The "Linux questions (and other stuff)" thread

[saptech]

After I renamed the file, I rebooted the system, which didn't come back up. Yes, I could have booted into Salix Linux and chrooted into Mageia to rename the file but it gave me a chance to test my backup.

 

[MoodyBlues]

After I renamed the file, I rebooted the system, which didn't come back up. Yes, I could have booted into Salix Linux and chrooted into Mageia to rename the file but it gave me a chance to test my backup.

Ah, I see. Well, it's good to know you're getting good backups.

 

[saptech]

Yes it is good to have backups that work. I had done the latest backup on Jan. 25, so I lost two days of updates for Mageia. It means after the backup, and I ran the update command, it installed 250+ update files.

 

[nickdalzell]

i brought my system down by a bad edit of /etc/fstab and it was a headache fixing it but i can understand the pain!

my face turns white if i see this on reboot:

Kernel: PANIC unable to mount root fs

thankfully i got it back up again. all i did was disable auto-fsck. wasn't supposed to render the system unbootable.

 

[MoodyBlues]

i brought my system down by a bad edit of /etc/fstab and it was a headache fixing it but i can understand the pain!

I never deal with stuff like this--simply because I've been in a 25+ year habit of ALWAYS saving copies of system files before changing them. I can't tell you how many headaches this simple, two second, painless habit has saved me! There's nothing involved but restoring the original file, and you're back in business.

all i did was disable auto-fsck. wasn't supposed to render the system unbootable.

But that's always possible when editing system files. We're human, we can make mistakes...even really bad ones. That's why I got into the habit back at the beginning of my *nix days of saving a good copy of a file before screwing around with it. I can't stress strongly enough how worth it it is to do this.

I've long [as in, from the get-go] been in the habit of saving the good copy as system_file.orig, for example, fstab.orig. Then when I make changes to the file now named fstab, if I mess it up I just cp fstab.orig fstab and I'm good to go. With NO headaches.

 

[Speed Daemon]

my best one so far was I did a dd on a backup drive. Lost all my backups because it was the wrong drive i was putting a file on. good thing it was backups I didn't really loose anything as I just formatted and rebacked up everything but i certainly learned to triple check when I go and do any kind of dd operation.

That's why my own home directory backup procedure includes copying the files to a "holding pen" where I can examine the files before they're archived. After I was satisfied that the backups worked, I just kept the second copy "just in case", which has been fortunate on the several occasions when I've deleted an entire directory wholesale. (Windows 7 has a bug in Windows Exploder that changes focus from the right pane to the left when I'm not looking.)

my best one so far was I did a dd on a backup drive. Lost all my backups because it was the wrong drive i was putting a file on. good thing it was backups I didn't really loose anything as I just formatted and rebacked up everything but i certainly learned to triple check when I go and do any kind of dd operation.

"Let's see, `dd if=/var of=/dev/sda' and Enter...wait, no! sdb! sdb!!!" Yep, I've been there before.

The worst I ever saw was when it was discovered that the nightly backup tapes (that nobody ever checked to see if there was anything on them or not) turned out to contain no files whatsoever. This was at a medical institution, where lost data could possibly cost a life. That taught me a valuable lesson or two! I don't do tape backups any more, but I do copy the listing of new archive files into my backup log file, and check the logs from time to time.

Now that I think about it, I should have my backup script do a `diff' of the listing and the source files, and text me if they don't match. "Note to self..."

 

[MoodyBlues]

Does anyone know where YouTube videos are stored now? They used to be cached--as entire flv files, but named like DB07D823d01--in /tmp, but that stopped some time ago. Since Google is my friend, I've done a lot of looking around on this issue, but I've come up empty.

My normal browser is SeaMonkey; looking in its cache while playing a YouTube video doesn't yield one file as before. Now there are a bunch of files, again with names like DB07D823d01 and also _CACHE_002_. Some of the files contain info such as my YouTube account name and are clearly not video files. Concatenating all but the obviously non-video files together does not yield one playable file. In fact, none of the files, even viewed individually, plays as a video.

I've also tried Chrome and Firefox. With Chrome, the files are saved with names such as f_000098 and data_2 in the ~/.cache/google-chrome/Default/Cache directory.

$ file * | grep lash
f_000009: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 17
f_00000f: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000014: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000015: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000016: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000019: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9
f_00001a: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9
f_000060: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9
f_00006e: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 17
f_000084: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000085: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 10
f_000086: Macromedia Flash data (compressed), version 9
f_000088: Macromedia Flash Video

The only file that plays in the example above is the last one, f_000088, but it's only a brief video (in this case it was an ad, a movie trailer, which I never actually saw while viewing YouTube videos, thanks to AdBlock. ) None of the files identified as "Macromedia Flash data (compressed)" is playable.

