The Linux Distro Thread (maybe)

[ej-solutions]

Thought I'd start this one off, rather than continue on another thread.

As a quick catch up for others:

Have a look at Unetbootin, as a means to try out different versions of Linux, without producing numerous coasters (unwanted CDs).
I haven't tried the method of installing to hard drive, only the USB flash drive method (so far).

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Just skimming the surface

Opinions/guidance expressed are intended to benefit the reader (mostly) but no responsibility should be assumed for the accuracy and no warranty is implied/expressed or given - so eBay may pull this post

[otherego]

I'd imagine that's going to be very useful indeed to the Linux community - well done, that man! Must try all that Wine and so on one of these days.

This evening's quick project(ha!) was to install VBox on an eBay laptop (spending the next couple of weeks with the family; thought I might try a little open-source propaganda - even if it is a bit of the blind leading the blind - so have treated the elderly Toshiba to a reinstallation of XP - comfort-zone stuff - and Mint9.

Increasingly I find Linux (as in modern mainstream distros - sort of thing I can use) generally easier than Windows. Every now and then, I'm reminded that it can pose its own challenges.

The version of Vbox in the repos is way out of date - and I've never gone through the process of adding a trusted repository to Synaptic before.

This article finally got me through the process:

http://www.packtpub.com/article/installing-virtualbox-on-linux

As usual, things didn't work for me as they seemed to work for the writer...

What seems to have worked (I'll try it out tomorrow - pumpkin time is approaching) is this :

sudo apt-get install dkms ('cos that's what the article said)

sudo apt-get install build-essential (same reason - something arcane about compiling tools for Vbox to build its kernel module)

Synaptic > Settings > Repositories > Other > Add+ (type in the space provided)

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid non-free

Then it went a bit pear-shaped. Opened a terminal to add the requisite public key according to the Vbox site:

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add - which might have worked, but I sure couldn't where it had hidden the key.

Eventually had to copy and paste it into gedit from this page:

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc

(Everything including the bits about begin and end PGP public key block, accepting the default file name when saved.)

Synaptic allowed me to add this, using the import key under the authentication tab of the Synaptic software sources dialogue.

After reloading Synaptic, go to the Origin button on the lower left of the main Synaptic window, find the new repo, and proceed as per the packedtpub article.

It now appears under "All."

What a performance. I suppose it would have been easier just to download the .deb package and use apt to install it.

But at least this might now allow updated versions of VBox to appear in Synaptic, which could simplify updates. When I get back from my little break in  a couple of weeks, I'll have to go through all this on the main machine - assuming it's actually worked, of course - just hoping that a 1.4GHZ CPU and gig and a quarter of RAM will run VBox on this lappy.

And to think I stayed in in order to have an early night cos I have to do stuff in the morning. Talk about easily sidetracked...

[ej-solutions]

Now you're getting obsessive! :^O

I just stick to Package Manager, where at all possible and put up with the less up-to-date but generally stable software (for the most part).

Have now tweaked wine-doors so that it works at the local repository level, so already one step forward.

This is only a (gentler) distraction, 'cos I'm loathe to go back to trying to fix a PayPal Direct payment method, for a certain bit of ecommerce software.

Open source, you've just got to love it. If only I got the beer money donations. 😉

[otherego]

Obsessive - moi?

VBox 3.2 seems to be working fine, although I can't say I've noticed any real change in the "experience" from 3.1. I still have a lot to learn about VBox and its capabilities, though.

A general query - I noticed a post asking about Linux firewalls.

I've tended to assume that iptables provides basic protection against intrusion, and that the available GUIs simply refine one's abilities to tweak its settings without needing to use the command line.

Have I got this horribly wrong?

Forgive any lack of response - very intermitted internet connectivity chez rellies; I may be rather out of touch for the next ten days.

[otherego]

Along the lines of post 922 - the desktop has now been updated to VBox 3.2.

Since there was no particularly vital VM on it, I took a deep breath and simply let Synaptic remove 3.1 and install 3.2 - I'm on Mint 9.

A very slow download from the Oracle site (seem to remember that happened on the laptop, too), but other than that, it all went smoothly. As far as I can see, all my virtual machines have survived without my making any effort.

