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So, uh.....Linux

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Posts

  • NullzoneNullzone Registered User regular
    So I'm taking this Linux class and it asked me to find the GNU tutorial for cpio. Only problem is, when I do 'info cpio' on this Ubuntu 16.04 LTS setup, it just loads the man page for cpio - except it loads it into the info engine (n and p respond, though just produce an error saying there are no next/previous nodes). If I do it on a RHEL 6 box it works as intended - I get the info page for cpio, and can scroll to/invoke the tutorial header normally.

    I noticed a similar oddity the other day when I was on man pages exercises - they asked me to get the man page for the printf library (not command), but on this Ubuntu build, it says there are no entries in section 3 for printf. And I just noticed right now while doing that again to get the explicit error - the system kicks back a "See 'man 7 undocumented' for help when manual pages are not available" but then says "No entries for undocumented in section 7" if I try to invoke that.

    What gives? Is there some way to check/update my man/info databases? Are they dependent on something that maybe isn't installed? Note that I didn't actually install this Ubuntu build myself, it's a Google Cloud Engine deployment. Figured that was an easier way to have a bash shell at my fingertips while I'm learning than lugging around a laptop, but if I'm missing basic stuff like this I'm concerned I'm going to have bigger problems later in the course when it has me doing shell scripts.

    Apologies if this is too old of a bump - didn't feel like sysadmin thread was the right fit and it's more general knowledge than the usual "my shit is broken" troubleshooting threads.

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    If you need library man pages, you probably need to install "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential" to get the glibc headers, etc.

  • NullzoneNullzone Registered User regular
    That solved the man page mystery. Any idea what the deal is with the info weirdness?

  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    I've never used the "info" tool, sorry.

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Just playing around with different distros at my disposal, info seems to be giving me man pages on pretty much everything I've got. Debian, CentOS, Ubuntu, etc.

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    Man and Info are basically the same thing based entirely on the whim of whoever is doing the documentation. Info was supposed to kill man but it just never took off.

    What is this I don't even.
  • NullzoneNullzone Registered User regular
    Sure, but then why would a course made and run by the Linux foundation ask me to do something that isn't possible?

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Nullzone wrote: »
    Sure, but then why would a course made and run by the Linux foundation ask me to do something that isn't possible?

    Did they tell you which distro to use?

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • NullzoneNullzone Registered User regular
    Nope. They made a point of noting at the start of the course that all of their visual examples would be using GNOME, and that they have no stock in the "X Window System Holy Wars", but routinely make a habit of pointing out how-tos and resources for both debian and fedora based builds (primarily Ubuntu, CentOS, and OpenSUSE) in the material - the labs are then kept deliberately open ended, asking you to fulfill an objective task rather than "do this extremely specific action".

  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Hmm, even with that being the case, I'm wondering if they tried the task once on CentOS and deemed it to be "tested."

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • dav3ybdav3yb Registered User regular
    I've been playing with linux a good bit lately as well. I originally had a used laptop that I put Mint on, and really loved it, eventually had to return it due to charging issues.

    I also recently got a new SSD for my NUC, which is just a TV computer, and I've got Mint on it as well. It's especially nice because I feel like linux is really getting to the point where it's quite a lot more user friendly that it ever has been, and could be usable on a day-to-day for a lot more people now.

    I do IT work for local schools, and I put Linux on a lab with some very old computers in it to keep from having to deal with the issues, and I didn't have to deal with any issues with them at all.

    I also picked up a new laptop recently, and when I get around to upgrading and reloading my main computer onto a larger drive, I'll probably be dual booting on my new laptop as well.

    I'm currently playing around with EndlessOS, which is somewhat of an educational driven distro that has a lot of content available offline. This is mainly for my nephews to have a computer to do things on when at my parents place, and since they're still pretty young, don't really need a lot of access to the internet.

    PSN: daveyb1337 || XBL: dav3yb360 || Steam: dav3yb || Switch: SW-5274-1897-8495 || 3DS FC: 2079-7419-8843
  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    dav3yb wrote: »
    I've been playing with linux a good bit lately as well. I originally had a used laptop that I put Mint on, and really loved it, eventually had to return it due to charging issues.

    I also recently got a new SSD for my NUC, which is just a TV computer, and I've got Mint on it as well. It's especially nice because I feel like linux is really getting to the point where it's quite a lot more user friendly that it ever has been, and could be usable on a day-to-day for a lot more people now.

    I do IT work for local schools, and I put Linux on a lab with some very old computers in it to keep from having to deal with the issues, and I didn't have to deal with any issues with them at all.

    I also picked up a new laptop recently, and when I get around to upgrading and reloading my main computer onto a larger drive, I'll probably be dual booting on my new laptop as well.

