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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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!

GregNorc posted:

Yeah, all of them seem to rely on random linux programs though

That's kind of a unix design philosophy

# ? Apr 14, 2010 16:34

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 12:43

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

Edit: Double Post

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Mar 13, 2017

# ? Apr 14, 2010 17:41

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!

Double-check that file. Your file manager may be calculating in 1000's instead of 1024's or something like (kib vs kb). Or you might not have the full file.

File Name: 8.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick.torrent
Name: 8.0-RELEASE-amd64-memstick
Info Hash: 2b5b779799e057951ca05c106a953893ff568cd1
Added: 2009-11-24 14:30:52
Size: 996.32 MB

Also, stop using unetbootin for FreeBSD images.

# ? Apr 14, 2010 17:57

Keito: Jul 21, 2005; WHAT DO I CHOOSE ?

enotnert posted:

Ive had major issues with unetbootin recently. . . Best thing is to check FreeBSDs site and find their "USB Boot" instructions, or google around. Unetbootin has gone downhill like crazy in recent months in my honest.

Yeah, unetbootin can be pretty unreliable. Images I create under Linux will never boot, while images produced the few times I've ran the program in Windows would occasionally work.

# ? Apr 14, 2010 19:16

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Keito posted:

Yeah, unetbootin can be pretty unreliable. Images I create under Linux will never boot, while images produced the few times I've ran the program in Windows would occasionally work.

I haven't used it in a while, but my experience has usually been that the Linux version will die horribly while the Windows version works just fine. It's sad that they manage to gently caress up such a useful program.

# ? Apr 14, 2010 20:50

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 good review of all the linux webservers out there?

It seems apache is over kill for what I might want it for.

# ? Apr 15, 2010 14:34

Accipiter: Jan 24, 2004; SINATRA.

Bob Morales posted:

Is there a good review of all the linux webservers out there?

It seems apache is over kill for what I might want it for.

Apache is what you want. You can strip it down or expand it out to whatever you need.

What do you "might" want it for?

# ? Apr 15, 2010 14:37

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!

Accipiter posted:

Apache is what you want. You can strip it down or expand it out to whatever you need.

What do you "might" want it for?

basic webserver, support for PHP. I guess I just assumed Apache would be a mountain out of a molehill for installing on a VPS or something.

# ? Apr 15, 2010 14:44

Keito: Jul 21, 2005; WHAT DO I CHOOSE ?

Apache is the most regularly used and best 3rd party supported server, but it's a real resource hog. You might want to look into nginx or lighttpd if you expect more than a few site hits.

# ? Apr 15, 2010 15:01

Contero: Mar 28, 2004

I have a little ubuntu server machine with no KVM that I've had connected by ethernet for a while now and it's worked great.

But now I'm evicting it to another part of the house that has no ethernet access so I got a pci wireless card for it. I've gotten it set up and works great. I've been learning a lot about connecting to wireless networks via the command line and these are the magic words that get me an ip address:

code:

ifconfig wlan0 up
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
dhclient wlan0

This works great when I'm typing it in over ethernet, but I need it to connect on startup and reconnect whenever possible if it isn't connected. If the machine disconnects from the wireless I'll have literally no way to get on it and manually reconnect unless I haul the thing back to an ethernet port. How do I set this up?

# ? Apr 16, 2010 08:39

Denim Dude: Feb 21, 2006; I suggest tree

Contero posted:

I have a little ubuntu server machine with no KVM that I've had connected by ethernet for a while now and it's worked great.

But now I'm evicting it to another part of the house that has no ethernet access so I got a pci wireless card for it. I've gotten it set up and works great. I've been learning a lot about connecting to wireless networks via the command line and these are the magic words that get me an ip address:
code:
ifconfig wlan0 up
wpa_supplicant -B -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
dhclient wlan0
This works great when I'm typing it in over ethernet, but I need it to connect on startup and reconnect whenever possible if it isn't connected. If the machine disconnects from the wireless I'll have literally no way to get on it and manually reconnect unless I haul the thing back to an ethernet port. How do I set this up?

