command line without X (stage 4, I think it was called)?

lynx
links
elinks

The most recent version of links can even do a graphical mode on a framebuffer.

http://links.twibright.com/

# ¿ May 28, 2009 01:25

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:18

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

In bash 3.x aliases can't specify arguments like that. You need to write a function or create a shell script.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2009 02:53

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

GregNorc posted:

Can't use a different distro due to some random software I have that needs fedora.

Currently zeroing the drive with DD.

Boot a livecd image off of a USB drive. They all have the ability to install the livecd to a disk. So you get a 700mb install and go from there adding or removing packages.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2009 04:53

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

The only thing I would add is to mount /tmp and /var/tmp as tmpfs. Maybe /var/log too. That's what I do on my netbook.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2009 19:10

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Any environment variable in that shell is inherited by any processes it starts.

Also you can do SOME_VAR=some_value executable and it sets it for that process only.

Also regarding the printer, I would start at:
http://openprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Canon-PIXMA_MP600

Edit: And from your output, make sure libtiff is installed,

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Jun 21, 2009

# ¿ Jun 21, 2009 23:17

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

MrPablo posted:

Environment variables are not exported to sub-processes unless they are exported:
code:
pabs@halcyon:~> foo=bar; ruby -e "puts ENV['foo']" 
nil
pabs@halcyon:~> export foo=bar
pabs@halcyon:~> foo=bar; ruby -e "puts ENV['foo']" 
bar

I was talking about how environment variables are implemented in Unix at the system level -- not the bash-ism.

See man environ.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2009 04:15

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

NZAmoeba posted:

How do I get a bootable OS installer to run on a usb stick?

I have a netbook that I'm trying to install linux on, I've tried using the netbook installer that ubuntu features on it's website, but it keeps breaking on this thing so I want to try a different distro.

Unfortunately everything else wants to install via an iso, what's a quick and easy way to get an installer to run from the usb stick?

(note: I don't want a 'linux on a usb stick' thing, I have a hard drive I want to install onto, but I need to install it from a usb stick, not a cd/dvd)

For Fedora there is liveusb-creator. All of the LiveCD images can do an install of the running image to disk. There is an icon on the desktop.

https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

# ¿ Jun 29, 2009 04:04

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Zom Aur posted:

Also, most .img-files can be instantly copied to a USB-drive without any problems with
dd if=/path/to.img of=/path/to-device
Make sure there's no partition number on the end of the device (sdx instead of sdx1). This will erase the partition-table on the drive and everything on it though, so be careful.

live-usb creator is non destructive if that matters.

The minimal boot media is described at http://docs.fedoraproject.org/install-guide/f11/en-US/html/sn-which-files.html#d0e760

It can't be set up with liveusb-creator, but the dd method should work.

I remember installing Fedora 5 or 6 with a two boot floppies and a net install.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2009 05:09

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

NZAmoeba posted:

What's this minimal stuff? Right now I'm trying to install fedora 11 from that usb creator and it's being a bitch and telling me that the drive is less than 3 gigs and won't work (despite it telling me on the partition screen that it's 4 gigs argh!!!)

Would that fix this problem? Stupid piece of crap works fine on a 2 gig USB drive...

Then you might have to do something silly like install to a larger drive and then do a dd copy from that to the smaller. I haven't moved from Fedora 10 to 11 on my netbook and 10 works fine with a 4GB SSD (installed from the XFCE live image).

If you're not doing the default package selection on a regular install image, you should be able to install just the base system and then use yum to install gdm and gnome2 (or xfce4) packages. That should give you a minimal GUI system.

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jun 29, 2009

# ¿ Jun 29, 2009 17:17

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

GregNorc posted:

What's the best way to get a Fedora install onto an 8GB SDHC card?

I know I can boot from the card, but keep having issues. First I tried the fedora dvd iso, but when tried to run the install it froze.

Running the live cd installer from SD doesn't give the option of installing to SD only the eee's internal flash drive, and the big DVD .iso freezes when after boot when trying to install.

Any help is greatly appreciated

You could use liveusb-creator with persistent storage, but I just think that is for /home. I could be wrong and it uses a unionfs overlay for the rest of the file system.

Another option is to do an install of Fedora in a VM and then dd the hard drive image to the SD card.

Edit: From the looks of it, persistent storage does do the unionfs thing. Although be careful because if you remove a package that comes with the ISO image and then reinstall it, it will take up the space on the persistent storage, not the read only squashfs image.

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jul 3, 2009

# ¿ Jul 3, 2009 19:13

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

It's up to you, but I'd keep a partition table with labels so it's obvious that the disks aren't empty if someone where examine them. I don't think you'll be crying over the loss of 4kb a disk. That and if the partitions have labels/uuids, you can address them by that in your fstab.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2009 03:02

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

rugbert posted:

One of my drives keeps unmounting. I Just formated and recreated the file system too so I dont know whats up. What log should I check to get to the bottom of this?

