More dysfunctional Ubuntu-isms

Tue Nov 8 00:49:51 MST 2016

What are some of the gotchas he can expect in installing: server -> delta
desktop repository -> delta desktop gui -> no more than two days tweaking
system? OR:
desktop install -> delta server -> tweak?

I'd expect using the server distro as the base to work better with a server
enabled workstation, but that's just a layperson's hunch.

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 3:35 PM Brian Cluff <brian at snaptek.com> wrote:

> Plus one for the server install DVD. If you are going to do anything out
> of the norm, always reach for the server install. Then just apt install
> kubuntu-desktop when everything is done installing.
>
> Kde neon is pretty good right now and about the only way to get an up to
> date kde experience right now, but it will still use the Ubuntu installer.
> It would probably be best for you to use the server install cd, then add
> the neon repositories, and then install the the neon-desktop
>
>
> Brian Cluff
>
> On November 7, 2016 1:17:07 PM MST, Stephen Partington <
> cryptworks at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Wow. you worked much harder with the desktop install media than i would
> have. I usually 86 the desktop install media and just use the server
> install media to get the LVM/Raid settings i want to use. i just have to
> remember to disable the network wait on boot.
>
> I am about to try something like this again for a while as Windows 10 is
> irking me again more and more.
>
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 12:17 PM, Michael Butash <mike at butash.net> wrote:
>
> Sorry for the fire and forget, had to rebuild a data center for a customer
> over the weekend - I was just really hoping to have the darn box up before
> I left to work on it remote, such a simple feat normally, but I had no time
> for anyways.
>
> Rest inline...
>
>
> On 11/03/2016 03:54 AM, Steve Litt wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 Nov 2016 18:38:24 -0700
> Michael Butash <mike at butash.net> wrote:
>
> This is really why I have a hate/love relation with ubuntu, it never
> fails to disappoint.  My road to 16.04 has been all upgrades so far,
> this time I'm using 16.04.1 cd's from scratch.
>
> Curious: What do you love about it? You seem like the kind of person
> who could work with any distro.
>
> Short answer, it usually works where others do not with my graphics, a
> 6-head amd video card which until recently, I used all ports on.
>
> Long story, probably tldr (you asked!), definitely love/hate...
>
> After my last straw with windoze and making the decision to force myself
> to use linux to both learn and abandon m$ shitty ecosystem circa 2006, I
> tried a bit of everything disto-wise.  I always loathed redhat and rpm hell
> (no, yum didn't entirely fix this, and much later), I came from
> slackware/open|freebsd/solaris background having no desire to go back, and
> oddly landed on Mandrake for a bit.  Until I started hacking on it, and
> things came unglued.
>
> I decided to try Ubuntu after reading about debian roots I've heard
> praised (tried for 2 seconds, got annoyed, don't remember now why), I think
> 6.04 at the time, and oddly it "just worked".
>
> I didn't begin to have any real issues until 10.10 until the era of unity
> hell began, and they started trying to make Ubuntu install more idiot-proof
> for, well idiots.  Sadly it removed all the good features like complex
> raid, crypto, and lvm setup, making it about as stupid as possible, but
> there was always the alt installer and just simply not using unity, if I
> could just get the damn os on a system.  Thanks Canonical.
>
> They then pissed on that, fiddling with (breaking) the alt installer
> removing fdisk (it's what I used for my raid+crypto+lvm setup), and
> ultimately doing away with the alt installer all together as insult to
> injury.  Again I worked around them in other ways, building my fs manually
> with an arch cd first learning how to build it all manually from busybox
> again, and trick the netboot installer into working over it.  Thanks again
> Canonoical.
>
> Around 2014, I got really annoyed after dist-upgrade blew up my system
> that I decide to sojourn a bit and explore distros again with a new laptop
> I'd gotten.  I couldn't even get fedora's vaunted installer to reproduce my
> raid+crypt+lvm setup, and despised the notion of going back to it anyways,
> but at the request of a friend that for some reason likes it, tried.  Even
> tried Red Hat's official installer, more broken than fedora, scratch
> either/or.  Tried Arch too, got to a desktop, and found hell with the AMD
> drivers and graphics capabilities in general.
>
> I settled on Mint Debian edition with Mate, as Cinnamon was all sorts of
> broken with compositing on even the most basic intel gpu, which seemed like
> instant fail.  Mate was great, and used that for a bit until with some new
> ssd's I'd begun to rebuild my desktop with mint de mate, and found ATI
> graphic hell in my desktop.  AMD only cares about fedora/ubuntu as a linux
> entity, knew it would likely work there, and again hacked ubuntu back onto
> my system.  It's the same install I'm using today, and eventually moved my
> laptop back to ubuntu.
>
> What I really can't fathom is how Canonical can keep breaking their
> installers in such new and creative ways each time, and only I seem to
> notice, but then again, I expect linux features most people don't know even
> exist or care about like raid, crypto, or volume management.
>
> If BTRFS or ZFS supported better encryption, I'd love to use one native fs
> to do all the raid/crypto/lvm in it.  I think as of this year, either/both