I found this thread on the Ubuntu forums, looks like it's exactly what you're looking for. http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=320282

Edit: you have to manually bring the adapter up with ifconfig after a reboot everytime? If that's the case for that script to work after a reboot you might have to add "ifconfig wlan0 up" without quotes to your /etc/rc.local. Hell you might want to add all 3 of those commands to your /etc/rc.local, that will at least connect after a reboot but it won't help for reconnecting after you get disconnected from your AP. I would add those commands to your /etc/rc.local BEFORE you go messing around with that script, that way if the script doesn't work and breaks your connection you can just reboot the machine and it will connect to the network and you won't have to drag the computer across the house.

Now I have my own question. Anyone know if the cpufreq ondemand governor it just supposed to skip between min and max without hitting any of the available frequencies in between? It just switches from 800mhz to 1.73ghz but it stays at 1.73 ghz about 95% of the time even with nothing really running in the background.

In contrast the conservative governor goes 800mhz -> 1066mhz -> 1333mhz -> 1732mhz and usually hangs out at around 800mhz. If the ondemand governor is supposed to only switch between min and max frequencies then that is fine and I can stop beating my head against the keyboard trying to figure out why it's not using the other two available frequencies.

Denim Dude fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Apr 16, 2010

# ? Apr 16, 2010 12:37

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Denim Dude posted:

Now I have my own question. Anyone know if the cpufreq ondemand governor it just supposed to skip between min and max without hitting any of the available frequencies in between? It just switches from 800mhz to 1.73ghz but it stays at 1.73 ghz about 95% of the time even with nothing really running in the background.

In contrast the conservative governor goes 800mhz -> 1066mhz -> 1333mhz -> 1732mhz and usually hangs out at around 800mhz. If the ondemand governor is supposed to only switch between min and max frequencies then that is fine and I can stop beating my head against the keyboard trying to figure out why it's not using the other two available frequencies.

What's supposed to happen is that the conservative governor, as soon as CPU usage goes over 80%, it clocks up the processor one step until CPU usage goes under 80%. If it ever goes under 20%, it clocks the CPU to the lowest availabe speed and starts over.

Now, ondemand is supposed to work the other way around. When CPU usage goes over 80%, it clocks the CPU to the maximum available speed, then if it goes under 20% it clocks it down a notch.

I guess theres something keeping it above 20% at the maximum speed while you're using the ondemand govenor?

# ? Apr 16, 2010 13:56

Denim Dude: Feb 21, 2006; I suggest tree

System is idling, I'm watching top and it hasn't gone above 2% CPU usage and for some reason the ondemand governor thinks my CPU needs to be maxed out for this. It goes to 800mhz but only ever minute or so and only for 1 or 2 seconds. My CPU usage does not spike at all.

# ? Apr 16, 2010 14:36

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Denim Dude posted:

System is idling, I'm watching top and it hasn't gone above 2% CPU usage and for some reason the ondemand governor thinks my CPU needs to be maxed out for this. It goes to 800mhz but only ever minute or so and only for 1 or 2 seconds. My CPU usage does not spike at all.

What kernel are you on? I might've read something about ondemand being buggy in maybe .28 or .29 or something like that.

Either way, sounds like a bug.

# ? Apr 16, 2010 14:43

Denim Dude: Feb 21, 2006; I suggest tree

Zom Aur posted:

What kernel are you on? I might've read something about ondemand being buggy in maybe .28 or .29 or something like that.

Either way, sounds like a bug.

2.6.33. I'll just stick with conservative I guess. I read something about more latency with conservative than with ondemand but I doubt it will be enough to notice.

# ? Apr 16, 2010 15:44

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 17, 2010 06:10

Denim Dude: Feb 21, 2006; I suggest tree

GregNorc posted:

Ok so I'm having major issues getting some sort of *nix on my new thinkpad.

It's an X201 from Lenovo, with an i5 processor (64 bit)...

I have tried installing multiple distros (Specifically FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and most recently, Ubuntu). This has been complicated by the fact that the machine has no CD drive.

I tried using unetbootin, both via it's "grab the ISO from the cloud" and writing the image directly to the USB drive (I made sure to grab the "amd64" version).

Both methods have ended the same: Partial boot, up to the Ubuntu african noises, then nothing, nada. Just a black screen after that litle african chant.