The output of dmesg when it happens might be helpful.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2009 00:31

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Kaluza-Klein posted:

Well, I suppose I don't need 64 bits. If a 32 bit distro will work properly I am happy enough to switch.

I imagine arch is more up to date than ubuntu? Maybe I would enjoy arch more?

If I would have to guess, it's something about the chipset on your motherboard being unsupported in 64 bit at the moment.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2009 12:13

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

NZAmoeba posted:

dd question. I've got a disk with known bad sectors that I want to zero before disposal. However dd keeps giving me an I/O error because of these bad sectors, how can I get it to ignore this?

-bash-3.00# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/dsk/c1t2d0s2 conv=noerror,sync
dd: /dev/dsk/c1t2d0s2: open: I/O error

google tells me that conv=noerror,sync should ignore IO errors, but that might be from where it's reading, not where it's writing, I guess what I'm doing isn't typical usage though.

Run badblocks on the target disk before you zero it out, it will mark the sectors as bad and linux won't try to write to them.

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

# ¿ Aug 31, 2009 12:11

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Copy the files to your Windows machine, format the drive and copy them back.

Either that or in Linux you could try running fsck on the block device (/dev/sdX where X is a letter), but that is just as likely to make you lose all the files.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2009 03:24

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

GobiasIndustries posted:

I'm looking to get linux set up on a USB drive to boot it from my aunt's new laptop to test out DVD drive problems. Is there a distro I can install to a USB drive that will let me boot and simply test to see if the DVD drive shows up?

If it helps, the problem is the drive disappears in windows at random times, but will always reappear when I eject the drive. I want to use linux so I have a completely different OS to test from.

I'm partial to Fedora Live USB creator to make bootable Linux installs because the app runs in windows too.

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

Edit: There is also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNetbootin

# ¿ Sep 19, 2009 17:01

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

NZAmoeba posted:

Tell me if I'm doing something wrong with this live usb stick of fedora 11 I have.

I have a 2GB stick with a 700meg iso of the fedora live cd on it, created with the live usb creator tool. My intention is to update the software on it, so that when I use that usb stick to install fedora on a pc, it'll already be pretty up to date, as right now it asks for about 400meg of updates after starting.

So I just run 'yum update' on the thing, and about halfway through installing the various updates the whole thing crashes and burns, eventually leaving the stick unbootable and I have to reformat it.

Is there something weird happening here or were these live usb sticks just not meant to be used in that way to begin with? When I create the image I set it so the rest of the free space on the stick is used as persistent storage.

Make the LiveUSB install with https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/ and then set persistent storage to the rest of the disk space (1.2 or 1.3 GB). I believe the system mounts does a unionfs mount of the cramfs image from the ISO as read only and the persistent storage as read/write. That should work to the best of my knowledge.

The reason your thing is crashing and burning is because the RPM downloads are filling up the disk (ramdisk or otherwise) so if doesn't have the free resources to write the updates. Try updating a small number of packages at a time, piecemeal. Run "yum update xorg\*" first, that should be a big one.

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Oct 17, 2009

# ¿ Oct 17, 2009 02:19

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Xae posted:

How do I remove an existing Linux (EXT3) partition and add the space back to the Windows (NTFS) partition, with out losing data on the NTFS partition?

Boot with a linux LiveCD or LiveUSB that has GParted.

Most LiveCDs for Fedora have GParted because it uses parted for installing from live images. Either that or use http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

The only caveat is to make sure that the NTFS partition has been unmounted cleanly, otherwise GParted will complain.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2009 01:48

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

If it is anything like the Sansa Fuse, you have to go into the Settings and change the USB mode from Auto (or MTP) to MSC (Mass Storage Device mode). Auto mode tricks you into thinking it is an OS problem because it waits for an MTP transfer and if none comes, it switches to MSC.

And beware, if you have any files transfered in MTP mode, they won't show up on the MSC FAT filesystem and the file system size will be smaller than expected.

Edit: http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=clip&thread.id=570

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 04:17 on Dec 20, 2009

# ¿ Dec 20, 2009 04:08

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

I use zcat. It's a script that invokes any of the bzip or gzip programs.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2009 05:26

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

inveratulo posted:

So I got a new laptop for work, that has a 64GB SSD within. Naturally I decided to install Ubuntu 9.10 on it, thinking that it would boot extremely fast, but so far I have been pretty disappointed. Looking through the dmesg I really don't see anything that would raise my eyebrows. I tried upgrading to grub2, and tweaking the O/S for faster SSD performance but that didn't really make any difference. The only thing I can think of that might be causing problems at this point would be the Nvidia drivers I had to install in order to get the more advanced visual settings to work.