    I'm currently playing around with EndlessOS, which is somewhat of an educational driven distro that has a lot of content available offline. This is mainly for my nephews to have a computer to do things on when at my parents place, and since they're still pretty young, don't really need a lot of access to the internet.

    I talk about this in the sysadmin thread from time to time, but almost all of my users use a Linux workstation. They do complain about it from time to time but very few complaints are legitimate. But, note that there are legitimate complaints.

    For example, if they need to do anything really fancy with a spreadsheet? You'll be wishing they had Excel. I annually review the other office software offerings out there, and I have yet to find productivity software as good as MS Office. LibreOffice is nice and all but there's lots of proprietary MS Office stuff it can't or won't do, and you'll hear about it, big time.

    And printing? Printing is a huge headache in Linux. There are times when you have to go into your printer settings just to make a single print job go the way you want. That's not where you want your users.

    For my users, these two things can be overlooked because the folks that run into these legitimate issues are very few and so they just get to be special snowflakes with their own Windows workstation. But not every group of users will be like that. Also what little pain we all incur is almost immediately justified and alleviated when a user tells me they got an email with a virus attachment and clicked on it and it didn't do anything but complain about not knowing how to run. This is not to mention that updating all of our machines is a one-line salt command and I just read the report later.


    I also seriously recommend considering the distro and the window system for introducing a user to Linux, too. People go to Ubuntu a lot and I don't recommend that at all, it's not nearly as approachable as people think it is. Xubuntu, or Linux Mint Cinnamon? Those are approachable, especially if you put the panels where the user will expect them (at the bottom), and you set it up to look like a Windows desktop. Ubuntu wants to do this fancy-pants side-dock that people get really off-put by and somehow can't move past.

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • a5ehrena5ehren AtlantaRegistered User regular
    Yeah, Cinnamon and KDE are definitely the easiest transition for Windows users, in that the defaults have things where they expect them to be.

    I don't have any experience on the Admin side to say which distros are the easiest to deploy widely, though.

  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    The worst part about gnome is that they put the ok and cancel buttons in the wrong spot.

  • dav3ybdav3yb Registered User regular
    Thawmus wrote: »
    dav3yb wrote: »
    I've been playing with linux a good bit lately as well. I originally had a used laptop that I put Mint on, and really loved it, eventually had to return it due to charging issues.

    I also recently got a new SSD for my NUC, which is just a TV computer, and I've got Mint on it as well. It's especially nice because I feel like linux is really getting to the point where it's quite a lot more user friendly that it ever has been, and could be usable on a day-to-day for a lot more people now.

    I do IT work for local schools, and I put Linux on a lab with some very old computers in it to keep from having to deal with the issues, and I didn't have to deal with any issues with them at all.

    I also picked up a new laptop recently, and when I get around to upgrading and reloading my main computer onto a larger drive, I'll probably be dual booting on my new laptop as well.

    I'm currently playing around with EndlessOS, which is somewhat of an educational driven distro that has a lot of content available offline. This is mainly for my nephews to have a computer to do things on when at my parents place, and since they're still pretty young, don't really need a lot of access to the internet.

    I talk about this in the sysadmin thread from time to time, but almost all of my users use a Linux workstation. They do complain about it from time to time but very few complaints are legitimate. But, note that there are legitimate complaints.

    For example, if they need to do anything really fancy with a spreadsheet? You'll be wishing they had Excel. I annually review the other office software offerings out there, and I have yet to find productivity software as good as MS Office. LibreOffice is nice and all but there's lots of proprietary MS Office stuff it can't or won't do, and you'll hear about it, big time.

    And printing? Printing is a huge headache in Linux. There are times when you have to go into your printer settings just to make a single print job go the way you want. That's not where you want your users.

    For my users, these two things can be overlooked because the folks that run into these legitimate issues are very few and so they just get to be special snowflakes with their own Windows workstation. But not every group of users will be like that. Also what little pain we all incur is almost immediately justified and alleviated when a user tells me they got an email with a virus attachment and clicked on it and it didn't do anything but complain about not knowing how to run. This is not to mention that updating all of our machines is a one-line salt command and I just read the report later.


    I also seriously recommend considering the distro and the window system for introducing a user to Linux, too. People go to Ubuntu a lot and I don't recommend that at all, it's not nearly as approachable as people think it is. Xubuntu, or Linux Mint Cinnamon? Those are approachable, especially if you put the panels where the user will expect them (at the bottom), and you set it up to look like a Windows desktop. Ubuntu wants to do this fancy-pants side-dock that people get really off-put by and somehow can't move past.