Firefox, predictably, yields the same results as SeaMonkey.

Any ideas?

 

[Speed Daemon]

Does anyone know where YouTube videos are stored now?

They're stored on the Amazon Web Services cloud. In the US, there are data centers in the Washington, D.C. area on the east coast, and in the San Francisco Bay area and Seattle, WA on the west coast.

They used to be cached--as entire flv files, but named like DB07D823d01--in /tmp, but that stopped some time ago.

In the past the videos may have been downloaded and played instead of being truly streamed. But to keep viewers from saving the videos (which loses ad revenue for both Google and their clients), the videos are now streamed.

Any ideas?

There is a variety of software out there that can sometimes save some Flash streams. But because YouTube and other sites are specifically using Flash streaming to keep this from happening, I'm afraid that I can't help you beyond that for ethical and legal reasons.

My advice is to enjoy the product as it was intended to be viewed. If you need a hard copy of a video for some reason, you can contact the owner of that video and see if they will provide one for you.

I put my dailies up on YouTube, and make them available only to the client I'm shooting for. When the clients put up the video on their own sites, even I'm not allowed to use that video for my own purposes. Sometimes local TV stations will request a copy so they can air excerpts as news, and the clients who want to have news coverage usually honor these requests. I don't know what they'd do for private parties, but it can't hurt to ask.

 

[MoodyBlues]

In the past the videos may have been downloaded and played instead of being truly streamed. But to keep viewers from saving the videos (which loses ad revenue for both Google and their clients), the videos are now streamed.

They're already losing ad revenue with people like me who never see their ads.

There is a variety of software out there that can sometimes save some Flash streams. But because YouTube and other sites are specifically using Flash streaming to keep this from happening, I'm afraid that I can't help you beyond that for ethical and legal reasons.

My advice is to enjoy the product as it was intended to be viewed. If you need a hard copy of a video for some reason, you can contact the owner of that video and see if they will provide one for you.

This creates double uploading work for me. I used to be able to post videos on YouTube, point friends/relatives to them, and they could save them by copying the flv file saved in /tmp. Now I have to upload to YouTube AND upload to one of my web sites' servers. If someone views a video on YouTube and wants a copy, they have to go to my site to pull it from there. And even though I have 'unlimited' space with the hosting plans I use, using up tons of space holding videos to download doesn't go over well.

 

[Speed Daemon]

They're already losing ad revenue with people like me who never see their ads.

Although you may be able to get it so you don't have to see the ads, many sites will not work unless you enable cookies. And once you do that, you're letting in all those tracking cookies that make as much income as the ads. Needless to say, enough people see the ads to make it worthwhile for the site owner.

This creates double uploading work for me. I used to be able to post videos on YouTube, point friends/relatives to them, and they could save them by copying the flv file saved in /tmp. Now I have to upload to YouTube AND upload to one of my web sites' servers. If someone views a video on YouTube and wants a copy, they have to go to my site to pull it from there. And even though I have 'unlimited' space with the hosting plans I use, using up tons of space holding videos to download doesn't go over well.

You get what you pay for. If you want a real CDN for your videos, you gotta pay for one of the pro video services.

IME with my family, I can't think of a relative of mine that knows or cares enough to actually save a video file, or find it if they did. YouTube is a "least common denominator" that at least my younger family members can figure out. If I need to put up a video or some other BLOB on a web server so I can link to it in an e-mail, I just rm the file after a month or so. Just as we use free() to forestall memory leaks, I clean out my BLOBs after everyone has had a reasonable time to download them.

At least that's what works for me.

 

[nickdalzell]

new question:

I just downloaded what should be a super neat Star Trek LCARS desktop theme from KDE-Look.org. unfortunately, when i go to appearance setup, it only allows me to 'get new themes' and download the limited choices available--it seems to have no means of browsing my hard disk to select a previously downloaded theme--the problem with the choices is that the particular theme i want is not listed. i tried clicking the extracted archive for the theme's setup but it just spawns a document viewer. if it helps, it's a Superkaramba theme. there is no way to apply it!

when i try to install via superkaramba it spits this at me:

SuperKaramba cannot continue to run this theme.One or more of the required components of the Kross scripting architecture is not installed. Please consult this theme's documentation and install the necessary Kross components.

unfortunately, any attempts to find this mystery Kross end in 'package not found'

 

[MoodyBlues]

You get what you pay for. If you want a real CDN for your videos, you gotta pay for one of the pro video services.