I have ordered a USB cd drive from newegg but it's going to take at least a few days to get here and is sort of a last ditch resort if all else fails, and I'm about to go into finals week - if I wanna get this set up it HAS to happen this weekend, unless I want to go through finals week using a windows laptop (which will suck majorly considering I haven't used the OS since the early XP days and just am very inefficient working in it)

Any suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. I tried Wumi, but it just wants to partition off 30GB or so for Ubuntu, it doesn't seem to have a full install. (Unless I could just use gparted from within the Ubuntu partition to enlarge it's own partition and nuke everything else, but that seems risky)

Any ideas that don't involve an external USB drive?

Do you have access to a windows machine? I've had a lot of problems with unetbootin but I've never had any problems using this, http://www.linuxliveusb.com/. As far as GParted I've never once had a problem expanding or shrinking partitions and I must have done it a couple dozen times by now. Have you tried booting Ubuntu in to recovery mode and checking your logs for clues as to why it's freezing?

# ? Apr 17, 2010 07:26

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

If you have another linux machine with syslinux installed, you can use isohybrid filename.iso then just dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/usbthingie.

# ? Apr 17, 2010 09:39

Keito: Jul 21, 2005; WHAT DO I CHOOSE ?

GregNorc posted:

Both methods have ended the same: Partial boot, up to the Ubuntu african noises, then nothing, nada. Just a black screen after that litle african chant.

Sounds like a problem with the X server and not necessarily the USB image. What kind of video card does your computer have? Back when I first wanted to to switch away from Windows, Ubuntu was the only one which managed to get the X server running automagically, all the other distros just gave me a black screen or errors after boot.

GregNorc posted:

Any suggestions are GREATLY appreciated. I tried Wumi, but it just wants to partition off 30GB or so for Ubuntu, it doesn't seem to have a full install. (Unless I could just use gparted from within the Ubuntu partition to enlarge it's own partition and nuke everything else, but that seems risky)

That won't work. I've tried installing via Wubi for my brother's computer, and as it's installed within a image on the disk, at least that partition will be inaccessible from the system.

GregNorc posted:

Any ideas that don't involve an external USB drive?

If you're feeling comfortable enough to install a system which doesn't come shipped with any GUI in the fresh install, go get�the Arch Linux USB image which is what the cool Linux fags with short beards use.

# ? Apr 17, 2010 14:38

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 17, 2010 17:35

JHVH-1: Jun 28, 2002

If you are getting so far that you actually get sounds from the OS, its booting properly and it probably just didn't auto-detect your video card or display settings. If you do ctrl-alt-F1 or other F keys you can switch between virtual terminals and see if you can get into the system.

Most installers have some sort of text based install option that wouldn't require X.

# ? Apr 17, 2010 18:03

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

JHVH-1 posted:

If you are getting so far that you actually get sounds from the OS, its booting properly and it probably just didn't auto-detect your video card or display settings. If you do ctrl-alt-F1 or other F keys you can switch between virtual terminals and see if you can get into the system.

Most installers have some sort of text based install option that wouldn't require X.

Yeah, this. You might have to grab the Ubuntu Alternate install CD which does a text install. Then you can get installed and mess around with X.

# ? Apr 17, 2010 18:08

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 17, 2010 18:08

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

Question about running X programs from a remote server:

Is the graphics card used at all on the remote server? My server has the cheapest PCI video card I could find (some ancient 8mb ATI junk). It's not even powerful enough to run the Xserver on the machine itself, but I didn't think that mattered. But when I try and X forward anything on my desktop the program basically freezes, and even my terminals freeze. Although file sharing through Samba continues to work. Would a beefier graphics card solve this, or does this sound like another problem?

# ? Apr 18, 2010 06:18

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

FISHMANPET posted:

Question about running X programs from a remote server:

Is the graphics card used at all on the remote server?

Nope.

FISHMANPET posted:

Would a beefier graphics card solve this, or does this sound like another problem?

Something else is going on. What commands are you running?

# ? Apr 18, 2010 06:29

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

ShoulderDaemon posted:

Nope.

Something else is going on. What commands are you running?

Well actually this is a Solaris box. My next guess is network, because I see this in the logs occasionaly:

Apr 18 00:36:19 terpestorage mac: [ID 486395 kern.info] NOTICE: e1000g0 link down
Apr 18 00:36:21 terpestorage mac: [ID 435574 kern.info] NOTICE: e1000g0 link up, 1000 Mbps, full duplex

Also whenever it boots I have to manually restart networking services before I can actually reach the machine. The terminals sometimes hang when I'm not X forwarding anything.

