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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Grey Area: Sep 9, 2000; Battle Without Honor or Humanity

Zophixan posted:

Hey everyone, I've been using Ubuntu for a while, and was thinking of changing to Gentoo. I used sabayon before but couldn't get my head around compiling from source (there aren't ebuilds for everything!).
Could someone post a guide to compiling from source for me?

apt-get source <package>
cd <package>-<version>
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..
dpkg -i <package>_<version>_<arch>.deb

# ? Mar 25, 2008 16:25

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 12:23

coconono: Aug 11, 2004; KISS ME KRIS

I apologize if this has already been addressed, but is the Linux+ certification worth my time? What about the Linux Sysadmin cert from O'reilly press?

I need to fill in tons of blanks in my linux skillset.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 16:27

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

Since my new laptop with XP just arrived, I thought I would experiment and try out Ubuntu on my now relatively ancient desktop. This will be my first time messing with the Linux environment, and I have a question or two right off the bat.

My desktop is currently running XP Pro, and I want to completely wipe that off the hdd and use all the space for Ubuntu. All the guides that I've stumbled upon seem to assume that I want to dual boot ubuntu and XP. Do I just need to select the option in the Ubuntu install that says something similar to "Install Ubuntu On Entire Drive"? Will that effectively delete everything that was XP?

Thanks.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 16:47

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

Kidane posted:

Secondly, and this one is really stupid but -- I just installed postfix and I in the process of configuring it but I noticed it's not listening on ports 110 or 143. Do I need to install a separate POP or IMAP server?

Correct. Postfix is only meant to be a MTA - Mail Transport Agent. It's not responsible for handling anything other than the in/out SMTP routing side of the equation, plus handing inbound mail to a local delivery agent[1]. You'll need to install a separate IMAP/POP server... I generally recommend Dovecot, as it can serve both protocols (plus the SSL variants) and can deal with both Maildir and mbox storage. Check your package manager, it should be there...

[1] In a default Postfix install, its local component is doing the delivery, and that's where your .forward magic is happening. If your goal is to deliver everything to procmail anyway, you can reconfigure Postfix to use procmail directly and skip the extra .forward step. It's up to you, but thought I'd mention it... check the "mailbox_command" directive in main.cf if you're interested.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 16:52

crab avatar: Mar 15, 2006; iÅ§ KÃ«3Å, cÄ§ gÃ¸Ã i- <Ecl8

Hughmoris posted:

Do I just need to select the option in the Ubuntu install that says something similar to "Install Ubuntu On Entire Drive"? Will that effectively delete everything that was XP?

Yep, all there is to it. I think if you let it do partitioning automatically, it will create separate partitions for /boot, /, /home, and swap.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 17:06

Kidane: Dec 15, 2004; DANGER TO MANIFOLD

Alowishus posted:

Correct. Postfix is only meant to be a MTA - Mail Transport Agent. It's not responsible for handling anything other than the in/out SMTP routing side of the equation, plus handing inbound mail to a local delivery agent[1]. You'll need to install a separate IMAP/POP server... I generally recommend Dovecot, as it can serve both protocols (plus the SSL variants) and can deal with both Maildir and mbox storage. Check your package manager, it should be there...

[1] In a default Postfix install, its local component is doing the delivery, and that's where your .forward magic is happening. If your goal is to deliver everything to procmail anyway, you can reconfigure Postfix to use procmail directly and skip the extra .forward step. It's up to you, but thought I'd mention it... check the "mailbox_command" directive in main.cf if you're interested.

Interesting, yeah, seems pointless to have the .forward when I'm passing everything to procmail anyway. It turns out I do not need to run POP or IMAP on this machine, since the development of my script went so smoothly but I will keep that bit about the MTA in mind. I am used to environments where all that stuff is built for me so live and learn.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 17:39

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

Grey Area posted:

apt-get source <package>
cd <package>-<version>
fakeroot dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..
dpkg -i <package>_<version>_<arch>.deb

He probably needs sudo in front of that dpkg invocation. Furthermore, because he's not a DD or DM, he almost certainly would want to add a few options to dpkg-buildpackage, and normally dpkg-buildpackage should know how to invoke fakeroot itself. I'd suggest:

apt-get source package
cd package-version
dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i package_version_arch.deb

# ? Mar 25, 2008 17:43

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Cannister posted:

I recently decided to give Linux a real shot after both Vista and XP (respectively) kicked the bucket on me. I installed Fedora 8 and am trying to get my normal workflow requirements satisfied as far as software is concerned.