Cool beans!

I still haven't disciplined myself to get my head round the permissions business to get USB working on virtual machines, but will get round to it in due course ... In the meantime, VBox continues to be a really useful means of trying things out, without the annoyance of trashing an installation that actually matters.

Still haven't established whether most distros are in fact firewall protected from the get-go - it looks as if at least the GUI element of the firewall needs to be activated in Mint, Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS - doubtless there are others.

Is iptables still looking after things before this?

Not urgent, but I'm curious, and my googling has been inconclusive.

As usual, forgive any lack of responses - I need to husband my 10 posts jealously.

I've obviously missed something regarding G-C during my absence, and I get the impression that the thread on which the "action" occurred has been somewhat edited - really hope he returns before too long.

Compliments to Clifford on all his sterling work tactfully diverting irrelevancies to places where they might meet with the help they require!

(Amazing the irrelevant stuff one piles on to a post when one's number of posts is limited - promise I'm working on it - meantime 10/10 to Clifford and others who actually point folk where they really need to go.)

The first postal order went off yesterday; now I just have to find another ten cheap but useful/desirable things from people who take postal orders - and hopefully leave feedback.

Which even as a very small-time buyer has honestly never been a preoccupation before ...

[ej-solutions]

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gufw

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UFW

Put simply. Just turning it on with incoming Deny as default will close the doors, as long as you don't run any outbound daemons (services), such as a web/ftp server. Then you need Deny outbound and add secific rules. Caveat: I'm not a security expert and this is a 'loose', simplified method.

Used in conjunction with sensible browsing, you should be fine.

[otherego]

Thanks for that, ej - I'll take another look.

Might be time to try Firestarter again, too. I seem to remember using that to (fairly easily) block some outfit that my ISP was using to "monetise" its traffic. Fair enough, until I think it might threaten my privacy.

Meantime, I thought it was time to download something. Things are even slower than usual on the local internet, but I hope by bedtime to have downloaded Mint-Debian. Sounds a little experts-only at the moment, but it should do no harm to bung it on a virtual machine and see what happens.

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=06263

I can't connect to the Mint site at the moment, so will be untroubled by any dire warnings contained in the release notes.

And what can really go wrong on a virtual machine?

Watch this space ...

[otherego]

Actually, Mint-Debian is looking quite nice. My only real hassles have been with my own ineptitude in handling VBox - really need to sit down and do some homework there.

Ironically, Windows 2000 worked fine. My last few Linux installations have worked, but I just can't get the screen resolution higher than 800x600.

Nice to be able to install Guest Additions via Synaptic; pity they don't really seem to work. Trying to install them from the button at the top of the screen simply lead to lots of rude comments as I totally didn't manage to cd to the actual location of the blasted thing in order to install the Linux guest additions. /media didn't seem to work; neither did trying to copy the wretched thing to other locations.

Obviously still doing something wrong, then.

Otherwise, Mint-Debian is almost disappointingly like Mint-Ubuntu, although the updater seems a little more "manual" at times - asks you more things - I might be mistaken, but don't think so.

Be interesting to see what others think of it - bearing in mind it is very much in its early days - although they've obviously made huge efforts to make it stable and reasonably straightforward right from the word go.

Not Linux, but this could be interesting:

http://www.haiku-os.org/

Nice to see open-source projects getting somewhere. Must admit I'd never even heard of the operating system it's based on. This is from their site:

What's so good about Haiku anyway? The key highlights that distinguish Haiku from other operating systems include: Specific focus on personal computingCustom kernel designed for responsivenessFully threaded design for great efficiency with multi-processor/core CPUsRich OO API for faster developmentDatabase-like file system (OpenBFS) with support for indexed metadataUnified, cohesive interface

Even if it seems to have copied across here rather oddly...

Later, perhaps. Just in the process of installing Mint to my slightly - less - second-hand desktop  - and I see it's just locked the screen while I was waffling here. Good security, but a pain in the rear for all that - time to play with the settings.

Forgive another long post - the joys of posting limits. I see I've got my first feedback - the excitement of it all.