    Yeah i can see this... I recently decided to try out Ubuntu budgie, since it's a really nice clean DE, and i might just throw it on my media/tv computer. I'm not the biggest fan of the fixed dock, but it's not super obtrusive imo. It would be nice if there was an easily accessible option to turn it off though.

    PSN: daveyb1337 || XBL: dav3yb360 || Steam: dav3yb || Switch: SW-5274-1897-8495 || 3DS FC: 2079-7419-8843
  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    edited August 2018
    dav3yb wrote: »
    Thawmus wrote: »
    dav3yb wrote: »
    I've been playing with linux a good bit lately as well. I originally had a used laptop that I put Mint on, and really loved it, eventually had to return it due to charging issues.

    I also recently got a new SSD for my NUC, which is just a TV computer, and I've got Mint on it as well. It's especially nice because I feel like linux is really getting to the point where it's quite a lot more user friendly that it ever has been, and could be usable on a day-to-day for a lot more people now.

    I do IT work for local schools, and I put Linux on a lab with some very old computers in it to keep from having to deal with the issues, and I didn't have to deal with any issues with them at all.

    I also picked up a new laptop recently, and when I get around to upgrading and reloading my main computer onto a larger drive, I'll probably be dual booting on my new laptop as well.

    I'm currently playing around with EndlessOS, which is somewhat of an educational driven distro that has a lot of content available offline. This is mainly for my nephews to have a computer to do things on when at my parents place, and since they're still pretty young, don't really need a lot of access to the internet.

    I talk about this in the sysadmin thread from time to time, but almost all of my users use a Linux workstation. They do complain about it from time to time but very few complaints are legitimate. But, note that there are legitimate complaints.

    For example, if they need to do anything really fancy with a spreadsheet? You'll be wishing they had Excel. I annually review the other office software offerings out there, and I have yet to find productivity software as good as MS Office. LibreOffice is nice and all but there's lots of proprietary MS Office stuff it can't or won't do, and you'll hear about it, big time.

    And printing? Printing is a huge headache in Linux. There are times when you have to go into your printer settings just to make a single print job go the way you want. That's not where you want your users.

    For my users, these two things can be overlooked because the folks that run into these legitimate issues are very few and so they just get to be special snowflakes with their own Windows workstation. But not every group of users will be like that. Also what little pain we all incur is almost immediately justified and alleviated when a user tells me they got an email with a virus attachment and clicked on it and it didn't do anything but complain about not knowing how to run. This is not to mention that updating all of our machines is a one-line salt command and I just read the report later.


    I also seriously recommend considering the distro and the window system for introducing a user to Linux, too. People go to Ubuntu a lot and I don't recommend that at all, it's not nearly as approachable as people think it is. Xubuntu, or Linux Mint Cinnamon? Those are approachable, especially if you put the panels where the user will expect them (at the bottom), and you set it up to look like a Windows desktop. Ubuntu wants to do this fancy-pants side-dock that people get really off-put by and somehow can't move past.

    Yeah i can see this... I recently decided to try out Ubuntu budgie, since it's a really nice clean DE, and i might just throw it on my media/tv computer. I'm not the biggest fan of the fixed dock, but it's not super obtrusive imo. It would be nice if there was an easily accessible option to turn it off though.

    I'm currently using Solus for my gaming PC, which I use my TV as the monitor for, and it's actually really slick. There are some times when I need a package to do something with WINE or something that's harder to find than it usually would be, but for the most part it's pretty great.

    EDIT: Sorry, I brought this up because Budgie is the desktop bridged over from Solus to Ubuntu. If you want the full Budgie experience, Solus is supposedly the way to go. But again, if having easy access to aaaallll the packages is important, just stick with what you've got.

    Thawmus on
    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Alright folks. So I have myself a project. Installing Xubuntu on this puppy below, a Xplore IX104C2. I read a magazine that did this in 2017 so it is possible. They said they used a PXE server to install to the tablet. Is that going to be something I can just set up on my desktop machine to facilitate the transfer? I'm still digging into all of it. I haven't played around with Linux for like 6 years.

    The reason I'm setting this old ass thing up is because I'm playing in a Genesys:Android game (Think the sci-fi side of shadowrun) and I'm going to give this to the guy playing the hacker, with a bunch of info and useful stuff set up on it. Any recommendations for PDF viewers, MP3 players and video players? I read that Xubuntu comes with GIMP, so I have image editing covered.

    wbsd25h9hnkp.jpg

    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • ThawmusThawmus +Jackface Registered User regular
    Xubuntu should come with evince, so that should handle most PDF needs. There are others you can install later if you want something else.
    Rhythmbox should be able to do MP3's.
    I'd install VLC media player + codecs for video.

