More dysfunctional Ubuntu-isms

Tue Nov 8 21:10:21 MST 2016

So I am now running Ubuntu 16.10 on my main machine with LVM-cache UEFI and
my shiny new GTX 1070 with KDE Plasma 5.7.5

So far It is running very well. after i broke my LVM about 4 times trying
to remember how ti set up LVM cache...

On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 8:17 PM, Brian Cluff <brian at snaptek.com> wrote:

> I just had to kill that on my home machine.  It was making me wait 5
> minutes even though I actually already had a connection... lame.
>
> Brian Cluff
> On 11/08/2016 09:54 AM, Stephen Partington wrote:
>
> 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
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------
>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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
>>>
>>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss
>>> mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe,
>>> unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
>>> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------
>> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
>> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing
>> list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to
>> change your mail settings: http://lists.phxlinux.org/mail
>> man/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
> --
> 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
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.phxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>

-- 
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.phxlinux.org/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20161108/bd959886/attachment.html>