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

Obsolete posted:

Nope. I get that when I download to my home directory, when I'm logged in as me. My two other drives are also chowned to me, and it happens there, too.

Edit: I haven't checked the setuid, I'll check that out.

Weird. Try whoami to make sure you're actually you. Maybe there's something in your login scripts elevating you? Or id -a <username>. Maybe you somehow set your uid to 0.

When/if you find out, post it, cause I'm curious.

# ? May 30, 2008 03:50

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 14:48

Obsolete: Jun 1, 2000

whoami returns as saying it's me, and id -a me returns:

code:

 
uid=1000(me)), gid=1000(me), groups=1000(me)

Isn't that what it's supposed to say?

Obsolete fucked around with this message at 04:30 on May 30, 2008

# ? May 30, 2008 04:27

Harokey: Jun 12, 2003; Memory is RAM! Oh dear!

Obsolete posted:

Even when I download files with wget (without using sudo) when I'm logged in via SSH, the file defaults to being owned by root. I've gotten pretty used to the situation by now, as bizarre as it is, and I nearly always use a sudo command, but that just doesn't sound like that's the way it should be working. If it matters, my home partition, and the two mounted 400gb drives are all formatted as ext3, so there's no weird NTFS gibberish going on.

I've never used sudo with a dash before. I don't think I've ever even seen that before? I don't use "su," I always use "sudo." Any ideas? Thanks!

So you're not copying files over the network from another machine? I assumed you were because you said you were using it as a file server. I just want to make sure this is not the case, and you're just using this machine standalone.

Edit:
It may be useful to see the contents of /etc/fstab.

# ? May 30, 2008 04:45

SopWATh: Jun 1, 2000

Is there a way I can setup Evolution, or some type of calendar app, in Ubuntu Hardy Heron, so the calendar sits on the desktop all the time?

I'm looking for something like the Outlook on the Desktop where there's a calendar with more than just the date circled, showing appointments and stuff, while still being transparent and rather unobtrusive.

SopWATh fucked around with this message at 06:01 on May 30, 2008

# ? May 30, 2008 05:44

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

Obsolete posted:

whoami returns as saying it's me, and id -a me returns:
code:
 
uid=1000(me)), gid=1000(me), groups=1000(me)
Isn't that what it's supposed to say?

Yep, that's correct. If it was like "uid=0", then you're secretly running as a root user.

# ? May 30, 2008 15:43

Obsolete: Jun 1, 2000

Harokey posted:

So you're not copying files over the network from another machine? I assumed you were because you said you were using it as a file server. I just want to make sure this is not the case, and you're just using this machine standalone.

Edit:
It may be useful to see the contents of /etc/fstab.

I do both. Files download (via rTorrent or some such) to one of the drives, then I copy those to the other drive into specific folders. However, even when using the machine standalone, and logged in as me, and downloading to my home directory, or copying something from my home directory to someplace else, I always have to either use sudo or chown the file to move the file to a drive outside my home directory, despite the drives all being chown'd, chgrp'd, and chmod'd to me.

Obsolete fucked around with this message at 19:37 on May 30, 2008

# ? May 30, 2008 19:35

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

Obsolete posted:

I do both. Files download (via rTorrent or some such) to one of the drives, then I copy those to the other drive into specific folders. However, even when using the machine standalone, and logged in as me, and downloading to my home directory, or copying something from my home directory to someplace else, I always have to either use sudo or chown the file to move the file to a drive outside my home directory, despite the drives all being chown'd, chgrp'd, and chmod'd to me.

Please post your output of

code:

$ cat /etc/mtab

on the computer with the problem.

# ? May 30, 2008 22:26

Obsolete: Jun 1, 2000

Lucien posted:

Please post your output of
code:
$ cat /etc/mtab
on the computer with the problem.

Done.

code:

/dev/sda1 / ext3 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0
proc /proc proc rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
/sys /sys sysfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0
varrun /var/run tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=0755 0 0
varlock /var/lock tmpfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,mode=1777 0 0
udev /dev tmpfs rw,mode=0755 0 0
devshm /dev/shm tmpfs rw 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts rw,gid=5,mode=620 0 0
lrm /lib/modules/2.6.24-17-generic/volatile tmpfs rw 0 0
/dev/sdb1 /media/sdb1 ext3 rw 0 0
/dev/sda3 /media/sda3 ext3 rw 0 0
gvfs-fuse-daemon /home/me/.gvfs fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon rw,nosuid,nodev,user=me 0 0
gvfs-fuse-daemon /root/.gvfs fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon rw,nosuid,nodev 0 0

# ? May 31, 2008 00:29

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

Obsolete posted:

Done.

