Linux masterminds. Get in here.

[TenEightyOne]

I have been random freezes on the Desktop. Can't pinpoint an actual issue as it happens, well, random. Is there a way to find out what is causing the issue?

I've so far deleted the insides of the tmp and the /.cache maps, but it doesn't help.

Before I go and just wipe the disk and reinstall Mint, @BobK do you have any brilliant insights that you can provide, which Google can't?

Edit.

I have a sneaky suspicion that my psu in getting ready for the recycle pile, issues seem to be related to the 1050 drawing power.

You got a 1050 Txi? Mine seems very temperature sensitive, since fitting it I've found that if the room sits below 7-ish C overnight the PC's a bugger to boot without freezing. During this cold spell I've been running it all night and had no hangs. Could be my PSU too I guess, time for a new one... it's just a case of finding the money/energy to do it

 

[Dennisch]

You got a 1050 Txi? Mine seems very temperature sensitive, since fitting it I've found that if the room sits below 7-ish C overnight the PC's a bugger to boot without freezing. During this cold spell I've been running it all night and had no hangs. Could be my PSU too I guess, time for a new one... it's just a case of finding the money/energy to do it

Msi 1050Ti 4gb something something darkside.

So far it has been running all day now. The psu had a good run, as it was almost 10 years old.

 

[Dennisch]

Is there anyone here who can tell me why they decided to remove the vino-preferences from 18.xx Lubuntu etc. and thus ruining the easy path to desktop sharing?

I got it working though, through fiddling with dconf editor, but for some strange reason the remote pc is accessible without password.

 

[Danoff]

It's so great to be in the position to have a dedicated gaming rig.

OMG why did that not occur to me. I know of the jackintosh (I'll let you look that up), but the dedicated gaming rig... wow. You've kinda got my head spinning here. I still need a way to get at least microsoft word running smoothly in linux before I can really shed windows. And I'm up against the windows 7 lack of security support as well.

 

[Dennisch]

I still need a way to get at least microsoft word running smoothly in linux

It took me quite some time (close to 5 years), but with proper tweaking LibreOffice will come close to Word in usability. The missus works with Word documents for school, but the last Microsoft Office I owned was running on a Pentium 4 2.8. That's 3 desktops ago.

And that was for tweaking Office, not just Word.

 

[BobK]

OMG why did that not occur to me. I know of the jackintosh (I'll let you look that up), but the dedicated gaming rig... wow. You've kinda got my head spinning here. I still need a way to get at least microsoft word running smoothly in linux before I can really shed windows. And I'm up against the windows 7 lack of security support as well.

On the assumption that Word doesn't work well (or at all) under Wine, I'd suggest installing Windows in a VirtualBox or VMWare virtual machine. I'm using exactly that approach on two linux boxes. The Windows VMs boot much faster than the "real" Win7 machine I have; not sure why but probably because the VMs don't have lots of apps installed constantly phoning home in the background.

If you can follow @Dennisch's suggestion about LibreOffice, so much the better.

 

[sesselpupser]

Quick question, I'm trying to use Certbot to renew an SSL certificate on a pretty old Debian Wheezy server and as part of the process it has to grab a load of packages but it gets a 404 error on everything. Going to ftp.uk.debian.org I can see the packages it wants don't exist or have moved, I think this means I need to update my sources but I don't know for sure that that's what I need to do? If it is I'll go find a guide on the internet, just seeking a "yes, you need to update your sources" or a "no, do this instead" for now, please and thank you!

 

[BobK]

Quick question, I'm trying to use Certbot to renew an SSL certificate on a pretty old Debian Wheezy server and as part of the process it has to grab a load of packages but it gets a 404 error on everything. Going to ftp.uk.debian.org I can see the packages it wants don't exist or have moved, I think this means I need to update my sources but I don't know for sure that that's what I need to do? If it is I'll go find a guide on the internet, just seeking a "yes, you need to update your sources" or a "no, do this instead" for now, please and thank you!

