The [GNU/Linux] thread, where 'Windows' is always spelled properly.

Seeks

Yeah, I'm curious about MGSE or whatever it's called as well.

I kinda get what the Gnome devs were going for with Gnome shell, but it's a metaphor I don't usually agree with. It's hard to justify ratcheting up the obfuscation of applications like that when I've got XFCE, Openbox and KDE all just sitting here on my hard drive, beckoning me, telling me that they've got nothing to hide. They aren't ashamed of their panels at all.

Unity is, I think, a perfectly reasonable compromise between the new-school 'tablet-friendly' wave of things like Gnome Shell or Metro, and the more mature desktop paradigm that doesn't eschew decades of desktop experience. It's not quite where I want it to be (again, at the moment I'm on XFCE), but if I had to pick between them then I think Unity really makes more sense for a desktop or laptop computer. Which is too bad, because Gnome shell is slick as fuck.

It's kinda weird, really. All of a sudden, everyone's trying to get away from the 'Windows 95' way of doing things, but personally I think they're compromising too much for (potential) cross-device uniformity.

Apothe0sis

So a blackout appears to have toasted on of my disks, I think it's the system disk - why do i never record which device is which drive for my reference?

So I am reinstalling Debian to a new hard drive and the new netinstaller is slick. You can now log in via SSH to do the install once you get it started, which is cool as balls.

Lord_Snot

Ok, I'm installing Linux for the second time.

Last time was Natty Narwhal, installed from Wubi, but I didn't like it since it didn't work with my 3G modem, but now I've got proper Wi-Fi, it should work fine.

Now installing it from disc, like any sane person should do, 11.10, so wish me luck!

So seems to have gone well! Have to say Ubuntu's really nice, probably boot into this when I just want to browse the web or listen to music.

Apothe0sis

So, the aforementioned blackout has aflicted one drive as follows:

root@nihil:~# dmesg | tail wrote:

[84038.103004] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Unhandled error code
[84038.103008] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Result: hostbyte=DID_BAD_TARGET driverbyte=DRIVER_OK
[84038.103013] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 01 2a 14 c0 00 00 01 00
[84038.103024] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 19535040
[84038.103637] FAT: unable to read boot sector

It does not involve, as far as I recall any FAT filesystems, I was just throwing every filesystem at it to see what happened.

fdisk -l /dev/sda returns nothing
fdisk -s /dev/sda1 returns the size of the partition
fdisk /dev/sda returns "unable to read /dev/sda"

fsck doesn't do anything useful, and obviously I cannot mount.

Any ideas on what's going on or is it simply a matter of this drive is cactus?

EDIT: So this caused me to remember some things - I posted almost the exact same question about almost the same issue on a different drive in almost identical circumstances.

That drive was not resurrected.



I need the UPS

Zilla360

A last resort before you try formatting the drive from high orbit could be this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html

zeeny

Apothe0sis wrote:

I need the UPS

Yeah man, I have a UPS with an almost dead battery, but I keep it hooked just because of the surge protection. PRICELESS.

Lord_Snot

Yep, think I'm a newly converted Linux user.

Everything just seems to work much better than on Windows, it's so much smoother, lighter, and just better in general. It really is fantastic, and I think I'll be using it for all my internet, work, and chat needs.

Except for when I need to game, obviously. If only Steam had a Linux version. Ah, well, a man can dream.

All in all though, fantastic.

Zilla360

Get Desura for loads of good indie Linux games. There's Braid, Aquaria, Trine, World of Goo, Amnesia: TDD, Penumbra, Prey, The Binding of Isaac...
(& those are just a few of the ones I have).
People complain that there's no worthwhile Linux games, but I think they just don't look around enough.
Steam works fine under Wine for me, even Portal 2 works great now.

Lord_Snot

Zilla360 wrote:

Get Desura for loads of good indie Linux games. There's Braid, Aquaria, Trine, World of Goo, Amnesia: TDD, Penumbra, Prey, The Binding of Isaac...
(& those are just a few of the ones I have).
People complain that there's no worthwhile Linux games, but I think they just don't look around enough.
Steam works fine under Wine for me, even Portal 2 works great now.

Ooh, that's an idea, thanks man.

I've got a whole heap of Desura codes from HIB and Indie Royale, which I've never used, so those should be more than enough game to start with.

Apothe0sis

Zilla360 wrote:

A last resort before you try formatting the drive from high orbit could be this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html

It would be amazing if this worked (and allowed me to resurrect data from other old/dead drives). I don't know if it will...

Aaaanyway, my home server is not accepting ssh connections which makes me suspect that there's a new power failure afoot. Talk about bad luck.

ASimPerson

Apothe0sis wrote:

Zilla360 wrote:

A last resort before you try formatting the drive from high orbit could be this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html

It would be amazing if this worked (and allowed me to resurrect data from other old/dead drives). I don't know if it will...