Weird. Can you ssh into your home directory of that computer and show us your output for these commands:

code:

$ cat .bash_profile

code:

$ cat .bashrc

code:

$ touch ~/permtest; mkdir ~/permtestd; ls -l ~ |grep permtest; rm ~/permtest; rmdir ~/permtestd

The last command creates a test file and directory in your home folder, outputs their permissions and tries to delete them.

# ? May 31, 2008 06:52

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

Lucien posted:

$ touch ~/permtest; mkdir ~/permtestd; ls -l ~ |grep permtest; rm ~/permtest; rmdir ~/permtestd

a namei -m ~/permtest might catch something

# ? May 31, 2008 17:04

Harokey: Jun 12, 2003; Memory is RAM! Oh dear!

Obsolete posted:

I do both. Files download (via rTorrent or some such) to one of the drives, then I copy those to the other drive into specific folders. However, even when using the machine standalone, and logged in as me, and downloading to my home directory, or copying something from my home directory to someplace else, I always have to either use sudo or chown the file to move the file to a drive outside my home directory, despite the drives all being chown'd, chgrp'd, and chmod'd to me.

Wait, the drive or the drive's mount point? ie /dev/sdb1 or /media/sdb1

It sounds like you chowned /dev/sdb1 ?

# ? May 31, 2008 18:02

ExileStrife: Sep 12, 2004; Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!

What would cause grub to *poof* in a power outage, and what can I do to prevent it?

Reason I ask, is because I have a server collocated at a cheap but decent provider. Recently, their redundant power systems supposedly had a hiccup and caused every machine on that system to power cycle, including mine. However, mine did not come up, and according to their techs after a few hours of email tag, it appeared grub had to be reinstalled. They reinstalled it, and everything was back up and good. My grub.conf file was even still there.

Fast forward to today, my server is unreachable. A few pings make it seem like it's just my machine once again leading me to believe it's back to the same grub problem. Going back in my mind, I think I may have mounted the boot partition to look at the grub.conf file back when it was last restored and I may not have unmounted it.

Might that be the problem? If not, what else could be causing this?

(The only thing on the machine is Gentoo. According to the tech last time, none of the drives in it were bootable until he reinstalled grub.)

# ? Jun 1, 2008 00:52

Obsolete: Jun 1, 2000

Harokey posted:

Wait, the drive or the drive's mount point? ie /dev/sdb1 or /media/sdb1

It sounds like you chowned /dev/sdb1 ?

Sorry, the mount point. So, /media/sda3 and /media/sdb1

# ? Jun 1, 2008 01:28

ExileStrife: Sep 12, 2004; Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!

Apparently it just needed a reboot. I can't figure out WHY it needed a reboot. Nothing weird in /var/log/messages when it stopped aside from the clock being off by two hours and nptd complaining about it (which is fixed now). /shrug

# ? Jun 1, 2008 02:01

Lucien: May 2, 2007; check it out i'm a samurai ^_^

ExileStrife posted:

I can't figure out WHY it needed a reboot.

We're not supposed to ask those questions.

I hope somebody can help me with this:

I set up a DNS / DHCP / proxy server for a small network, I'm using Ubuntu Hardy with bind9, dhcp3 and squid. I also set up ufw (the iptables frontend introduced in Hardy) to accept all forwarding requests, so I can use that server as a gateway. Everything works great so far.

What I'm looking for is a way to automatically use squid for all http traffic so I don't have to tell every workstation to use the server as a proxy (afaik users can also always mess with their proxy settings).

I haven't found a way to make this work. I want ufw to redirect all http forwarding requests to its own squid port... right?

As you probably noticed by now, I'm far from a networking expert, so please tell me if this is completely retarded. Also, I have zero experience with iptables, so I'd like to keep it ufw if possible.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 10:01

CRIP EATIN BREAD: Jun 24, 2002; Hey stop worrying bout my acting bitch, and worry about your WACK ass music. In the mean time... Eat a hot bowl of Dicks! Ice T; Soiled Meat

Lucien posted:

We're not supposed to ask those questions.