Sounds to me like yes, you need to update your sources.

 

[Danoff]

On the assumption that Word doesn't work well (or at all) under Wine, I'd suggest installing Windows in a VirtualBox or VMWare virtual machine. I'm using exactly that approach on two linux boxes. The Windows VMs boot much faster than the "real" Win7 machine I have; not sure why but probably because the VMs don't have lots of apps installed constantly phoning home in the background.

If you can follow @Dennisch's suggestion about LibreOffice, so much the better.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. I think I can even run the (older) games that I virtually. I store all of my important documents on a document server anyway, so nothing even needs to be saved within the virtualbox.

 

[BobK]

That's exactly what I'm going to do. I think I can even run the (older) games that I virtually. I store all of my important documents on a document server anyway, so nothing even needs to be saved within the virtualbox.

I use relatively modest virtual hard drives withVirtualBox; typically 50GB for a Win7 VM and 20GB for a linux VM then use NFS/file sharing for the majority of data storage.

 

[Danoff]

I use relatively modest virtual hard drives withVirtualBox; typically 50GB for a Win7 VM and 20GB for a linux VM then use NFS/file sharing for the majority of data storage.

Do you register your VM windows install with microsoft? Are there any ongoing issues with that, or with re-registering it if you make a new VM install of it and blow away an old one? It seems like there are some license pitfalls here.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I still need a way to get at least microsoft word running smoothly in linux before I can really shed windows.

My online Office account seems to work pretty well as it's more browser than OS dependent. I think there's a free trial available (mine was free with a staff account so I'm not sure of the actual cost). Still, being a traditionalist I prefer using my locally-installed Office for reasons that probably make zero sense on consideration

 

[Danoff]

My online Office account seems to work pretty well as it's more browser than OS dependent. I think there's a free trial available (mine was free with a staff account so I'm not sure of the actual cost). Still, being a traditionalist I prefer using my locally-installed Office for reasons that probably make zero sense on consideration

Interesting, hadn't heard of it actually. It's $100/year for multiple users. Not entirely sure I want to ship somewhat sensitive documents their servers.

 

[BobK]

Do you register your VM windows install with microsoft? Are there any ongoing issues with that, or with re-registering it if you make a new VM install of it and blow away an old one? It seems like there are some license pitfalls here.

I type in the 25-characte license key, I don't know if it contacts Microsoft or not. I believe it does for Win7 but again I am not sure. I use a legitimate Win7 install disk so I shouldn't have any issues anyway.

 

[Danoff]

I type in the 25-characte license key, I don't know if it contacts Microsoft or not. I believe it does for Win7 but again I am not sure. I use a legitimate Win7 install disk so I shouldn't have any issues anyway.

Yea I have 3 legit copies of Win 7, but possibly only 2 of them could be used in a VM. I also have legit copies of Win2k and WinXP, either of which will run Office. So there are plenty of options here. Heh... Diablo 3 runs on WinXP. Too funny.

I might do a WinXP install just to get things working before I do a takedown of the 7 system.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Not entirely sure I want to ship somewhat sensitive documents their servers.

That's a good point. From my point of view I'm using mostly using W10 at the moment so there's nothing private from MS anyway, "usage statistics" and all that nonsense.

 

[Danoff]

So I got ubuntu running (with graphics drivers I might add) on my desktop. I tried porting the one spreadsheet over to LibreOffice. I had little hope that it would work given that it relies on two macros. Sure enough, the macros didn't work right away. It wasn't until I realized that one of them is named a reserved name in LibreOffice (and it took me a little while to do that) that I got it working by renaming the offending macro. So it turns out that I don't need office afterall, it works in Libre.

I'm still going to install a VM, just because I want to play.

 

[BobK]

I'm still going to install a VM, just because I want to play.

That's certainly a good enough reason!

 

[TenEightyOne]

So I got ubuntu running (with graphics drivers I might add)

I seem to remember finding that process excruciatingly difficult the first time I did it.

