General Linux Chat and Small Questions v. I broke my Arch Install - Hardware & Software

I like how a full Fedora 20/Gnome 3 install running off a flash drive is faster than the already stripped down Windows 7 install running on the school computers here :v: Plus I get full 3D acceleration! [editline]6th February 2014[/editline] Too bad their network breaks anything that isn't a web browser terribly because the proxy server breaks anything using SSL entirely

I was wondering if anyone would be able to help a bit with a problem I'm having. I installed Linux Mint 13 (Cinnamon edition) on my Samsung S3520 laptop reccently because I realised I'm not using much of Windows, and it was running pretty slowly so what the hell. I switched out the DE to XFCE4 because I used to use that and I kinda like it :v: However, I'm having a few issues with the hardware of the laptop. The wireless refuses to connect to networks automatically, even with the proprietry Broadcom driver installed. The screen backlight is at 100% all the fucking time and even using things like XBacklight to turn it down, I cannot get them to work on startup (i've tried adding it to the XFCE startup list, doing so as root, and adding it manually, no luck). Also how safe is it to upgrade the kernel? Just in case anything added reccently improved the battery life because it's still pretty shit.

[QUOTE=Stonecycle;43800324]Using the rest of the flash drive for persistence is generally a good idea. If constantly burning *.ISOs to flash drives taught me anything, a decent [url=http://www.linuxliveusb.com/]USB creator[/url] will generally set the maximum persistence size to whatever's left after the *.ISO size is calculated. And if Mint isn't satisfying to him, try Kubuntu.[/QUOTE] Thanks for that link, that program is a lot better than Pendrive. Plus I learned a couple of things reading the instructions on how to use it. For instance, I had been trying to update the kernel and other things but apparently you can't do that with a persistent install on a USB stick. I also used the full 2gb persistent file size allowed and haven't got any more 'out of space' issues.

[QUOTE=Mega1mpact;43807458]I don't get the dislike for systemd. Is it the journal? Is it because things have changed? I like systemd :<[/QUOTE] I prefer my init system separated from everything else. I'm not missing out on anything, OpenRC has all the improvements to sysv that systemd does, without all the cruft.

[QUOTE=Mega1mpact;43807458]I don't get the dislike for systemd. Is it the journal? Is it because things have changed? I like systemd :<[/QUOTE] It has a lot of features under the [i]systemd[/i] umbrella, which is putting some people off. It's a lot more modern and easy to use compared to sysvinit. It's a big improvement over sysvinit and since others are adopting it (Fedora, Arch, openSuSe) it would be nice if it became de facto.

[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;43816793]Thanks for that link, that program is a lot better than Pendrive. Plus I learned a couple of things reading the instructions on how to use it. For instance, I had been trying to update the kernel and other things but apparently you can't do that with a persistent install on a USB stick. I also used the full 2gb persistent file size allowed and haven't got any more 'out of space' issues.[/QUOTE] Wait, scratch, forgot you said you can't upgrade the kernel on a persistent drive. Snippity snoo da, snippity day.

I know there's a lot of UEFI hate in here when it comes to Linux, but let me tell you that your hardship is nothing compared to the hell that is installing Windows 7 64 bit with UEFI. 1. I had to unplug all of my other hard drives 2. I had to manually create a UEFI-bootable flashdrive from the DVD (which involves extracting/renaming several deeply hidden files) because the installer can't boot off the DVD 3. After booting from the flash drive, I had to put in the DVD and remove the flash drive. If you don't put in the DVD it doesn't know how to read the installer files off of the DRIVE IT JUST BOOTED FROM. If you don't remove the flash drive, it would format the hard drive and them complain that it doesn't know how to install to the partition THAT IT JUST MADE. FUCK.

UEFI in general is just kind of a minefield right now, isn't it?