    As for the PXE stuff, I'm guessing you can do that on your desktop, yeah. I've never tried installing anything from PXE, but I run a lot of LTSP servers that use tftpboot and PXE to load the image, so I imagine the principle is similar/the same.

    Twitch: Thawmus83
  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    Awesome Thanks! It's going to be awesome if I can get this thing revived. Going to take it to a Batteries Plus this weekend to have the battery tested and see if they have a compatible charger.

    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • electricitylikesmeelectricitylikesme Registered User regular
    webguy20 wrote: »
    Alright folks. So I have myself a project. Installing Xubuntu on this puppy below, a Xplore IX104C2. I read a magazine that did this in 2017 so it is possible. They said they used a PXE server to install to the tablet. Is that going to be something I can just set up on my desktop machine to facilitate the transfer? I'm still digging into all of it. I haven't played around with Linux for like 6 years.

    The reason I'm setting this old ass thing up is because I'm playing in a Genesys:Android game (Think the sci-fi side of shadowrun) and I'm going to give this to the guy playing the hacker, with a bunch of info and useful stuff set up on it. Any recommendations for PDF viewers, MP3 players and video players? I read that Xubuntu comes with GIMP, so I have image editing covered.

    wbsd25h9hnkp.jpg

    https://github.com/google/netboot/tree/master/pixiecore

    This will handle everything except DHCP. I recommend running it in Docker.

  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    My hacking class has been teaching us how to use Kali Linux in our Pen Testing lab and we've also been using a Linux Utility called "The Harvester" which man, way to name a thing Linux Devs

  • webguy20webguy20 I spend too much time on the Internet Registered User regular
    I was actually able to install Xubuntu from USB using Universal USB installer. Worked like a charm!

    Steam ID: Webguy20
    Origin ID: Discgolfer27
    Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    Alright. I've been poking around with some old hardware and managed to set up a FreeNAS box. I'm still figuring out which/how many of my spare drives I'm going to use, but I have a general question.

    I plan to eventually house this dude in my basement, but I need to run more 120V receptacles. In the meantime, I'd like to find a way to connect the system to the network via wifi. All I can find when I try to do searches is people saying "don't do it; just hardwire it," which doesn't answer the question. I have a old Edimax USB dongle and I have access to some old Asus home routers I could potentially configure as bridges.

    At this point, it's all proof of concept, so I don't give a shit about speed. Even after I have this setup, it will hold non-media files (with the exception of some pictures) so I again don't care about speed.

    If I take the time to grab drivers, does anyone have any guides on how to add/install the dongle; or can you walk me through it?

  • tyrannustyrannus i am not fat Registered User regular
    Bucketman wrote: »
    My hacking class has been teaching us how to use Kali Linux in our Pen Testing lab and we've also been using a Linux Utility called "The Harvester" which man, way to name a thing Linux Devs

    TBF bash and shit has references to reaping widows and orphans. Harvesting orphaned zombie children is a something that has context in Unix

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    After 9 months of proving that it has a rigorous understanding of consent, I allowed the Ubuntu Updater to have intimate snuggles with my install. Everything went perfectly and now I'm at 18.10. Gonna jump to 19.04 after the final version is released on the 28th (a few days after... at my age I'm happy to let other people do the testing for me)

  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    edited April 2019
    Ubuntu is making zfs a root fs option.

    I have not used Ubuntu in years but that is quite tempting.

    Seidkona on
    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
  • Monkey Ball WarriorMonkey Ball Warrior A collection of mediocre hats Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited May 2019
    Entaru wrote: »
    Ubuntu is making zfs a root fs option.

    I have not used Ubuntu in years but that is quite tempting.

    Wait what? I thought zfs on linux was a highly questionable thing. Tell me more!

    I ask because I have a 6-disk ZFS Raid-Z2 pool I built using FreeNAS, but I kind of hate FreeNAS and want to stop using it...

    Monkey Ball Warrior on
    "I resent the entire notion of a body as an ante and then raise you a generalized dissatisfaction with physicality itself" -- Tycho
  • SeidkonaSeidkona Had an upgrade Registered User regular
    edited May 2019
    Entaru wrote: »
    Ubuntu is making zfs a root fs option.

    I have not used Ubuntu in years but that is quite tempting.

    Wait what? I thought zfs on linux was a highly questionable thing. Tell me more!

    I ask because I have a 6-disk ZFS Raid-Z2 pool I built using FreeNAS, but I kind of hate FreeNAS and want to stop using it...

    ZFS Linux has come a long way and is very viable as a Linux file system..

    It is a pain in the ass as a root fs but. .

    Seidkona on
    Mostly just huntin' monsters.
    XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
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