 

[Danoff]

I seem to remember finding that process excruciatingly difficult the first time I did it.

I've given up on certain graphics drivers in the past, years ago. This time it wasn't too bad. Nvidia GTX460, I was able to find the right driver package and get it loaded. I did have to unplug the card to get linux up first though, and then install the drivers prior to re-plugging. I wouldn't call it excruciating, but it wasn't what I'd call super easy either.

 

[Danoff]

I'm still going to install a VM, just because I want to play.

I took a dusty copy of win XP that I wasn't using and brought it up in a VM and got it activated! Wow... that was super hard. Not because virtualbox wasn't well set up for it, it seems to be very good at its job, but because Win XP is sooooooo old. Even with the devices all working and internet connection visible you can't actually open a browser because they're all so old nobody will serve a web page to them.

I started out with a pre-service pack 1 copy, and that proved to be unworkable. I had to find a SP3 XP upgrade installer (which I also had lying around) to get it actually up and running.

But it works, it's activated, it sees my local network and the internet (which I could shut off now I suppose), and I could drop a copy of MS Office on it.

 

[Dennisch]

@Danoff

I think that Opera still is compatible with XP, if you need a browser.

 

[Danoff]

@Danoff

I think that Opera still is compatible with XP, if you need a browser.

Good tip. Windows Explorer (after updates) is able to access some websites (like google). But it's kinda useless for most stuff. However, since i have access to my local network I shouldn't need a browser. I have a browser in linux, so anything I need to download for XP can be done from within linux and handed over.

 

[BobK]

It's easy to set up a share between the host and the Windows guest, makes it super easy to move files back and forth. Create a directory on the host, go to settings-->shared folders-->machine folders, point it to the directory.

 

[Danoff]

It's easy to set up a share between the host and the Windows guest, makes it super easy to move files back and forth. Create a directory on the host, go to settings-->shared folders-->machine folders, point it to the directory.

At the moment, that's not working for me. Win XP is not seeing it. I haven't solved that problem yet.

Edit:

Fixed it, I needed to install guest additions in XP (which turns out to be not that easy since VBox kinda flubs the automatic download of the iso). Anyway it's working now.

 

[sesselpupser]

How's this for a long shot:

Chrome OS 77 - the current dev channel build - allows me to use my GPU in crostini, which is the... Thing that lets you run Linux apps within Chrome OS itself without needing to dual boot or use crouton, which is a full Linux desktop in a chroot (I have no idea what that actually means). It works in games, so that's cool, but the killer app for me is Parsec because the web client has poor image quality and latency and the Android app doesn't capture the mouse, so I'm left with the Linux client.

The thing is it does work and the stats show very low latency of about 10ms in total split between the encode, decode and network latencies. However, the video is about 3 seconds behind the audio which, obviously, makes it impossible to play. Parsec's documentation for "other distros" (meaning not Ubuntu) lists its dependencies and I have them all except libxxf86vm (apt-get says it can't find it), while connecting to my PC silently returns an error that you can see in the terminal when you disconnect saying it requires libva2 for hardware acceleration to work, so that makes total sense. Problem is, apt-get tells me there's no installation candidate for libva2 when I try to install it.

I have three questions as a result of this:

1. Searching for 'libva2 debian' - because I can install .deb packages so I guess that's an appropriate thing to search for to find what I need - takes me to this page on debian.org. Is there any way, through terminal commands for example, for me to determine which would be the best version to install?
2. Clicking on one "at random" (aka the first one) returns a number of different architectures, which one would I choose for a Chromebook that has an Intel Core m3 CPU? i386?
3. Am I right in assuming that if I can install a package and it doesn't work, I should be able to use apt-get to remove it? Actually this one is a two-parter but the second part feels like a dumb question with an obvious answer but I want to be sure; if I install a package not using apt-get, how would I know what its full name would be if I wanted to remove it? Would it literally just be "libva2"?