It might be the last one. I don't want to use PayPal for my eleven purchases (don't ask, long and boring eccentricity rationale behind that.) I made a second purchase. I asked the seller if a Postal Order would do. He said it would, and gave me his name. I sent the PO off at lunch time. I signed in a few minutes ago to send him a message to that effect and found one from him - or a business partner - saying they only take PayPal. Much more of that, and I definitely won't be bothering ...

[otherego]

And to really waste another post, here's one for the tinfoil-hat brigade - and it comes with a tinfoil hat warning, which I liked.

It mentions that certain OEM preinstalled OSes seem to use up four primary partitions on a laptop hard drive. Wonder what it is they don't want folk to be able to install ??? (Rhetorical - and as I say, a touch of tinfoil about it - but one does wonder. Seem to remember someone here - Scylla, perhaps? - encountering a similar problem not long ago with another make.)

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=1970555

I love the way at least one bod dealt with the problem by simply ditching the offending OS altogether and replacing it with something more ethically appealing.

Although I honestly can't believe that this mess is the result of actual evil intent, as that would make the perpetrators look altogether too silly.

Wouldn't it?

[ej-solutions]

The one key thing about debian-Mint (which may have not been picked up on):

It's a rolling release distro. - there is no need to upgrade the Operating System (as opposed to installed packages/programs). Upgrades are continous - you get a partially risky but more up-to-date system. Compare it to having WinXP installed, which automatically upgrades to Vista (:O), then upgrades to Win7 (:|).

On a similar note:

Just download Mint 10 RC1, to give it a whirl on a Virtual Machine. A few comments on the forum, on its Mac-like appearance (no thanks) but is likely closer to an older X-windows scheme.(;-))

[ej-solutions]

Regrading t'other post.

One reply got something (nearly) right, just copy off  the smaller partitions to a USB stick.

Actually, I've been doing this for a while by creating Images of these partitions and saving to external disc/DVD. Just as a form of insurance.

AFAIK, it's only the Primary OS partition (for Windoze) and Recovery partitions that actually need to be dedicated Primary partitions - the others could reside in an extended one.

I also noticed the comment on Recovery options not matching the codes on the machine itself. That is the case (no pun) with this laptop. Sticker says Vista Basic but PB Recovery is Vista Premium.

Setting the partition to dynamic is indeed 'dastardly' and counter-productive, particularily as >95% of users wouldn't know the difference or use the facility.

Interesting the manufacturer that was mentioned in the article, whom at a corporate level, were/are great purveyors of HP-UX. I think at one time they may also have dipped their toes in other *nix. A premier manufacturer tainted by the historically proprietary Compaq, IMHO

Jeez, this is becoming a blog! 😮 D'ya think I should give my webserver something to host? 🙂

[ej-solutions]

Typos! Grrr.

[otherego]

Typos? I used to minimise those with a little help from Firefox. Doesn't seem to work any more (OK, I've not researched it yet) and the board spell-checker is extraordinarily slow.

It does compensate for this with some quite hilarious suggestions. Of course, I can remember none of these off-hand - but worth a look when one is seriously bored. (Have a look at what it makes of "eBay," for instance - unless that's been fixed.)

A blog sounds interesting. On the other hand, I'm quite unashamedly doing my darndest to keep this thread alive for occasions when folk have real Linux problems/interesting information to share, as I reckon it has much to offer, and needs all the help it can get to remain visible among all the odd things that are cropping up on the board at the moment. (Feedback. Postage. Payment. Board settings. Responsibility for item delivery/return. And so on. And so on. And so on.)

The rolling release aspect of Mint-Debian was definitely part of the appeal - although it looks pretty stable already, this will improve with time. PCLinuxOS does something similar, if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks for the suggestion about Mint10 - betas are generally beyond me, but the beauty of a virtual machine is that this doesn't really matter much. I'll definitely have a look at that.

If I find a solution to the 800x600 resolution limit of most Linux distros on VBox, I'll post back. I'm sure the answer's out there somewhere - hopefully I'll google to better effect this evening.

And I'm still interested in giving Haiku a whirl - at least it's open-source!

(Just tried the spell checker - among its suggestions: eBay/embay; Debian/deviant, Dobbin and Debbie; PCLinuxOS/ Climaxes, Colin and Clonuses; distros/bistros.)