I am an amateur photographer and I shoot a Canon Rebel XT. F-Spot's photo importer takes it's sweet time downloading files, which is kind of an issue.
The main problem though is the editing process. I found a program (UFRaw) to read the .CR2 Raw files that the camera saves photos as, but it's quite awkward to work with and is nowhere near as versatile as Photoshop's RAW editor. It also has the tendancy to load each new photo that I open with the edited settings (exposure, contrast curve, color temperature) of the last photo I edited, instead of the camera defaults, but I'm sure that's my fault.

So are there any dSLR users here who know good RAW workflow editing software for Fedora?

I use ufraw and have been happy with it, but I have to admit I have never used any other raw editor so maybe I just don't know what I am missing. I do know that you can set it to a default configuration when it starts. Under 'Options', 'Configuration' tab, set 'Save image defaults' to 'Never again'.

I have never used f-spot. I just have a script that copies all the image files off my card and puts them in folders named for the date the photo was taken on.

Failing all that, Photoshop runs fine in wine last time I checked.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 19:37

tehk: Mar 10, 2006; [-4] Flaw: Heart Broken - Tehk is extremely lonely. The Gay Empire's ultimate weapon finds it hard to have time for love.

rookieone posted:

thanks for all the input guys.

I was indeed planning on going with Hardy because it has the LTS but there is no server-only CD out there as far as I know, so I'd have to wait until April for the official hardy release. I suppose I could just download the beta CD and do a server install though.

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-server/daily/20080325/

It is the daily build of hardy but all the same.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 20:44

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

Whew, finally got Ubuntu up and running. Everything went fine until I tried to get my wireless card working, hit a bit of a hiccup there. Found some help on the Ubuntu forums and now everything is a go.

What is the current great audio player out for Ubuntu right now? I have VLC for my video, but I'm assuming there is something better for audio than what comes stock on Ubuntu.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 20:54

Mysterious Aftertaste: May 20, 2004; So Marigold, my love, you've had too much to drink...

I personally like Quod Libet. It's GTK+/Python, very similar to the K-based amaroK.

Also check Exaile and GMPC.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 21:25

Roloc: Apr 6, 2005

Hughmoris posted:

Whew, finally got Ubuntu up and running. Everything went fine until I tried to get my wireless card working, hit a bit of a hiccup there. Found some help on the Ubuntu forums and now everything is a go.

What is the current great audio player out for Ubuntu right now? I have VLC for my video, but I'm assuming there is something better for audio than what comes stock on Ubuntu.

http://www.linux.com/feature/53118

That is a fairly good writeup of your options. I use Rhythmbox and it works fine for me but I know some people hate it with a passion.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 21:40

tehk: Mar 10, 2006; [-4] Flaw: Heart Broken - Tehk is extremely lonely. The Gay Empire's ultimate weapon finds it hard to have time for love.

Hughmoris posted:

What is the current great audio player out for Ubuntu right now? I have VLC for my video, but I'm assuming there is something better for audio than what comes stock on Ubuntu.

If you are not worried about using qt applications along side of GTK then without a doubt KDEs audio player Amarok takes the 'best of' cake.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 22:08

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

Roloc posted:

http://www.linux.com/feature/53118

That is a fairly good writeup of your options. I use Rhythmbox and it works fine for me but I know some people hate it with a passion.

I wonder if it occurred to that guy that if he installed the windows media, ogg, real media, and flac libraries that almost all of those programs would have played any file he threw at them just fine.

# ? Mar 25, 2008 23:42

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

What could cause Apache to generate a very huge error_log in very short time? Had some major troubles with my VPS and took me quite a while until I've figured that out.