I definitely don't need anything like that. I just need a way for people who want to have a copy of a video to get a copy. Until YouTube changed the way they cache streaming videos, the old way worked perfectly. You could just sit and watch its size increase until it stopped increasing, then you knew the full video was ready to be copied.

IME with my family, I can't think of a relative of mine that knows or cares enough to actually save a video file, or find it if they did.

Mine can and do. Friends, too.

YouTube is a "least common denominator" that at least my younger family members can figure out. If I need to put up a video or some other BLOB on a web server so I can link to it in an e-mail, I just rm the file after a month or so. Just as we use free() to forestall memory leaks, I clean out my BLOBs after everyone has had a reasonable time to download them.

At least that's what works for me.

But doesn't work well for me. I always SAY I'm going to delete a video from my server after X amount of days, but I end up not doing it because of procrastination on other people's parts. Then I forget all about them...and they're still sitting there.

 

[mikedt]

Samsung NP-R467 laptop reboots when trying to start live Linux Mint 13 Maya(Ubuntu 12.04 LTS based).

Got a laptop here, a Samsung NP-R467, and we're trying to make it boot Linux Mint from a USB stick. With the eventual intention of installing a Linux OS, to replace the usual spyware filled pirated Windows XP with IE6, that this laptop is running.

However as soon as Mint attempts to start it's just rebooting. I know there's nothing wrong with the live Linux Mint USB stick, because it starts and runs on other PCs just fine. Unfortunately we can't download other distros to try at the moment, as we've only got a metered CDMA/EV-DO internet connection, for the next week or so due to location, so no huge downloads.

 

[Speed Daemon]

I definitely don't need anything like that. I just need a way for people who want to have a copy of a video to get a copy. Until YouTube changed the way they cache streaming videos, the old way worked perfectly. You could just sit and watch its size increase until it stopped increasing, then you knew the full video was ready to be copied.

It looks like they're locking down Flash. Not much we can do about it.

But doesn't work well for me. I always SAY I'm going to delete a video from my server after X amount of days, but I end up not doing it because of procrastination on other people's parts. Then I forget all about them...and they're still sitting there.

I know how it is. Believe me, if I knew of a better solution, I'd be using it. If you're forgetful, you can set up a cron job to do the cleanup.

The greater issue is that lots of Internet-based businesses are getting serious about making profits. The days of free, or even cheap Internet services are going away. They're not leaving much room for free and easy.

 

[saptech]

I just installed a minimum KDE4 on my system, since I need to test it for any issues that I'm seeing with Gnome 3. I need to know if the issues of crashing is caused my Mageia 3 Beta or Gnome 3, since Mga is a KDE based distro by default.

In order to install the minimum, I ran this command, " urpmi task-kde4-minimal", and it wanted to install over 350 files. Then I ran this command, "urpmi task-kde4-minimal --no-suggests" and it installed over 160 files.

So far I'm satisfied and will use KDE for a while. I do like it but just wish programs could be installed without including a lot of other programs I may not want.

Just my thought on KDE.

 

[unixphish]

Speed Daemon, I hear you! You are not an admin until you have trashed a system by mistake. In the late 80's, I was working on an AIX system running a Wang VS emulator, as was still fairly new to UNIX. There was a directory off the root of the disk called $SCRATCH, where our applications put temporary files. I needed to clean that out, so I logged in as root, and did:

$ cd /
$ rm $SCRATCH/*

Well, system went down. Bring out the tapes - we needed a restore! The upside of the whole issue was we finally got system manuals - the whole argument about "just mount the CD - you don't need a paper version!" went out the window that day.

 

[Frisco]

Check out my blog just updated to day.

 

[Speed Daemon]

Speed Daemon, I hear you! You are not an admin until you have trashed a system by mistake. In the late 80's, I was working on an AIX system running a Wang VS emulator, as was still fairly new to UNIX. There was a directory off the root of the disk called $SCRATCH, where our applications put temporary files. I needed to clean that out, so I logged in as root, and did:

$ cd /
$ rm $SCRATCH/*

Well, system went down. Bring out the tapes - we needed a restore! The upside of the whole issue was we finally got system manuals - the whole argument about "just mount the CD - you don't need a paper version!" went out the window that day.

Interesting.

