More dysfunctional Ubuntu-isms

Tue Nov 8 09:54:18 MST 2016

I do much the same here. But if you are installing something that does not
have an always connected network you might want to adjust the wait timeout
for networking sooner than later. 5m boot delays are weird and annoying.

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 8:59 AM, Brian Cluff <brian at snaptek.com> wrote:

> In my experience the server install is pretty much just a minimal install
> that asks you at the end if you want to install certain typical server
> software.  I just normally just pick SSH server and then add whatever I
> want after the first boot.  I've always had less problems installing the
> server over rather than the desktop install because of the odd graphics
> card problems that pop up from time to time (but hardly ever these days)
> since the server install uses a text based installer.  The server install
> will allow you easily install a basic system and then install the
> proprietary graphics drivers afterwards skipping having to have them to
> install in the first place.
>
> The only real gotcha is that it takes longer to install since much of your
> software (aka your entire desktop environment) will have to be downloaded
> over the Internet rather than coming off of nice fast flash drives or
> DVDs.  You could, if you are in a hurry, install via the server install
> disk and then use the packages on the desktop install to feed your desktop
> install, but in the long run it probably won't save you any time since you
> would still want to update everything over the Internet and that would take
> just about as long.  Then again, if you have the server installed, you can
> actually be doing stuff to customize your install at the same time that
> it's installing/updating so it's probably all in all a speed win.
>
> Brian Cluff
> On 11/08/2016 12:49 AM, trent shipley wrote:
>
> 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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-- 
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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