Anybody had similar issues with ubuntu 9.10?

also here is my bootchart because, godammit, bootchart is awesome.

Click here for the full 1024x1793 image.

I would recommend you edit your grub.conf so elevator=noop.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=9190 has a good explanation. I have items 2 and 3 on that list for my Netbook that has a slow SSD.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2010 04:00

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

code:

apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment

Should download and install Gnome 2.x and an Xorg xserver. Not really a Debian/Ubuntu guy but it should give you something semiworkable. Might be a good to install xserver-xorg-video-intel but I'm not sure if that is the right package for your graphics card.

Also, your problem looks related to https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/515246 which is supposedly fixed. I just skimmed it.

Edit: I would recommend using apt to update to the newest kernel first because this bug was fixed as like 10 days ago.

Edit: The bug is that the lid closed sensor always sends back "closed" so not even virtual terminals can be used as long as X is running.

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Apr 18, 2010

# ¿ Apr 18, 2010 19:49

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

FISHMANPET posted:

That looks like it will install the official Gnome without any of the Ubuntu changes. Looks like it's a carryover from Debian. Depends on if that's what you want or not. I don't have that package installed on my Ubuntu system, but it looks like it just 'requires' all sorts of Gnome stuff, so I probably have most of it installed already anyway.

E: That package actually isn't installable. It fast-user-switch-applet, but that package can't be installed because it's been replaced with gdm. So don't go that route.

Yeah, I said I was guessing pretty hard. My Google-fu isn't strong enough.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2010 20:36

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

I use XFCE for a desktop environment and it has an option to be able to alt-tab between all workspaces.

If you're using Gnome with Metacity (or Metacity variant) as your window manager you might want to look into: http://blogs.gnome.org/metacity/2010/01/22/alt-tab-over-all-workspaces/

# ¿ May 2, 2010 21:39

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Use the RPM Fusion repo. Install the repo then all you have to do is install the package kmod-nvidia

http://rpmfusion.org/

Edit: RPM Fusion also has all the good stuff like codecs for xvid, mpeg4 and mp3.
Install:
gstreamer-ffmpeg
gstreamer-plugins-bad
gstreamer-plugins-bad-nonfree
gstreamer-plugins-ugly

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 02:27 on Jun 1, 2010

# ¿ Jun 1, 2010 02:21

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Just the stock kernels, otherwise the way you're doing is as good as any.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2010 23:57

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Bob Morales posted:

Is there a 'Mint-like' release of Fedora with all the mp3/DVD/Flash stuff ready to go out of the box?

Fedora Community Remix looks to be what you want. It says it includes stuff from the RPM Fusion repository so I have to assume it includes the mp3 and dvd libraries. Frankly it's not that hard to install Fedora, install the rpms for the RPM Fusion repository and then do

code:

yum install gstreamer-ffmpeg gstreamer-plugins-bad\* gstreamer-plugins-ugly

That gets you everything but Flash and Adobe has a Yum repo for all their linux versions.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2010 23:17

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Lukano posted:

A crossposted question from the IRC Best Practice thread, but it's driving me nuts - I assume there has to be something plugin / script wise that does what I want, but I'm drawing a blank;

Kind of a random shot in the dark question.

I'm using irssi and bitlbee, and am loving it - with the exception of no previous-conversation chat history when you open a new window with someone you've chatted with prior. It's a pretty common feature in GUI IM clients these days, but I can't seem to find a script that'll replicate the functionality for irssi.

It really would be hugely beneficial, especially in regards to bitlbee. Not to mention reading missed messages from unplanned restarts, without having to check the logs themselves.

/lastlog?

# ¿ Sep 14, 2010 23:57

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

elite burrito posted:

Any input on how CentOS would work out in a desktop/laptop scenario?

I'm looking to move off of Fedora for something with a more manageable (slower) release cycle and less of a beta feel, and since I manage RHEL servers all day at work, it feels like CentOS is the natural option.

Is there a repo out there with w32codecs, wifi firmwares, all the good stuff?

CentOS has a lot of older packages, and very few of them change within a major release. So if you're ok with not having the latest and the greatest, you should be ok. RHEL and CentOS to some degree are rebased on from Fedora every release and then go into support mode, only using critical backports and bugfixes.