 

[BobK]

How's this for a long shot:

Chrome OS 77 - the current dev channel build - allows me to use my GPU in crostini, which is the... Thing that lets you run Linux apps within Chrome OS itself without needing to dual boot or use crouton, which is a full Linux desktop in a chroot (I have no idea what that actually means). It works in games, so that's cool, but the killer app for me is Parsec because the web client has poor image quality and latency and the Android app doesn't capture the mouse, so I'm left with the Linux client.

The thing is it does work and the stats show very low latency of about 10ms in total split between the encode, decode and network latencies. However, the video is about 3 seconds behind the audio which, obviously, makes it impossible to play. Parsec's documentation for "other distros" (meaning not Ubuntu) lists its dependencies and I have them all except libxxf86vm (apt-get says it can't find it), while connecting to my PC silently returns an error that you can see in the terminal when you disconnect saying it requires libva2 for hardware acceleration to work, so that makes total sense. Problem is, apt-get tells me there's no installation candidate for libva2 when I try to install it.

I have three questions as a result of this:

1. Searching for 'libva2 debian' - because I can install .deb packages so I guess that's an appropriate thing to search for to find what I need - takes me to this page on debian.org. Is there any way, through terminal commands for example, for me to determine which would be the best version to install?
2. Clicking on one "at random" (aka the first one) returns a number of different architectures, which one would I choose for a Chromebook that has an Intel Core m3 CPU? i386?
3. Am I right in assuming that if I can install a package and it doesn't work, I should be able to use apt-get to remove it? Actually this one is a two-parter but the second part feels like a dumb question with an obvious answer but I want to be sure; if I install a package not using apt-get, how would I know what its full name would be if I wanted to remove it? Would it literally just be "libva2"?

I can't help on a lot of your questions, but here goes:

1. I'd pick the version for the stable branch, ie, buster, unless you're feeling (more) adventuresome.
2. If it's a 32-bit CPU, which I believe the Core m3 is, choose the i386 package. If it's a 64-bit architecture, you could use the amd64 version lthough the i386 would (should) still work.
3. Yes apt-get remove should work, if you used apt-get to install it. If you used dpkg to install, that's your tool to remove as well. The name you used to install should be the same name you use to uninstall; ie if you "apt-get install libva2" then you'd do "apt-get remove libva2".

 

[sesselpupser]

I can't help on a lot of your questions, but here goes:

1. I'd pick the version for the stable branch, ie, buster, unless you're feeling (more) adventuresome.
2. If it's a 32-bit CPU, which I believe the Core m3 is, choose the i386 package. If it's a 64-bit architecture, you could use the amd64 version lthough the i386 would (should) still work.
3. Yes apt-get remove should work, if you used apt-get to install it. If you used dpkg to install, that's your tool to remove as well. The name you used to install should be the same name you use to uninstall; ie if you "apt-get install libva2" then you'd do "apt-get remove libva2".

Thanks, I did some reading around the subject and found that I need the amd64 package so I installed it, which is done by just opening it like a file in the GUI (but apt-get removes them again, so that's what I've been doing). Parsec did stop throwing the error about requiring libva2, but that's now been replaced with "unable to load VAAPI WM libraries", so I'm now struggling with that. I've tried installing a load of other packages but can't seem to work it out, although the performance has now gone from about 3 seconds of latency from the start to no latency at the beginning but it quickly increases to at least about 3 seconds, which is progress I guess?

 

[Dennisch]

@BobK

What is the easiest way to move the home folder from the main disc (ssd) to a separate, quite a bit larger, second disc (hdd)?

Edit.

Bit more info should come in handy.

It will be a fresh install, Linux Mint on a 128GB ssd. The second disc is a 2 TB hdd. As the missus is quite the clutterbug, I prefer that she fills up the hdd instead of the ssd.

Edit.

That didn't work. Eh.

 

[Danoff]

@BobK

What is the easiest way to move the home folder from the main disc (ssd) to a separate, quite a bit larger, second disc (hdd)?

Is this two separate computers or you're trying to move contents from an SSD to a second drive within the same OS.