I hope somebody can help me with this:

I set up a DNS / DHCP / proxy server for a small network, I'm using Ubuntu Hardy with bind9, dhcp3 and squid. I also set up ufw (the iptables frontend introduced in Hardy) to accept all forwarding requests, so I can use that server as a gateway. Everything works great so far.

What I'm looking for is a way to automatically use squid for all http traffic so I don't have to tell every workstation to use the server as a proxy (afaik users can also always mess with their proxy settings).

I haven't found a way to make this work. I want ufw to redirect all http forwarding requests to its own squid port... right?

As you probably noticed by now, I'm far from a networking expert, so please tell me if this is completely retarded. Also, I have zero experience with iptables, so I'd like to keep it ufw if possible.

Well the easiest way would be to put the computer with squid between the router and your internet connection. The router would then route all traffic through your computer. There will be more configuration, of course.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 12:12

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

It's been a long time since I've looked at linux, but I've got a new computer now and I'm thinking maybe I wanna jump back on the wagon..

I want to make the most out of the performance I have, so I was thinking gentoo. Tell me, have they made it yet so that it will install everything for you and look at your hardware and customise itself so it compiles everything to my hardware without me having to do it all myself? Because if so I'm there in a minute.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 12:41

CRIP EATIN BREAD: Jun 24, 2002; Hey stop worrying bout my acting bitch, and worry about your WACK ass music. In the mean time... Eat a hot bowl of Dicks! Ice T; Soiled Meat

echinopsis posted:

It's been a long time since I've looked at linux, but I've got a new computer now and I'm thinking maybe I wanna jump back on the wagon..

I want to make the most out of the performance I have, so I was thinking gentoo. Tell me, have they made it yet so that it will install everything for you and look at your hardware and customise itself so it compiles everything to my hardware without me having to do it all myself? Because if so I'm there in a minute.

Short answer: Don't bother.

Long answer: Don't bother, because you are not going to be squeezing out any noticeable performance. All the time you spend compiling, tweaking, and obsessing about your hardware could be used actually using the computer. Since you are unfamiliar with it you will spend a ridiculous amount of time in a shell trying to get things working. Stick with a binary distro, and have your computer up and running in (generally speaking) 45 minutes.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 13:37

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

Your Japanese Dad posted:

Short answer: Don't bother.

This. Gentoo is a waste of time unless you want to spend your days learning about how Linux is built up from all the basic components. Seeing that you're a Windows user, you will actually want to do stuff. Get a binary distro.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 13:47

CRIP EATIN BREAD: Jun 24, 2002; Hey stop worrying bout my acting bitch, and worry about your WACK ass music. In the mean time... Eat a hot bowl of Dicks! Ice T; Soiled Meat

jegHegy posted:

This. Gentoo is a waste of time unless you want to spend your days learning about how Linux is built up from all the basic components. Seeing that you're a Windows user, you will actually want to do stuff. Get a binary distro.

Unfortunately he won't even learn how linux is built up, he will learn how Gentoo builds the system. Knowing a bunch of software packages and what they do and watch them compile is not the same as understanding the basics of the operating system and the typical environment.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 13:54

uncleTomOfFinland: May 25, 2008

I am quite sure he will learn a thing or two fixing things Gentoo breaks now and then. :v:

# ? Jun 1, 2008 14:41

Git: Aug 21, 2004

Pavol Paska posted:

I am quite sure he will learn a thing or two fixing things Gentoo breaks now and then.

This is how I learned Linux. :colbert:

# ? Jun 1, 2008 15:46

CRIP EATIN BREAD: Jun 24, 2002; Hey stop worrying bout my acting bitch, and worry about your WACK ass music. In the mean time... Eat a hot bowl of Dicks! Ice T; Soiled Meat

Git posted:

This is how I learned Linux.

But his goal is to get the most out of his hardware. He's not going to squeeze anything extra out of it by building all his packages from source.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 16:22

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

What's the consensus on audio cross-converting apps? Ideally, I'd like a GTK+2/GNOME app that can batch-convert between WAV/MP3/OGG/FLAC/APE/MPC. ReplayGain and mass-tagging is a plus.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 16:40

SynVisions: Jun 29, 2003

I used to use gentoo because I didn't know any better and thought portage was great. Then I tried Debian and was amazed when installing something through a package manager didn't fail half the time.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 18:36

calandryll: Apr 25, 2003; Ask me where I do my best drinking!; Pillbug

SynVisions posted:

I used to use gentoo because I didn't know any better and thought portage was great. Then I tried Debian and was amazed when installing something through a package manager didn't fail half the time.

