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

«‹›1025 »

RFC2324: Jun 7, 2012; http 418

DOA posted:

I switched to linux about 6 months ago and sometimes when im gonna install something it says like "Error: This package is uninstallable Dependency is not satisfiable" so i think thats ok i just install the dependency missing, but then that dependency need even more dependencies and so on, and i end up using 1 hour to install something (most stuff are easy to install but i go crazy sometimes because of this)

maybe its because i have been using windows for over 20 years and dont understand much about linux yet, but sometimes installing stuff seems like a real hassle, also there are so many distros with some differences it can be hard to search for solutions that works for mine

If it wasn't automatically resolving and installing dependencies you were doing something WAY wrong.

What distro was it?

# ? Mar 21, 2017 02:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 25, 2024 20:54

Docjowles: Apr 9, 2009

Guessing they are trying to directly install a plain RPM/DEB rather than going through yum/apt-get/whatever? Because yeah, your distro's package manager should take care of all that dependency hell for you.

# ? Mar 21, 2017 02:22

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

I'd guess Deb based on the output.

In general, though, you can think of it like this:

Properly packaged Windows installers ship everything they might ever need, up to and including specific versions of the MS C++ runtime. These are then lumped into winsxs or program files, depending

OSX apps ship everything they need inside the .App file (which is actually something like a filesystem container)

"Enterprise-y" Linux software ships with stuff they think you won't have, usually lumped into /opt somewhere.

But most Linux software is shipped with the assumption that you'll be able to grab libsomething (essentially equivalent to a dll) from your package manager, and building packages from source before they ship them means that this is the cleanest way to make sure that CentOS/Debian/SuSE can all get one package without cramming glibc into every package

This has flaws. It was an elegant solution to a set of problems (high density/performance environment on a multi-user system with limited disk space and memory -- since each binary running with a slightly different glibc/libreadline/etc would need to load a new copy).

Probably the one thing those of us who have spent a lot of time with packaging can agree on is that this system is a huge pain in the rear end most of the time, and better alternatives (fat binaries, filesystem overlays, containers as apps, etc) are proposed and implemented all the time. There's a lot of inertia behind packaging, though, and it does still solve a number of real problems, so you don't need to worry about any of that until something becomes mainstream.

# ? Mar 21, 2017 03:49

Volguus: Mar 3, 2009

DOA posted:

I switched to linux about 6 months ago and sometimes when im gonna install something it says like "Error: This package is uninstallable Dependency is not satisfiable" so i think thats ok i just install the dependency missing, but then that dependency need even more dependencies and so on, and i end up using 1 hour to install something (most stuff are easy to install but i go crazy sometimes because of this)

That hasn't been a thing for the last 15 years at least. It used to be back in the days without dnf, yum or apt (or internet connection) and it was painful, true. Not today.

# ? Mar 21, 2017 13:54

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

"dnf localinstall" or "yum localinstall" or "dpkg -i foo.deb && apt-get install -f." also make this much nicer. No need to directly touch rpm/dpkg. These will depsolve

# ? Mar 21, 2017 14:48

Thermopyle: Jul 1, 2003; ...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. �Bertrand Russell

Is there a reason I should use VMWare Workstation's "shared folders" with an Ubuntu guest on a Windows 10 host rather than just a network share on my host or vice versa?

edit: A related question is if there is any good way to share a folder between guest and host that lets the guest use inotify on the shared folder? I think not, but thought I'd ask.

Thermopyle fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Mar 21, 2017

# ? Mar 21, 2017 16:01

Toalpaz: Mar 20, 2012; Peace through overwhelming determination

TLDR: This is a foolish problem I'm having with Arch and if you have no time for foolishness then don't worry about reading this post.

I've got to say when I'm using Arch and it's working, it's great. I don't like the fact that they seem to roll out updates every 3-4 months that break my laptop.

Um, so I've got this thing now where I go into suspend, specifically by pressing a suspend power key on my laptop, and when I try to wake it out of suspend it doesn't wake up. My keys have lighting, my power light indicates that it's on but it doesn't come out of the black screen and videos don't start playing again. I can't hear any desktop noises and it seems to still be suspended apart from the lights on the back and the keys. I can't access the screen-lock screen, and I can only use my laptop again by holding the power button down to turn it off and back on again.

I know, blah blah don't use Arch, I'm considering switching now, but does anybody know by chance what this sounds like? I've checked the /etc/systemd/logind.conf which is what I hosed around with in order to stop this weird suspend loop that occurs when opening my laptop lid, and everything seems normal.