It reached 900MB when the space on the system partition ran out. The sites hosted on it don't generate much traffic.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 01:22

Snozzberry Smoothie: Jun 27, 2005; by Fragmaster

I'd like some help with SSH. I want to give SCP access to a co-worker so that she can access her files on the Debian servers from home, but I'm a little concerned about security. How can I configure SSH on her account so that she cannot browse outside of her home directory? Logging into her account, I can go to the parent directory, and while most of the files have access denied, she can still view directories.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 01:27

SynVisions: Jun 29, 2003

I'm not trying to cross-post or whatever, but I could really use some help with a wierd problem I'm having with software RAID and I don't know how many people browse HOTS: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2807896

Thanks!

# ? Mar 26, 2008 01:40

shyduck: Oct 3, 2003

Is there an option or plugin for Konversation that allows me to auto-rejoin a channel upon kick? I'm not finding it anywhere.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 02:47

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

Toiletbrush posted:

What could cause Apache to generate a very huge error_log in very short time? Had some major troubles with my VPS and took me quite a while until I've figured that out.

It reached 900MB when the space on the system partition ran out. The sites hosted on it don't generate much traffic.

You should probably look at the log, and see what's generating the errors.

Also, check your httpd.conf (and any other configs) to make sure your LogLevel isn't set to debug.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 02:49

Zophixan: Mar 21, 2006

ShoulderDaemon posted:

He probably needs sudo in front of that dpkg invocation. Furthermore, because he's not a DD or DM, he almost certainly would want to add a few options to dpkg-buildpackage, and normally dpkg-buildpackage should know how to invoke fakeroot itself. I'd suggest:

apt-get source package
cd package-version
dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i package_version_arch.deb

Hey, would this work on a gentoo based system? I ask due to the .deb, When I used sabayon last - I was trying to build tuxguitar from source, I remember getting the source code in a .tz file I think? From what I understand of the code you just typed, I navigate to the file, and then use the dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc to build it?

# ? Mar 26, 2008 02:57

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

Zophixan posted:

Hey, would this work on a gentoo based system? I ask due to the .deb, When I used sabayon last - I was trying to build tuxguitar from source, I remember getting the source code in a .tz file I think? From what I understand of the code you just typed, I navigate to the file, and then use the dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc to build it?

No, it's a debian-ism. Running ./configure over and over until you have all your prereqs straight, then make and sudo make install would be the generic method (if you don't have a native package)

# ? Mar 26, 2008 03:07

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

Snozzberry Smoothie posted:

I'd like some help with SSH. I want to give SCP access to a co-worker so that she can access her files on the Debian servers from home, but I'm a little concerned about security. How can I configure SSH on her account so that she cannot browse outside of her home directory? Logging into her account, I can go to the parent directory, and while most of the files have access denied, she can still view directories.

You can't configure SSH to restrict what she does in her shell. You can configure her account to allow scp/sftp and not ssh, google 'scponly'. Restricting her scp/sftp access to her homedir is probably an even bigger kludge, consider if it's really necessary.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 03:12

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

Snozzberry Smoothie posted:

I'd like some help with SSH. I want to give SCP access to a co-worker so that she can access her files on the Debian servers from home, but I'm a little concerned about security. How can I configure SSH on her account so that she cannot browse outside of her home directory? Logging into her account, I can go to the parent directory, and while most of the files have access denied, she can still view directories.

There isn't an easy answer to this... it's difficult to chroot SSH sessions, though there are some patches available for OpenSSH that can do it. Google for "chroot ssh" or check out this link.

What files are you concerned about? If it's other users' homes, you can stop that by ensuring all directories under /home are 700, though this could potentially break Apache or any other daemon that serves content out of users homes (a workaround to this is to add Apache's user to each person's group). If it's general configuration stuff under /etc, you may not have a choice. If it's private configuration stuff under /etc such as passwords in config files or SSL keys, you should probably take a deeper look at your permissions setup.

Of course you can always use FTP since it's easier to chroot, and if security is critical that can be done over SSL.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 03:17

Snozzberry Smoothie: Jun 27, 2005; by Fragmaster

Thanks for the advice, guys.