> might, so worth exploring, but I bet ubuntu's installers will still suck in
> dealing with them.
>
> Yes, AMD is a root evil for linux graphics and at times the kernels, but
> nvidia to this day still has not put out a 6-head video card like AMD that
> I actually use all 6 ports of.  Now I have 3x montiors (well, tv's), so
> this new one has a nice new 1070 card in it.  Which thanks to their crappy
> business practices too of not releasing firmware immediately (that amd
> would decompile), I know nouveau has issues with, and the binary drive is
> necessary.  I'm handy with cli here, not too worried, more that their
> drivers suck too these days.
>
> I really don't want to have to make a circle of distro's to end up
> back here again, but ubuntu is always so basically dysfunctional
> these days with the most basic things, it's hard to want to care.
>
> I wonder how much others have seen this.  This is with legacy boot in
> bios, no uefi crap, and just a basic d-i based ubuntu server install,
> and/or kubuntu.
>
> I used Ubuntu for several years because it "just works." The trouble
> was, as I got more sophisticated, Ubuntu's seatbelts and airbags and
> danger sensing devices and training wheels and all that other stuff so
> necessary to the newbie badly got in my way.
>
> I agree, it feels almost childish to still use Ubuntu at this stage, but
> nothing else has worked suitably, and I'm somewhat tired of
> trying+disappointment when history has proven most others to be inadequate
> or worse.
>
> So I ditched Ubuntu for Debian, and that was great, but then Debian
> went systemd so I switched to Void Linux, and after a rocky 5 weeks of
> Void newbie-ism, Void has turned out to be the most useful, maleable
> and stable distro I've ever used. I've used Void for over a year now.
>
> That's why I tried Mint Debian Edition - figured deb it might suck less
> and just wanted a modern ui, but found that their driver support for AMD,
> or rather a support for modern versions thereof for graphics were fairly
> lacking, and no one from a major org cares enough to fix it.  I simply
> could not get their kernel to take the amd driver, which was a
> non-starter.  It's actually what drove me finally back to Ubuntu natively
> just for a working video solution, and at times keeps me bound.
>
> I think you've probably outgrown Ubuntu.
>
> See above.  It tends to work great as long as I don't have to 1) install
> it via "normal" means or 2) upgrade it, both often suck these days.  Both
> have simply continued to get worse and worse, and I only encounter them
> every few years out of necessity of they are also both my primary means of
> working as my own business.  Once I hit 14.04 stable, I upgraded only upon
> absolute necessity core functions like kernel or desktop libs, and only
> essential apps that require them (browsers really), but otherwise didn't
> upgrade core until 16.04 when it released.  That's been a current longer
> evolutionary story I'll get to eventually.
>
> BUT, as far as your current no-booting installer problem, I wonder if
> your media are bad. Just for fun, boot System Rescue CD and have a look
> around the system to verify no disk or RAM problems, and that the
> processor is what you think it is. If you can't boot System Rescue CD
> either, that points an accusing finger at your DVD drive.
>
> This is something I'd seen before actually, I'd mentioned another time
> about arch and disk-label usage.  I don't think it's media, but who knows.
> My 10 year old spindle of dvd-r's might be breaking down by now, but first
> time I've seen this with a anything, why I tried both the built-in, and a
> usb, of which I've used hundreds of times to boot things, almost always
> said linux boxes over the past 10 years, another not long ago.
>
> Also, try burning your disks with cdrecord (or wodim) instead of a gui.
> I use a command something like this:
>
> cdrecord dev=/dev/sr0 padsize=63s driveropts=burnfree \
> -pad -dao -v -eject myimage.iso
>
> The padsize=63s and -pad help with the Linux readahead bug. Burnfree
> means you don't unknowingly make coasters or bad discs if your computer
> can't deliver the data fast enough.
>
> If you perform the burn like I mentioned above, you *should* be able to
> md5 check the disc to the same md5sum as the iso file by following
> directions here:
>
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm
>
> Interesting - I've not had to adjust a cd like that using k3b on linux
> ever or nero in win since doing so for pirated drm games. Only time seeing
> something like that is using unetbootin to make the usb where it doesn't
> know the iso expects a certain disk label to exist.  This seemed more a
> sloppy iso build in the few hours I had with the system and ample
> frustration to write that.
>
> Thank you for that tidbit, I'll try it after I fiddle with the bios more
> on this.  I'm going to try a kde neon build (really what I'm interested in
> more here), I just didn't have the time as it showed up 5 hours before I
> had to pack, sleep, and hop on a plane (sad, I know).  It's a t7910
> precision dell, more a server board than desktop, so I'd really expect
> better behaviour here on either pc or ubuntu.
>
> I'll update when I get to it tonight hopefully.
>
> HTH,
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> November 2016 featured book: Quit Joblessness: Start Your Own Business
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/startbiz
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>
>
> --
> A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from
> rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
>
> Stephen
>
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