I'm probably going to get asked about my loginid.conf since it's directly related even though I don't think it's the issue so I'll post it.

code:

#  This file is part of systemd.
#
#  systemd is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
#  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
#  the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
#  (at your option) any later version.
#
# Entries in this file show the compile time defaults.
# You can change settings by editing this file.
# Defaults can be restored by simply deleting this file.
#
# See logind.conf(5) for details.

[Login]
#NAutoVTs=6
#ReserveVT=6
#KillUserProcesses=no
#KillOnlyUsers=
#KillExcludeUsers=root
#InhibitDelayMaxSec=5
#HandlePowerKey=poweroff
HandleSuspendKey=suspend
#HandleHibernateKey=hibernate
HandleLidSwitch=ignore
#HandleLidSwitchDocked=ignore
#PowerKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
#SuspendKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
#HibernateKeyIgnoreInhibited=no
LidSwitchIgnoreInhibited=no
#HoldoffTimeoutSec=30s
#IdleAction=ignore
#IdleActionSec=30min
#RuntimeDirectorySize=10%
#RemoveIPC=yes
#InhibitorsMax=8192
#SessionsMax=8192
#UserTasksMax=33%

# ? Mar 22, 2017 01:12

LochNessMonster: Feb 3, 2005; I need about three fitty

I've been running a script that scps a few files from 1 server to another with ssh pub key authentication which has worked for months but failed today.

Manually trying to ssh with that user doesn't work and switches to keyboard input instead of using the cert.

I tried generating a new key on server 1 and put it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys of the user I connect to on server2 but that disn't solve the problem.

Anyone have an idea what could be wrong?

# ? Mar 22, 2017 21:13

anthonypants: May 6, 2007; by Nyc_Tattoo; Dinosaur Gum

LochNessMonster posted:

I've been running a script that scps a few files from 1 server to another with ssh pub key authentication which has worked for months but failed today.

Manually trying to ssh with that user doesn't work and switches to keyboard input instead of using the cert.

I tried generating a new key on server 1 and put it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys of the user I connect to on server2 but that disn't solve the problem.

Anyone have an idea what could be wrong?

Anything in /var/log/secure or wherever your sshd logs go?

# ? Mar 22, 2017 21:16

ToxicFrog: Apr 26, 2008

LochNessMonster posted:

I've been running a script that scps a few files from 1 server to another with ssh pub key authentication which has worked for months but failed today.

Manually trying to ssh with that user doesn't work and switches to keyboard input instead of using the cert.

I tried generating a new key on server 1 and put it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys of the user I connect to on server2 but that disn't solve the problem.

Anyone have an idea what could be wrong?

Run ssh locally with -vvv and see if there's an obvious smoking gun in the logs there, like it ignoring your local keys because the permissions are wrong.

If that fails, check the log of the sshd on the server, if possible.

# ? Mar 22, 2017 21:24

jaegerx: Sep 10, 2012; Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!

Bad key privileges probably. Also switch to rync while your fixing it.

# ? Mar 22, 2017 23:40

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

LochNessMonster posted:

I've been running a script that scps a few files from 1 server to another with ssh pub key authentication which has worked for months but failed today.

Manually trying to ssh with that user doesn't work and switches to keyboard input instead of using the cert.

I tried generating a new key on server 1 and put it in ~/.ssh/authorized_keys of the user I connect to on server2 but that disn't solve the problem.

Anyone have an idea what could be wrong?

Replacing the authorized_keys file will make the problem worse if you don't also make sure it's set to mode 0600.

# ? Mar 23, 2017 01:35

Docjowles: Apr 9, 2009

Every time pubkey auth is rejected, openssh should really just emit a helpful "Think you should have access to this box, but don't? Did you check the drat ownership and permissions on $HOME, .ssh, authorized_keys, and your private key? Cause one of them is definitely wrong" message.

Maybe this would shatter the global economy as thousands of IT workers are laid off when those tickets dry up, though.

# ? Mar 23, 2017 02:55

xzzy: Mar 5, 2009

Pfft, we set up a thing in our ticketing system where issues involving ssh connections don't make it to us until after they've stepped through a FAQ.

Job security ain't worth that kind of ticket volume.

# ? Mar 23, 2017 03:19

Varkk: Apr 17, 2004

Docjowles posted:

Every time pubkey auth is rejected, openssh should really just emit a helpful "Think you should have access to this box, but don't? Did you check the drat ownership and permissions on $HOME, .ssh, authorized_keys, and your private key? Cause one of them is definitely wrong" message.

Maybe this would shatter the global economy as thousands of IT workers are laid off when those tickets dry up, though.

A ticket comes in: "I tried to access the server but it just gave me some funny error message. It was all just gibberish, do you think it is a virus?"