That said, there are a couple 3rd party package repositories that make CentOS better for desktop users. I would recommend RPM Fusion for any Fedora or desktop RHEL/CentOS user. It contains repositories for all current releases and a couple into the past for packages like multimedia codecs and unclean binary kernel firmware like graphics cards. http://rpmfusion.org/

There are a couple other package repositories just for CentOS that are rebuilds of GUI programs from Fedora, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

Edit: It's a repository called Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux (EPEL) that is maintained by the Fedora project. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/EPEL

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Sep 25, 2010

# ¿ Sep 25, 2010 23:41

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

You could also use the bash builtin disown to remove the background process from the shell's job list.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2010 23:44

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

I use XFCE on Fedora 13 on an Asus 900a netbook that is a couple years old and it runs great. This model has a 4GB SSD and I had to mount /tmp and /var/cache as tmpfs just to keep the slow write speeds from killing performance.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2010 17:34

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Zom Aur posted:

You might want to add /var/tmp and /home/<username>/.cache as tmpfs too.

Oh I do, I just couldn't remember my fstab off the top of my head. I also have /var/log too, but then I have to use rc.local to create some folders and files on boot so stuff like wtmp and utmp exist.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2010 18:44

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Can anyone help me set up NFSv4 to do static ID mapping. I have a Sheevaplug running Debian squeeze with an external hard drive (formatted ext4) that I'm using as a file server/DNLA streaming server (Mediatomb). I'd like to be able to mount the hard drive via NFS on my Fedora 13 laptop.

The problem is that Fedora starts uids for regular users at 500 and Debian starts them at 1000. In theory idmapd should be able to map the username waffle on the server with the username waffle on the laptop, but what little documentation I've seen for idmapd.conf seems to assume you're on a Kerberos domain for authentication. Should I declare bankruptcy and just change the uids/guids on my laptop to match my server and go on with my life?

# ¿ Nov 19, 2010 00:44

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

In regards to the NSLU2 replacement, I'm loving my Sheevaplug. I bought the model with one USB port, network port, SD card slot, and a USB serial hookup for debuging. It comes with a weird Ubuntu installed, but the instructions on http://www.cyrius.com/debian/kirkwood/sheevaplug/ made it dead simple to get Debian set up. You can buy one for $99 on https://www.globalscaletechnologies.com/p-22-sheevaplug-dev-kit-us.aspx. I use mine as a media server with Mediatomb to stream to my PS3 and download torrents to USB hard drive with deluge.

There is also the GuruPlug but you need a separate JTAG box to get anywhere and it costs $40.

waffle iron fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Jan 18, 2011

# ¿ Jan 18, 2011 05:54

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

kyuss posted:

Just gave in and bought the eSATA variant from their UK reseller

Didn't get a timely answer from http://www.ionicsplug.com/ so far, and their german reseller wasn't any better. Didn't fall for the Sheevaplug's successor either, as the Guruplug appears to have terrible overheating problems.

My NSLU2 box seems to be stuck in a permanent rebooting cycle despite doing every Redboot / upslug2 procedure I could find.

So its a new box then.

Yeah, I read about the Guruplug being not so great. In general I would be a little leery of any USB-powered spinning disk. It's very telling when they sell replacement embedded power supplies.

My only complaint about the SheevaPlug is that I have Debian on the SD card and it sticks out halfway because the slot isn't very deep. I would much prefer if it had been a micro SD slot. But if you're going to have an eSATA drive, you're probably going have your OS on that. The internal MMC is 512MB and too small for all the stuff I want to do.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2011 03:25

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Bob Morales posted:

Here's a tip if you're an irssi user and switch over to XFCE. XFCE terminal is different from GNOME terminal so make sure you go to Preferences->Shortcuts and disable alt-<number> for switching tabs. Or you won't be able to switch windows in irssi.

I rebind all Alt+Number to be Alt+Shift+Number. Even then I mostly use Alt-LeftArrow or Alt-RightArrow to switch windows in irssi.

# ¿ Jan 22, 2011 02:20

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

It's easy, you just have to remember that it's the same order of arguments as cp.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2011 02:07

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

I see Linux From Scratch as "how to use GNU autotools". Which in the scheme of things isn't a huge deal.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2011 00:06

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Squeeze as testing has been stable for the months I've been running it on my Sheevaplug. I doubt much has changed since I ran updated this morning.

code:

root@coeus:~# cat /etc/debian_version 
6.0
root@coeus:~# aptitude update && aptitude full-upgrade 

[...]
                            
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2011 01:44

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 06:18

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

IanMalcolm posted:

You should see what happens when you do that running ZSH.

Talking about ZSH, I just switched from Ubuntu to Fedora, and, as usual, installed ZSH. I noticed that "yum install foo-*" works fine on bash, installing all packages beginning with "foo-", but on ZSH it complains that "foo-*: file not found", as if it were trying to open a local file. If I don't use wildcards, everything works as expected. Has anyone run into this and found a fix? ZSH completion would be great, too.

Also, you can prevent globbing by doing foo-\* or quoting the whole thing with single quotes i.e. 'foo-*'.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2011 00:09

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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