I've found an solution to locking down SSH for the co-workers in question. Someone's written a shell script:
http://www.fuschlberger.net/programs/ssh-scp-sftp-chroot-jail/

I didn't really have a full understanding of chroot jails prior to reading the source, but it's pretty straightforward and dead-easy now. I thought I'd post this in case other people wanted to know the solution.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 12:02

Combat Pretzel: Jun 23, 2004; No, seriously... what kurds?!

chryst posted:

You should probably look at the log, and see what's generating the errors.

I had to delete the initial log, to prevent the system from making GBS threads itself more, so I don't know what happened. The last 24 hours, it barely brew to 120KB. I doubt that rate would have made it achieve 900MB in just one month of Apache runtime. I suspect some hacking attempt or what not.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 12:50

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

Toiletbrush posted:

I had to delete the initial log, to prevent the system from making GBS threads itself more, so I don't know what happened. The last 24 hours, it barely brew to 120KB. I doubt that rate would have made it achieve 900MB in just one month of Apache runtime. I suspect some hacking attempt or what not.

If it happens again, you should tail the last several hundred lines to a file in some open space so you can at least review the problem. My guess would be repeated hits on some CGI or Java that were throwing stack traces.

Also, set your log rotation to rotate daily if the logs are over a certain size, and you at least won't have the server poo poo due to logging devices.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 15:20

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

Snozzberry Smoothie posted:

Thanks for the advice, guys.

I've found an solution to locking down SSH for the co-workers in question. Someone's written a shell script:
http://www.fuschlberger.net/programs/ssh-scp-sftp-chroot-jail/

I didn't really have a full understanding of chroot jails prior to reading the source, but it's pretty straightforward and dead-easy now. I thought I'd post this in case other people wanted to know the solution.

Get yourself a better understanding of chroot jails. They're not that complex, and it'll help you understand your risks. Everyone's like "Oh, it's safer than not doing it." But not necessarily. I've actually been hit with this once. A client kept getting owned, and didn't know why, since he was all patched. Turned out he was chrooting SSH users. One of the libraries had an exploit, and the libraries in the chroot jails weren't getting updated with the system libs.

Also, I thought OpenSSH had this functionality built in now? It's pretty new, so I guess it hasn't been merged with all the distros yet. Same risks apply, but it's way easier to implement, and you don't need to re-jail every time things are patched.

http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20080220110039

# ? Mar 26, 2008 15:26

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

Well to be fair, Snozzberry isn't using it as a protective shield from hackers... he just wants to give a user scp access without the potential for casual poking around. Seems like the script he found will do the trick...

Surely it'd be a different story on a shared hosting server with shell access.

Edit: I think the built-in OpenSSH functionality comes in 4.8 when it's released.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 16:20

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

Hey Alowishus, have any suggestions for adding search functionality behind zope?

# ? Mar 26, 2008 20:19

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

rugbert posted:

Hey Alowishus, have any suggestions for adding search functionality behind zope?

Behind Zope? One of the things that the Zope framework provides is a reasonably flexible and scalable search API... what are you wanting to accomplish?

# ? Mar 26, 2008 21:03

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

Our clients want a search feature on their web page and our web guy is out for a while. So now Im in charge of website maintenance too :\ I was thinking of just telling them to use the Google Enterprise search app.

# ? Mar 26, 2008 21:20

ATLbeer: Sep 26, 2004; Über nerd

This is a really stupid Apache question. The apache config directives documentation is a bit obtuse and I'm trying to just to something stupid.

I have a domain.com and I would just like domain.com/directory to serve a directory /var/www/x123x

~~How is this so hard to configure here?~~

code:

Alias /directory /real/filesystem/directory/
<Directory /real/filesystem/directory/>
</Directory>

I find that obtuse :colbert:

ATLbeer fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Mar 27, 2008

# ? Mar 27, 2008 14:36

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

ATLbeer posted:

This is a really stupid Apache question. The apache config directives documentation is a bit obtuse and I'm trying to just to something stupid.