# ? Mar 23, 2017 07:18

Horse Clocks: Dec 14, 2004

Thermopyle posted:

Is there a reason I should use VMWare Workstation's "shared folders" with an Ubuntu guest on a Windows 10 host rather than just a network share on my host or vice versa?

edit: A related question is if there is any good way to share a folder between guest and host that lets the guest use inotify on the shared folder? I think not, but thought I'd ask.

As far as my knowledge goes, vmwares shared folders are slower than butts and using another protocol is recommended if you're using it for heavy IO or big files.

But, if you're just using it to copy the odd file in, I'd use it because it's somewhat easy to configure on both sides compared to say, nfs.

# ? Mar 23, 2017 09:17

LochNessMonster: Feb 3, 2005; I need about three fitty

Thanks for all the advice. I checked it all but couldn't find any leads. It appeared to be an issue in the boks server control system...

# ? Mar 23, 2017 19:48

RFC2324: Jun 7, 2012; http 418

Horse Clocks posted:

As far as my knowledge goes, vmwares shared folders are slower than butts and using another protocol is recommended if you're using it for heavy IO or big files.

But, if you're just using it to copy the odd file in, I'd use it because it's somewhat easy to configure on both sides compared to say, nfs.

I've always had a WAY easier time getting NFS up, or using scp/rsync, than I have ever had getting shared folders working in any hypervisor. Its almost like they are trying to wedge something in there that OSes just don't like by forcing them to admit a folder that doesn't exist exists but somewhere else sorta maybe.

# ? Mar 24, 2017 18:10

Thermopyle: Jul 1, 2003; ...the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. �Bertrand Russell

FWIW, I just clicked a couple of boxes and had shared folders working.

# ? Mar 24, 2017 19:12

Marinmo: Jan 23, 2005; Prisoner #95H522 Augustus Hill

Sometimes I play games and poo poo. Currently I have a GTX 670 which does okay. I'm considering a RX480 because they're cheap and I am too. Last time I heard anything about AMD on Linux was back in the paleolithic era when they decided to open source their drivers, so how are they doing today? I'm looking for a hassle-free approach here because I don't want to waste time on managing drivers, and say what you will about the binary blobs-approach but it sure is convenient. Are AMD cards plug-and-play? Do they come with bells and whistles because kernel devs love them?

# ? Mar 26, 2017 03:16

Paul MaudDib: May 3, 2006; TEAM NVIDIA:
FORUM POLICE

RFC2324 posted:

I've always had a WAY easier time getting NFS up, or using scp/rsync, than I have ever had getting shared folders working in any hypervisor. Its almost like they are trying to wedge something in there that OSes just don't like by forcing them to admit a folder that doesn't exist exists but somewhere else sorta maybe.

That's stupid. A symlink doesn't exist either. In fact, neither does anything in any Unix file hierarchy, everything is mounted in from some device somewhere. See also: FUSE.

# ? Mar 26, 2017 08:28

RFC2324: Jun 7, 2012; http 418

Paul MaudDib posted:

That's stupid. A symlink doesn't exist either. In fact, neither does anything in any Unix file hierarchy, everything is mounted in from some device somewhere. See also: FUSE.

And FUSE went through some drat hard times before it really got useful.

Doesn't change the fact that i was being a bit less than literal in my conjectures for the simple reason that i thought it would be funny.

Do we have to label jokes now?

# ? Mar 26, 2017 15:47

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

This hasn't been true for years. Not all filesystems (or analogues -- see FUSE, NFS, and CIFS) support vfs hooks, or the inotify hook in particular.

Vbox shared folders use a weird translator. Sure, in some sense, everything is still a file and appears from somewhere, but it doesn't mean all files or filesystems are equal.

# ? Mar 26, 2017 15:51

The_Franz: Aug 8, 2003

Marinmo posted:

Sometimes I play games and poo poo. Currently I have a GTX 670 which does okay. I'm considering a RX480 because they're cheap and I am too. Last time I heard anything about AMD on Linux was back in the paleolithic era when they decided to open source their drivers, so how are they doing today? I'm looking for a hassle-free approach here because I don't want to waste time on managing drivers, and say what you will about the binary blobs-approach but it sure is convenient. Are AMD cards plug-and-play? Do they come with bells and whistles because kernel devs love them?

The official AMDGPU-PRO drivers are way, way better than the burning pile that was fglrx. The Vulkan version of Doom has the same performance under WINE as it does natively on Windows.

Even on the open driver side, Mesa and RADV are getting pretty good. A couple of months ago RADV went from a hobby project to something that Valve has been hiring more and more people to work on.