I'm running Azureus (to get it configured before I start it headless) and virt-manager (used to control the XVM virtual machines).

# ? Apr 18, 2010 06:35

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 18, 2010 19:08

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

GregNorc posted:

Someone suggested I use the alternative install cd, so I used unetbootin to put that iso onto my usb drive. This worked.

However, I only have command line access to ubuntu right now... how would I go about adding the various graphical elements? I have a Thinkpad X201, with the following hardware specs:

Intel� Core� i5-520M
500GB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA
4GB PC3-8500 RAM
Intel HD graphics

The alternate install should have still installed the desktop. Run this command:
aptitude search ubuntu-desktop

If you have a desktop installed, you'll see something like this:
p edubuntu-desktop - educational desktop for Ubuntu
p edubuntu-desktop-kde - educational desktop for Kubuntu
p kubuntu-desktop - Kubuntu desktop system
p lubuntu-desktop - Lubuntu Desktop environment
i ubuntu-desktop - The Ubuntu desktop system
p xubuntu-desktop - Xubuntu desktop system

If you don't see any 'i' then you don't have a desktop, in which case you would 'sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop' (or sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop, if you prefer aptitude). If you do have the package installed, try and X11. If you're using xubuntu or ubuntu, it'll be 'sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start' or for kubuntu I think 'sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start'. If those fail, X11 should give you some debug info, and there should be a log file /etc/X11.

# ? Apr 18, 2010 19:47

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

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

waffle iron posted:

code:

apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment

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.

FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 18, 2010

# ? Apr 18, 2010 20:20

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

FISHMANPET: Mar 3, 2007; Sweet 'N Sour
Can't
Melt
Steel Beams

waffle iron posted:

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

I only figured it out by trying to install it on my Ubuntu system.

# ? Apr 18, 2010 20:54

Keito: Jul 21, 2005; WHAT DO I CHOOSE ?

GregNorc posted:

Someone suggested I use the alternative install cd, so I used unetbootin to put that iso onto my usb drive. This worked.

However, I only have command line access to ubuntu right now... how would I go about adding the various graphical elements? I have a Thinkpad X201, with the following hardware specs:

Intel� Core� i5-520M
500GB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA
4GB PC3-8500 RAM
Intel HD graphics

Did you by any chance download the "server" image instead of the "alternate" one? If it's just not installed, it should be as easy as running "sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop" as FISHMANPET suggested. If not, there should be some errors.

The Intel video drivers are open source'd, so it's weird your running into so much trouble with your new laptop.

# ? Apr 18, 2010 21:59

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 19, 2010 00:28

maskenfreiheit: Dec 30, 2004

maskenfreiheit fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Apr 28, 2019

# ? Apr 19, 2010 02:51

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

GregNorc posted:

Success! I've got a GUI now, wired ethernet works, just gotta get the wifi up and running and I'll be set (right now network manager doesn't even list any networks available or anything...)

Great!

Sounds like a missing driver. What's your wireless chipset?

# ? Apr 19, 2010 18:09

Keito: Jul 21, 2005; WHAT DO I CHOOSE ?

Zom Aur posted:

Great!

Sounds like a missing driver. What's your wireless chipset?

According to this wiki, his card should be supported by the iwlagn driver.

GregNorc, did you try right clicking the network manager icon and check that wireless LAN is enabled? Just in case it's been disabled by default.

# ? Apr 19, 2010 18:34

dont skimp on the shrimp: Apr 23, 2008

Just in case, shoot us a copy of lsmod and lspci.

# ? Apr 19, 2010 21:53

Sir Sidney Poitier: Aug 14, 2006; My favourite actor

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 on my VPS and I know (relatively) little about linux.

Is there a way to change the location of auth.log? If so, what config file do you change to make it happen? I'm just wanting to change the directory that the auth.log files are created in. Googling didn't yield much for me.

# ? Apr 20, 2010 00:56

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 12:43

bitprophet: Jul 22, 2004; Taco Defender

Anjow posted:

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 on my VPS and I know (relatively) little about linux.

Is there a way to change the location of auth.log? If so, what config file do you change to make it happen? I'm just wanting to change the directory that the auth.log files are created in. Googling didn't yield much for me.

Should be /etc/syslog.conf or something in /etc/syslog.d/ IIRC.

# ? Apr 20, 2010 02:21

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

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