Aaaanyway, my home server is not accepting ssh connections which makes me suspect that there's a new power failure afoot. Talk about bad luck.

Try testdisk as well: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Actually, you could try both. ddrescue to backup the data and then run testdisk on the backup to see if you can restore the partition.

august

So as far as I can tell (and correct me if I'm wrong) there's currently no way to manage a 6th gen ipod nano with linux. And I just bought one.

So back to windows.

Apothe0sis

ASimPerson wrote:

Apothe0sis wrote:

Zilla360 wrote:

A last resort before you try formatting the drive from high orbit could be this:
https://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html

It would be amazing if this worked (and allowed me to resurrect data from other old/dead drives). I don't know if it will...

Aaaanyway, my home server is not accepting ssh connections which makes me suspect that there's a new power failure afoot. Talk about bad luck.

Try testdisk as well: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
Actually, you could try both. ddrescue to backup the data and then run testdisk on the backup to see if you can restore the partition.

Thanks for this as well. Unfortunately, no success. Every sector is a bad sector,

Seeks

Jesus christ, it's an ordeal getting mpd to work.

If anyone else has problems like I did (Ubuntu 11.10), I wrote myself a little how-to text file explaining how I got it to work. Here's the pastebin for it:

http://pastebin.com/wiucRdaC

august

SURPRISE, after saying he was done actively developing crunchbang Corenomial has quit his day job to develop the thing full time. Download and donate here.

Seeks

Badass. I've been waiting for a new version for quite some time.

I'm glad he's picking it back up.

Madpanda

Trying to troubleshoot a weird issue with a fresh install of the latest Ubuntu. Half the time my non boot drives won't properly mount, the error during boot I see is very vague, along the lines of "couldn't mount drive". If i mount them manually they work fine. I edited /etc/fstab to match the same settings I see if i do a df or mount, filesystem etc. Most of these are ntfs partitions, one is ext4 and was just created recently.

Is there another utility I am supposed to use to setup drives mounted at boot? Oh also these are being mounted to a directory structure like /media/drive1 /media/drive2 etc. This is supposed to be a keyboardless htpc so redoing it every boot isn't really something i'd have to do.


And I can't find the appropriate log file to dig through.

iTunesIsEvil

Are your drives listed in fstab by UUID or by /dev/ location? I had a kinda-similar issue and making sure to use the UUID's fixed it for me.

Madpanda

Pretty sure its half and half. I remember seeing some UUID's for the os created entries and I used /dev/sda6 etc.

I think I can use lsdev or something to figure out the UUID and i'll try changing them all after work.

edit: yep this was it, thanks Itunes.

autono-wally, erotibot300

hmm.. newest ubuntu doesn't recognize my second (hdmi) monitor from the system settings. but using the nvidia control panel, I can activate it.. when I try to save the xorg.conf to anywhere, it doesn't work... but the settings ARE saved, and I have a dual screen config working since then. wierd.

Seeks

Finally took the plunge and went with Arch. Truthfully, it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it'd be.

In other news, Gnome shell is starting to grow on me.

Fiskav

I'm new to this whole thread, so nice OP!

Also, I'm unsure about the new Ubuntu Mac OS X Unity layout. Since I run Ubuntu in VMWare Fusion on my Mac, it's becoming less useful and new by the day as compared to GNOME. So I decided to switch my main Linux distro to Fedora.

Seeks

Well, you can always just install Gnome Shell in Ubuntu (or any other DE for that matter). That's the way I went before going to Arch, though truthfully I ended up never using Gnome Shell whilst under Ubuntu anyway.

I don't hate Unity, but I dunno. I'm not really sold on the whole 'universal menu bar' thing.

Anyway, classes start on the 19th so I'm thinking of spending a little time revamping the OP before then (the one we've got is over two years old, when you consider most of it was taken from previous OPs). I'm also considering turning this into a sort of general "Alternate OS" thread, and making more of a point to include BSD and stuff like Haiku OS. Linux would still be the main focus, however. Thoughts?

august

After hopping around a bit I've sort of settled on Ubuntu with Gnome Shell and ANewStartBlood. And a crunchbang install I'm busy playing with and breaking occasionally.

As I'm typing this I'm trying out Cinnamon. The way windows bounce into place is one of the stupidest and most headache inducing things I've ever seen.

august

My last post didn't bump the thread? Weird.

Just_Bri_Thanks

OK, this may be off topic, but I can't find a more appropriate spot to ask. If any of you guys use Libreoffice with your linux distro and can answer a few questions please shoot me a PM?

CyberCod

Is anyone else having trouble with these forums from Linux? I've tried posting here from my Debian install (on Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Midori) and I can never get it to take any posts... the button just stays clicked. I'm shamefully having to type this from Windows, so if there's a trick or a strange requirement, do tell.