# ? Mar 26, 2017 16:49

Mega Comrade: Apr 22, 2004; Listen buddy, we all got problems!

Marinmo posted:

Sometimes I play games and poo poo. Currently I have a GTX 670 which does okay. I'm considering a RX480 because they're cheap and I am too. Last time I heard anything about AMD on Linux was back in the paleolithic era when they decided to open source their drivers, so how are they doing today? I'm looking for a hassle-free approach here because I don't want to waste time on managing drivers, and say what you will about the binary blobs-approach but it sure is convenient. Are AMD cards plug-and-play? Do they come with bells and whistles because kernel devs love them?

Everything is in a weird position atm. The new AMDGPU-PRO drivers are hassle free but some games don't work with them yet and while the 1060 and 480 are neck and neck on windows, the 1060 cleanly beats the 480 on linux if you use the NVIDIA propriety drivers (but the nvidia FOSS drivers are poor). That being said the propriety drivers for NVIDIA can be a pain in the arse to install and maintain on some distros so it comes down to how strongly you feel about FOSS and the sort of games you want to play. If you want plug and play/FOSS and don't mind performance being a bit ropey as the drivers continue to mature go AMD, if you want pure FPS for $ and don't mind a bit of hassle go Nvidia.

Mega Comrade fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Mar 26, 2017

# ? Mar 26, 2017 19:25

Varkk: Apr 17, 2004

In a similar vein. What is the current state for the Nvidia proprietary drivers on Wayland and latest Fedora?
Does the driver work in Wayland yet? Is the open driver good enough?

# ? Mar 26, 2017 22:42

The_Franz: Aug 8, 2003

Varkk posted:

In a similar vein. What is the current state for the Nvidia proprietary drivers on Wayland and latest Fedora?
Does the driver work in Wayland yet? Is the open driver good enough?

Gnome now has support for EGLStreams so Wayland will work with Nvidia. It landed too late for Fedora 25 though, so you'll have to wait for the next version. KDE + Wayland on Nvidia is still a no-go though and that doesn't seem like it will change any time soon.

# ? Mar 26, 2017 23:09

CubanMissile: Apr 22, 2003; Of Hulks and Spider-Men

I built a computer for a guy that wanted me to install Debian 8 on it. The install went fine except it's in software rendering mode for the integrated Skylake GPU. I've never dealt with linux before but from I can tell I have the updated intel drivers package installed. Can someone point me in the right direction of what to do?

# ? Mar 27, 2017 06:39

Truga: May 4, 2014; Lipstick Apathy

Intel, after being on top of their game for many years, to the point that their gpu drivers were often better on linux than on windows, has completely dropped the ball on skylake HD5xx igpus, and they're poo poo on linux.

I haven't had to deal with it myself yet, but someone I know has and you're in for a ride. It's supposedly better on the latest kernels, which probably aren't going to be in stable debian for another 2-3 years. I hope your friend enjoys using backports.

# ? Mar 27, 2017 07:03

Double Punctuation: Dec 30, 2009; Ships were made for sinking;
Whiskey made for drinking;
If we were made of cellophane
We'd all get stinking drunk much faster!

The_Franz posted:

Gnome now has support for EGLStreams so Wayland will work with Nvidia. It landed too late for Fedora 25 though, so you'll have to wait for the next version. KDE + Wayland on Nvidia is still a no-go though and that doesn't seem like it will change any time soon.

And they're having trouble getting Gnome working with some graphics configurations, so the alpha is getting delayed.

Also, their artists apparently missed the memo that they needed some new backgrounds. Can't release an alpha without new backgrounds, no siree! (This is an actual alpha release criterion, :wtc:

)

# ? Mar 27, 2017 18:40

MrPablo: Mar 21, 2003

CubanMissile posted:

I built a computer for a guy that wanted me to install Debian 8 on it. The install went fine except it's in software rendering mode for the integrated Skylake GPU. I've never dealt with linux before but from I can tell I have the updated intel drivers package installed. Can someone point me in the right direction of what to do?

It's probably easier to install using the Debian images that include firmware, which you can find here:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/weekly-builds/amd64/iso-cd/

The URL above is for the weekly testing build rather than stable, because there are problems with Skylake hardware and older kernels (<4.4 doesn't support Skylake NICs, and I had pstate problems until 4.8). Last year there were some problems with the Debian installer, grub, and NVME disks, although those may be solved at this point. If you'd rather try the stable installer with firmware, it is available here:

http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/current/amd64/iso-cd/.

You'll need mesa (specifically libgl1-mesa-dri) and libdrm-intel1, although I believe these will be installed out of the box.