That place where I was had just replaced its AIX / serial terminal system with SCO, and had a duplicate NT4 server. Restoring from tape became a major headache because the two tape restore boot floppies, which had been perched atop an electrical junction box, didn't work. I had some consultant to call for help, and all the guy could think of was to snail mail me a new set of floppies. No thanks! I had to talk him through the process of creating images of them using dd, and then e-mailing them to me. (IIRC I scrounged in the trash for discarded AOL floppies to use, because there were no other fresh blank ones.)

Then I discovered that the FreeBSD box running our mail system was full-up because someone in the school office had e-mailed a separate copy of the "dancing baby" video to everyone in the office, filling up the 512MB HD and creating a long backlog of queued e-mails rushing into the system after I cleared the logjam.

The bottom line was it was well after midnight by the time I left; my longest first day on the job ever! But everything was better than how I found it. And with all the failings I had uncovered during the debacle, my boss the president decided that it wouldn't be wise to make me the scapegoat for whatever brought down the SCO system.

That was good for him because later on, on the night before a big registration day, the busiest time for the SCO box especially, a CPU fan in the SCO box failed and the box died. Because the NT and SCO boxes were otherwise identical, I swapped the SCO disks into the NT box and used it as the SCO box forever after. But I needed an NT PDC as well for things to go well the next day, so I went home, grabbed some parts, and turned my desktop PC into a temporary NT server until the Compaq service people could replace the blown CPU and associated hardware on the server box.

That evening I left for home at 10AM the following day, after I was satisfied that my hackneyed setup was actually working.

My peers at the sister schools didn't like it much, because I had made them look bad in comparison. Boo-hoo for them. A UNIX admin doesn't give up in the face of adversity, because we live for the challenge!

 

[argedion]

has anyone gotten sabayon 10 to work in live mode? I tried the kde version but it wouldn't give me a screen. Thought I would try safe mode if its not an install.

 

[Prinny]

has anyone gotten sabayon 10 to work in live mode? I tried the kde version but it wouldn't give me a screen. Thought I would try safe mode if its not an install.

I did with the MATE fork, I believe. Sabayon was cool, but meh. I'm back on Puppy for my one laptop...2gb of ram and a 1.4ghz dual core processor on Puppy = incredibly fast laptop ;D Makes me a happy camper.

 

[nickdalzell]

bad thing about Puppy is their proprietary repos. every app must have a *.pet extension. and the latest MacPup still has an obsolete Firefox repo. i had to manually do the tarball install and then i had to launch it from terminal as the icon refused to point to it-always loaded the older version

Puppy is also permenant root. some may prefer that but it is insecure

 

[saptech]

Does anyone use Google Music Manager? I'm having a heck of time getting it installed on Megia 3 Beta, it did work with Mageia 2.

I keep getting this error message and I did install qtwebkit5.

# urpmi google-musicmanager
A requested package cannot be installed:
google-musicmanager-beta-1.0.55.7425-0.i386 (due to unsatisfied qtwebkit)
Continue installation anyway? (Y/n)
While some packages may have been installed, there were failures.
A requested package cannot be installed:
google-musicmanager-beta-1.0.55.7425-0.i386 (due to unsatisfied qtwebkit)

Any thoughts?

 

[9to5cynic]

bad thing about Puppy is their proprietary repos. every app must have a *.pet extension. and the latest MacPup still has an obsolete Firefox repo. i had to manually do the tarball install and then i had to launch it from terminal as the icon refused to point to it-always loaded the older version

Puppy is also permenant root. some may prefer that but it is insecure

I'm not familiar with Puppy (only used it as a live disc once), but could you not create a non-root user?

 

[nickdalzell]

not sure. i just remember Puppy being designed to run as permenant root. not even a password. it just *boots* and that's it. it never bothered me either way i just hated being locked into their repos and any app outside had to be launched from a terminal as for some reason i could never point the icon to the newer version (an upgraded Firefox would install, but even changing the working directory of the Firefox icon would always load the original version instead, and uninstalling deleted the icon altogether, and i haven't yet found a right-click 'send to desktop (create shortcut)' in there yet)

 

[Dngrsone]

I've played with Puppy briefly. I much prefer DSL, though it does not seem to be under development anymore.

I agree with the packages thing, and Puppy really isn't intended on being a permanent OS-- you fix it up the way you want it, burn it to disc and use it from disc. Sort of a portable "I'm going to use linux anywhere I want" type of solution, which isn't necessarily a bad thing-- I've used DSL or knoppix several times in the past to fix MS computers on the sly or work around unnecessary restrictions in corporate settings.