I was the same way. Though I did see a small increase, and I mean small increase, on an old computer I had. Now I love all the debian based ones.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 18:45

other people: Jun 27, 2004; Associate Christ

I hate to admit it here, but I still use gentoo. It's all I've ever used. I've used ubuntu a few times on and off, but I've always gone back to gentoo. I can certainly understand people thinking it is a waste of time, I guess I am just so accustomed to it.

I haven't reinstalled in years, but I've done it many times. It used to take half a day (if not more). Both because I didn't know what I was doing and was always hitting bumps, and also because of the compile times. I have a quad-core now and I know exactly what to do so I am quite confident if I had to do it now I would be in xfce4 maybe 2-4 hours. Certainly not as fast as any binary distro, but it isn't too painful considering you only have to do it once.

The number one thing that has kept me going with gentoo though is the support. The few times I have problems these days I can go on the gentoo forums or wiki and find a solution in minutes. Granted, I have not checked out the Ubuntu forums in years, but the last time I had to find an answer on there I was very disappointed.

I think it just comes down to how you use it. I actually enjoy the sort of hacked-together feel of it all. I just can't imagine using anything else.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 19:11

Ferg: May 6, 2007; Lipstick Apathy

Kaluza-Klein posted:

gentoo

I used to use Gentoo as well for the same reason. The forums are really great, as are the wiki articles. Ubuntu is my desktop of choice anymore just because it's so easy and I don't have the patience for stuff like Arch or Gentoo anymore. Back in my early college days I would literally recompile my kernel almost daily, using a variety of patchsets and squeezing that last ounce of performance out of the thing. You're not missing much on the Ubuntu forums unfortunately. Along with Ubuntu's popularity comes a lot of dumb users. It's basically GameFAQ's for Linux these days.

# ? Jun 1, 2008 20:24

echinopsis: Apr 13, 2004; by Fluffdaddy

Your Japanese Dad posted:

Short answer: Don't bother.

Long answer: Don't bother, because you are not going to be squeezing out any noticeable performance. All the time you spend compiling, tweaking, and obsessing about your hardware could be used actually using the computer. Since you are unfamiliar with it you will spend a ridiculous amount of time in a shell trying to get things working. Stick with a binary distro, and have your computer up and running in (generally speaking) 45 minutes.

If the performance boost isn't going to be much then maybe I won't. I used to run it a long time ago, I also ran Ubuntu, Slackware and FreeBSD (I hope its cool to talk about FreeBSD in this thread? I don't want to be breaking unwritten Linux rules)
Slackware was probably my favorite, but I wasn't running X so it just worked the best for me as a box I could torrent from (166mhz w/ 16mb ram running >2gb data across >30 torrents! I was amazed) and then I replaced it with FreeBSD because idealogically it sounded so much better, but then my wife and I got a laptop running Windows and doesn't like using Linux and I was stuck with a lot of data in a filesystem running an OS I didn't know and Linux couldn't read the FS and that was 2 years ago now.
Maybe when I get a desktop again when I've finished Uni I'll hop back on the boat.
Does anyone know if FreeBSD has USE flags (is that the correct term) for compiling like gentoo?

# ? Jun 1, 2008 21:03

calandryll: Apr 25, 2003; Ask me where I do my best drinking!; Pillbug

I'm trying to download some files using wget. All of the files are on a server that to get to them you log in with username and password. Then you have access to the files. What I'm trying to download is a group of files each month over a number of years for use in satellite imagery. The problem is I get 403 Forbidden errors when trying to use wget.

I've tried http://username:password I've also tried using cookies set from the browser. And a few other things I've seen to try when I looked on google. I'm just trying to get these files easier than right click save as for probably about 300 files and directories. Any suggestions would be great.

# ? Jun 2, 2008 16:42

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

calandryll posted:

I've tried http://username:password I've also tried using cookies set from the browser. And a few other things I've seen to try when I looked on google. I'm just trying to get these files easier than right click save as for probably about 300 files and directories. Any suggestions would be great.

IIRC, you need the --user and --password arguments. Other than that, if you're trying to wget everything from a directory and not a specific file directly, listing is probably disabled on the server via a .htaccess file.