You can use glxinfo to verify that GL is hardware accelerated, like so:

code:

> glxinfo | grep rendering
direct rendering: Yes

More information is available here.

You may also want to tweak the Xorg config to enable tear-free rendering, like so:

code:

    > cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf
    Section "Device"
       Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
       Driver      "intel"
       Option      "AccelMethod"  "glamor"
       Option      "DRI"    "3"
       Option      "TearFree"    "true"
    EndSection

(I'm running Debian on a Skylake X1 Yoga).

# ? Mar 27, 2017 18:41

Marinmo: Jan 23, 2005; Prisoner #95H522 Augustus Hill

Mega Comrade posted:

Everything is in a weird position atm. The new AMDGPU-PRO drivers are hassle free but some games don't work with them yet and while the 1060 and 480 are neck and neck on windows, the 1060 cleanly beats the 480 on linux if you use the NVIDIA propriety drivers (but the nvidia FOSS drivers are poor). That being said the propriety drivers for NVIDIA can be a pain in the arse to install and maintain on some distros so it comes down to how strongly you feel about FOSS and the sort of games you want to play. If you want plug and play/FOSS and don't mind performance being a bit ropey as the drivers continue to mature go AMD, if you want pure FPS for $ and don't mind a bit of hassle go Nvidia.

Thanks a lot. I have no tendencies of Stallman in me, and while I do agree installing nvidia drivers in the first place wasn't easy as cake, now that it works it does work continuously even through updates of kernel and the drivers themselves. I'm running Fedora and have no intention of changing that part of the equation, and I don't care about Wayland. So a 1060 seems to be it then, or 1070 should I magically find myself with cash abundant.

# ? Mar 29, 2017 21:21

Plasmafountain: Jun 17, 2008

AEgncmZdTREyq9m29gyT
GkkQGPhApujyGVBpI4Kx
etqSPHiv15MxLTwZHyrk
aBBziIzJOu9poGHOvzjC
t2W4vHhVNuNJgpXdNR8G
HCkujRCUUJqKmpbW6QSh
EyizlSAFZhCSA3YpfQdR
nkhUoeKezEQbxAYmhHsi
WVKz9b4hLNeqr1TYSaEp
gOcolRAxU2Id4IlcAlow

Plasmafountain fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Feb 27, 2023

# ? Mar 30, 2017 23:34

Eletriarnation: Apr 6, 2005; People don't appreciate the substance of things...
objects in space.; Oven Wrangler

VNC. TigerVNC on CentOS/RHEL/Fedora and tightvncserver on Ubuntu work well in my experience and have lots of how-tos online.

# ? Mar 30, 2017 23:37

anthonypants: May 6, 2007; by Nyc_Tattoo; Dinosaur Gum

Zero Gravitas posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for an equivalent to the windows Remote Desktop Connection to connect to a linux machine on the same network from a W10 machine?

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html

Actually Windows 10 has a native bash client so you can use that to SSH in, too.

# ? Mar 30, 2017 23:41

Plasmafountain: Jun 17, 2008

qp5Sz3F4y7zrN1UKxKnQ
FsFVXTUBUJnNHs872b16
DTeyM2EyHzgM3struni8
q2I4RKzqLxfa4hy4Yt60
nMpRpJn6gSTsPqqdH6wA
mnJvvDj8vY5kPrdK4Bwi
2MRTLcZGFZbfBAn2Tph8
ET2qv6ovcwMMHgC1yCh0
Jjg8sIvbouWSahvm5uRV
71CjepfCtaEcuO68M1Im

Plasmafountain fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Feb 27, 2023

# ? Mar 30, 2017 23:54

An Enormous Boner: Jul 12, 2009

Zero Gravitas posted:

In the sense of command line? I'm really just trying to avoid having to keep swapping a keyboard and mouse between two machines sitting next to each other.

https://symless.com/synergy

# ? Mar 30, 2017 23:58

Pablo Bluth: Sep 7, 2007; I've made a huge mistake.

Zero Gravitas posted:

Does anyone have any recommendations for an equivalent to the windows Remote Desktop Connection to connect to a linux machine on the same network from a W10 machine?

xrdp works for me on a Centos server I maintain, once I figured out how to get it to reconnect to an existing session instead of making a new one each time.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 00:26

Varkk: Apr 17, 2004

Mobaxterm for Windows you can ssh in and it includes an Xserver for graphical applications as well.

# ? Mar 31, 2017 00:29

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 25, 2024 20:54

evol262: Nov 30, 2010; #!/usr/bin/perl

Synergy is definitely the best if you have a monitor attached already

# ? Mar 31, 2017 04:35

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

«‹›1025 »