I have a domain.com and I would just like domain.com/directory to serve a directory /var/www/x123x

~~How is this so hard to configure here?~~
code:
Alias /directory /real/filesystem/directory/
<Directory /real/filesystem/directory/>
</Directory>
I find that obtuse

An empty directory container doesn't do anything.

If this directory weren't under an existing document root, Apache's default config would refuse to serve it. In that case, you'd add a directory container that allows Apache to serve the files (see Order, Allow, and Deny)

When the directory is already covered by some 'Allow' directives, this step is not necessary.

Your mismatch of trailing slashes between the two arguments to Alias may one day cause you problems, fwiw.

# ? Mar 27, 2008 14:57

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

rugbert posted:

Our clients want a search feature on their web page and our web guy is out for a while. So now Im in charge of website maintenance too :\ I was thinking of just telling them to use the Google Enterprise search app.

Yeah if you can't or don't want to do it on the backend, a web crawler approach is your other choice. A Google Enterprise box would surely do the trick, or if the pages are publicly accessible then Google Custom Search Business Edition would work.

Or ht://dig or one of sixteen other open source crawlers.

# ? Mar 27, 2008 17:29

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

actually we cant use web crawlers so Im gunna have to do some back end stuff, could you point me into the right direction?

huh htdig looks promising.

rugbert fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Mar 27, 2008

# ? Mar 27, 2008 17:48

Alowishus: Jan 8, 2002; My name is Mud

rugbert posted:

actually we cant use web crawlers so Im gunna have to do some back end stuff, could you point me into the right direction?

You're going to need to define a Catalog and some Indexes... some of those may exist in your site, you may just have to figure out how to query them.

Docs here in the Zope book.

# ? Mar 27, 2008 23:26

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

Ok, I installed Ubuntu a few days ago and am trying to find my way around some basic terminal commands. I'm making some progress, but I'm stuck on something that is almost too embarrassing to ask... How in the hell do you handle spaces in folders and file names?

Ex. I have a music folder, with a Jack Johnson folder inside that, and several albums inside that. I've tried cd /music/Jack Johnson and it won't recognize the command. I've tried seemingly ever combination of odd characters to fill the space and can't figure it out.

What simple step am I missing?

# ? Mar 28, 2008 00:21

tehk: Mar 10, 2006; [-4] Flaw: Heart Broken - Tehk is extremely lonely. The Gay Empire's ultimate weapon finds it hard to have time for love.

Hughmoris posted:

Ok, I installed Ubuntu a few days ago and am trying to find my way around some basic terminal commands. I'm making some progress, but I'm stuck on something that is almost too embarrassing to ask... How in the hell do you handle spaces in folders and file names?

Ex. I have a music folder, with a Jack Johnson folder inside that, and several albums inside that. I've tried cd /music/Jack Johnson and it won't recognize the command. I've tried seemingly ever combination of odd characters to fill the space and can't figure it out.

What simple step am I missing?

Lets say I have a folder named "Some Band" in my home directory. I would navigate there using escape slashes like "cd /home/tehk/Some\ Band/" or "cd /home/tehk/"Some Band"/". The former works the best and in the most use cases.

# ? Mar 28, 2008 00:25

waffle iron: Jan 16, 2004

Hughmoris posted:

Ok, I installed Ubuntu a few days ago and am trying to find my way around some basic terminal commands. I'm making some progress, but I'm stuck on something that is almost too embarrassing to ask... How in the hell do you handle spaces in folders and file names?

Ex. I have a music folder, with a Jack Johnson folder inside that, and several albums inside that. I've tried cd /music/Jack Johnson and it won't recognize the command. I've tried seemingly ever combination of odd characters to fill the space and can't figure it out.

What simple step am I missing?

You would type cd /music/Jack\ Johnson/

Most people would just hit tab and try to use tab completion.

# ? Mar 28, 2008 00:26

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 12:23

deong: Jun 13, 2001; I'll see you in heck!

waffle iron posted:

You would type cd /music/Jack\ Johnson/

Most people would just hit tab and try to use tab completion.

Tab completion is your friend!
you would type cd /music/Ja<tab> and it'll complete /music/Jack\ Johnson.. or atleast give you all suitable options.

# ? Mar 28, 2008 02:46

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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