# ? Jun 2, 2008 16:45

calandryll: Apr 25, 2003; Ask me where I do my best drinking!; Pillbug

jegHegy posted:

IIRC, you need the --user and --password arguments. Other than that, if you're trying to wget everything from a directory and not a specific file directly, listing is probably disabled on the server via a .htaccess file.

Hmm I didn't see anything about that. Will try that next. I tried it on a single file and still had an error but that is not with the user/password arguments. Thanks.

Edit: Well it looks like the problem is the proxy/firewall that we have at work. Which should be easier to do I hope.

calandryll fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jun 2, 2008

# ? Jun 2, 2008 17:08

cocaine: Apr 12, 2008

echinopsis posted:

I want to make the most out of the performance I have, so I was thinking gentoo. Tell me, have they made it yet so that it will install everything for you and look at your hardware and customise itself so it compiles everything to my hardware without me having to do it all myself? Because if so I'm there in a minute.

Go with Arch instead.

It's got the performance of gentoo without having to compile anything if you don't want to.

It's as easy to use as ubuntu if you bother reading the wiki. I've been using linux for about a month, that's proof enough.

# ? Jun 2, 2008 22:16

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

So what the gently caress, I dont know what I did but about 5 minutes ago my bottom taskbar stopped showing the application buttons. so now I have to hit alt-tab to move between windows.

the workspace switcher disappeared to and that was just matter of re-adding to the panel, is there a similar feature Im just not aware of?

# ? Jun 2, 2008 22:41

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

rugbert posted:

So what the gently caress, I dont know what I did but about 5 minutes ago my bottom taskbar stopped showing the application buttons. so now I have to hit alt-tab to move between windows.

the workspace switcher disappeared to and that was just matter of re-adding to the panel, is there a similar feature Im just not aware of?

You failed to mention the desktop environment you're using. I can only speak for GNOME, the applet you want is called Window List.

# ? Jun 2, 2008 22:43

x1o: Aug 5, 2005; My focus is UNPARALLELED!

Pavol Paska posted:

I am quite sure he will learn a thing or two fixing things Gentoo breaks now and then.

I've pretty much learned to never apply the Debian stable philosophy to Gentoo, as that leads down the path to ruin. Don't update for a couple of months and you get to spend the entire day fixing what breaks. Especially since VMware is a fragile piece of glass that breaks when you look at upgrading the kernel.

# ? Jun 3, 2008 00:09

rugbert: Mar 26, 2003; yea, fuck you

jegHegy posted:

You failed to mention the desktop environment you're using. I can only speak for GNOME, the applet you want is called Window List.

oh yea sorry, GNOME. niiiice thanks!

well something is going on. when I got home and turned my computer on, the network manager and battery indicator were on the bottom panel.

# ? Jun 3, 2008 00:20

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

edit: I shouldn't have even posted. I fixed it. Added all_generic_ide to boot params and it boots very quickly. Apparently some bug that was around until 2.6.25ish.

Hardy's kernel doesn't like my DVD/CDRW. It worked fine with 2.6.22-16

Basically it does this a bunch

code:

[  152.939225] ata4: soft resetting link
[  157.964092] ata4: SRST failed (errno=-16)
[  157.964094] ata4: reset failed, giving up
[  157.964097] ata4.00: disabled
[  157.964108] ata4: EH complete

And then boots. But it takes like a minute of failing before it boots.

I'm trying to research it but Ubuntu's forums are down right now.

Mysterious Aftertaste fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Jun 3, 2008

# ? Jun 3, 2008 01:25

x1o: Aug 5, 2005; My focus is UNPARALLELED!

What's the best resource for Howto's and articles on how to use Debian? I've been pretty much a Gentoo user since Day 1, and now I'm looking to move over to using Debian.

I've worked out the basics of apt-get and all that, but I'm looking for articles on how Debian's init scripts work and how things are organised The Debian Way.

The Debian website is nice, but it's got me scratching my head in some parts.

# ? Jun 3, 2008 09:19

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 14:48

calandryll: Apr 25, 2003; Ask me where I do my best drinking!; Pillbug

calandryll posted:

Edit: Well it looks like the problem is the proxy/firewall that we have at work. Which should be easier to do I hope.

I found it, that it is a completely different proxy than the one being used for normal web stuff. So I set up wget to use that and for some reason does not want to try and get the files, it gives a 404 error. It looks like it is not even trying to go to the website. If I do it for google it works fine. Any suggestions?

# ? Jun 3, 2008 15:43

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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