[grumpy-cook]

PCLinuxOS does something similar, if I'm not mistaken.

I am quite amazed at the extent of the updates available. I do a weekly reload and update and the least I have had was about 30 - last Sunday there were 129. Thank goodness it's Linux and not Windoze - the updating is painless and just ticks away in the background, no demands to reboot although last Sunday it did advise me very politely that I might want to - something like, "Excuse me mate, but I've just updated KDE, if you do a restart it'll all work a lot better, but it's up to you and no skin off my nose".

The Repos are also excellent. I have yet to find anything not in there to install with Synaptic when I look around and think, "Hmmm I wouldn't mind trying that".

[otherego]

Mint - seventeen updates in the last twenty-four hours. Twelve of the are downloading as I write.

On the one hand, Linux has far more updates than Windows, which would strike some MS enthusiasts as a problem. On the other, this means that vulnerabilities are patched but fast.

As far as I can see, anything affecting an app currently in use simply waits patiently until that app is next restarted - rather than that infuriatingly bossy "You must restart your computer..." with XP, and the constant nagging until you do so - despite dithering until "Patch Tuesday" before releasing updates in the first place.

And the default is simply to tell you that updates are available - rather than incessant nagging to turn on automatic updates so that it can do its thing whether that happens to be convenient or not. No need to tell it to notify you but take no further action until instructed to do so.

Back to the concept of the rolling release - this could address another of the problems which discourages people from trying Linux - the fact that so many distros, even main-stream types, tend to be upgraded so soon. I've only ever tried one Mint upgrade - much easier and quicker to install the new one from scratch.

Even the long-term support versions typically have a life of only three years or so. Hardly a problem to most Linux users, who will have changed their main distro at least a dozen times in three years for the sheer fun and interest of it- but it does tend to put some folk off.

[ej-solutions]

[Proliferation of board numpties, so another break I reckon and sit back and pity them.]

OE: Some info for you, which may help the 600x800 issue.

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=8669

[otherego]

Now that's interesting.

I'd installed Guest Additions via Synaptic - which showed them as successfully installed.

Using the pages you linked to in #975, I tried right clicking on the GA symbol on the desktop and opening it in a terminal, then running :

sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

It removed the existing GAs, reinstalled and I restarted.

Lo and behold, it's working.

So thanks for that suggestion. I will also figure out all that permissions stuff and see whether I can get USB and the floppy drive (don't ask!) working, too.

I can sympathise with the VBox forums poster who says that he's posting a solution as nobody reads the manual anyway. Bit like the eBay help pages - just too much. Although rather more interesting ...

Still, I'd better pay the manual another visit.

I see that yet more non-tech threads are sprouting. Not necessarily the fault of the Opening Posters but as someone (CD, I think) pointed out, we need to keep posting about matters of tech interest just to keep things going and keep the board's true identity and purpose (just) visible.

Most worrying.

[otherego]

You know - just every now and then, this hobby fails to soothe.

Having sorted out the Guest Additions problem, and had another go at sorting out permissions to make USB work (seems to have succeeded - touch wood - I didn't reboot last time I tried), I felt emboldened to have another try at running Windows 98 in a virtual machine.

It's unsupported by VBox (= no guest additions) and very slow, but worst of all, tends to use 100% of the CPU constantly.

Interesting article about it here:

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9918

Looks easy - just copy the installation folder to the hard drive, then run    setup /p j  - something cunning to do with forcing the installation of ACPI support.

What a performance. To get the full flavour of the W98 experience, I thought I'd prepare the virtual drive with a boot floppy.

After a couple of hours of increasingly rude words, I still hadn't got the blessed virtual machine booting from the floppy disk. It then dawned on me that I'd never, but never, used a floppy disk in Mint 9, the host system. I know the darned thing works, as I used it recently on the computer's Windows partition.

And guess what? Mint sees it, but claims there is nothing to read. Move along, nothing to see here. Much googling and confusion - but this thread seems to pretty much sum it up:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=50910&start=0

Note the comment that the whole problem may arise out of hassles with boot hanging as distros looked for floppies that, in most modern machines, just weren't there.

The simple answer appears to have been to ditch support for floppy drives. Not sure whether that's really the case, but still. The various workarounds come under the heading of just too hard.

Found and downloaded an .iso that made a CD pretend it's a floppy. Not to be fooled, the VM pretended the same and refused to boot from it.

Deleted the VDI, which taught it a useful lesson. Created a new one which seemed to have got the message. Managed to boot off the CD/Floppy image, and did the fdisk format, mbr and sys c things. (B****y heck, but things used to be difficult.) Adding a modern touch, I copied the W98 CD to the VDI with a Peppermint live disk, and told the fake floppy to cd to the WIN98 SE folder.

Ha! Now I know that DOS can't handle spaces, and that I should perhaps have copied the contents of the folder rather than the whole thing.

Spark up Peppermint again. Rename the folder on the Virtual Drive WIN98SE - no spaces.

Touch wood, it seems to be installing.

All this to install an obsolete operating system to a virtual machine to play with occasionally out of idle curiosity.

But at least I've learned a little more about VBox.

And an unexpected shortcoming of my favourite distro.

This sort of thing drives me to drink. Trouble is, I fear it could also have undesirable consequences. (Wetware meltdown comes to mind.)

Anyone know an easy way of making Mint work with floppy drives?

[otherego]

OK - so I'm the only one in the world who still uses floppy disks *Sigh*

A more irritating problem has arisen - Mint 9 is the distro concerned; wireless the problem.

It's a recently revived computer, and everything was working beautifully.

Now it's decided that it doesn't want to communicate wirelessly.

The wireless icon in the tray shows 100% connection, and correctly identifies the router.

Efforts to connect to Mint Update are hopeless. The error is very long, but here is some of it:

Could not download all repository indexesThe repository may no longer be available or could not be contacted because of network problems. If available an older version of the failed index will be used. Otherwise the repository will be ignored. Check your network connection and ensure the repository address in the preferences is correct.Failed to fetch http://packages.linuxmint.com/dists/isadora/Release.gpg  Something wicked happened resolving 'packages.linuxmint.com:http' (-5 - No address associated with hostname)

(Love the "Something wicked happened..." bit.)

Firefox produces this error:

Firefox can't find the server at www.google.co.uk.

*   Check the address for typing errors such as          ww.example.com instead of          www.example.com

*   If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network          connection.    *   If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure          that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.

I compared all the settings I could find with those on the even older machine that this one is meant to be replacing - going into the "edit" function of Control Centre > Network Connections. The only difference I could find was that on the old machine, the option "Available to all users" was ticked - so tried that. It seemed to result in a temporary improvement - I conncected to the Firefox start page - but only once, then back to square one.

There is, in any event, only one user account on this machine.

Plug in the ethernet cable, and everything works fine - I'm using it at the moment.

Try wireless and although indications are that it is connected, it seems incapable of finding any servers.

Slightly aggravatingly, the Windows XP partition connects wirelessly quite happily, so it seems unlikely to be a hardware problem.

Quite extensive googling reveals various cures for those error messages, but not one that I've found is wireless specific - so it's unlikely that any files have been corrupted.

Or is it? I'll take a closer look at networking configuration files this evening, but must admit to a certain nervousness in messing around with this sort of thing ... But perhaps there are in fact separate configuration files for wired and wireless connections.

The only other recent change was adding VirtualBox to the Windows partition, and Windows protested mightily - something about VBox "not having passed Windows logo testing," or something, which I ignored. The VBox installation did involve its installer doing a couple of network resets, but as I say, the Windows installation continues to run happily. So far. (I've not actually tried VBox, other than checking that it starts up.)

So unless it's somehow affected the wireless dongle's firmware, I can't see how any of this would account for Mint claiming to be wirelessly conncected, then refusing to find any servers - as per those error messages.

Any suggestions will be most gratefully received.

[otherego]

Sorry, should have mentioned - no proxy, and I tried disabling the firewall through GUFW - no difference, so I reenabled it.

And there go two of my posts for the day...

[grumpy-cook]

OE, have you used this wireless card on a Windows PC, and did it work ok? What encryption type are you using on your router?