[QUOTE=Larikang;43819138]I know there's a lot of UEFI hate in here when it comes to Linux, but let me tell you that your hardship is nothing compared to the hell that is installing Windows 7 64 bit with UEFI. 1. I had to unplug all of my other hard drives 2. I had to manually create a UEFI-bootable flashdrive from the DVD (which involves extracting/renaming several deeply hidden files) because the installer can't boot off the DVD 3. After booting from the flash drive, I had to put in the DVD and remove the flash drive. If you don't put in the DVD it doesn't know how to read the installer files off of the DRIVE IT JUST BOOTED FROM. If you don't remove the flash drive, it would format the hard drive and them complain that it doesn't know how to install to the partition THAT IT JUST MADE. FUCK.[/QUOTE] Reminds me of a problem I always encounter installing Windows 7 from a USB drive. I'll boot from it, get the install ready and it asks to insert the installation media. Wtf why, I just booted off this thing. Turns out you have to unplug the USB drive and move it to a different port. Doesn't matter which one, just needs to be moved. Why? Because why the fuck not I guess.

I didn't have to invoke any dark magics to get Arch installed with UEFI. Though that's certainly helped by the frequently updated live images. Considering that my Windows 7 disc is over three years old, I'm not surprised that their installer is so broken.

[QUOTE=Larikang;43819138]I know there's a lot of UEFI hate in here when it comes to Linux, but let me tell you that your hardship is nothing compared to the hell that is installing Windows 7 64 bit with UEFI. 1. I had to unplug all of my other hard drives 2. I had to manually create a UEFI-bootable flashdrive from the DVD (which involves extracting/renaming several deeply hidden files) because the installer can't boot off the DVD 3. After booting from the flash drive, I had to put in the DVD and remove the flash drive. If you don't put in the DVD it doesn't know how to read the installer files off of the DRIVE IT JUST BOOTED FROM. If you don't remove the flash drive, it would format the hard drive and them complain that it doesn't know how to install to the partition THAT IT JUST MADE. FUCK.[/QUOTE] I can confirm this is the proper steps to install Windows on UEFI. This is due to EFI being only able to read fat32, and that the Windows EFI installer is built to only read from a Windows [I]disk[/I]. EFI is really silly when it comes to Windows.

[QUOTE=lavacano;43817175]I prefer my init system separated from everything else. I'm not missing out on anything, OpenRC has all the improvements to sysv that systemd does, without all the cruft.[/QUOTE] I would agree, but remember that Linux is a monolithic kernel, just as Systemd is a "monolithic" init system; you could certainly spin off each part into its own neat little module, and then you would have the equivalent of a microkernel, and that isn't always useful. You might say there is a lot of "cruft" running in Ring 0, for example, and while a certain level of modularity is always preferred (see Linux kernel modules), you have to stop somewhere or you end up taking an unacceptable performance hit. Not to say OpenRC doesn't find the right balance or that Systemd does, or that one outperforms the other for this reason, just food for thought.

Neat, the GNOME extension which incorporates maximized windows into the top bar also works with half snapped windows: [t]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/215991327/desktop.png[/t] [editline]7th February 2014[/editline] And if you click & drag from the top bar where you'd expect the title bar to be, it unsnaps. So you can do this with two windows, and it works like you'd expect [editline]7th February 2014[/editline] Also for any Firefox users, I really recommend this addon: [url]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-all-html5/?src=api[/url] Forces basically all (at least all the ones I've checked) Youtube videos to play in HTML5. This includes embedded videos. It can also force the video into HD. I was having issues with Flash destroying my Firefox speed, especially while scrolling. This fixes it.

link tot the extension? [editline]7th February 2014[/editline] also I need that firefox theme. It's so sweet with gnome

Okay so I forgot my mouse is now connected to my laptop. I installed vimperator instead. Now I can do things without a mouse seeing as I'm already using awesome. Yay?

[QUOTE=Mega1mpact;43824827]link tot the extension? [editline]7th February 2014[/editline] also I need that firefox theme. It's so sweet with gnome[/QUOTE] [URL]https://github.com/deadalnix/pixel-saver[/URL] If you're on 3.10, you need to edit the metadata.json and add 3.10 to the list of supported versions. FXChrome - [URL]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/[/URL] Hide Tab Bar - [URL]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-tab-bar-with-one-tab/[/URL] and Omnibar - [URL]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/omnibar/[/URL] Also if you're on Arch you can install this - [URL]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/archlinux-aur/[/URL] It adds the AUR as a search engine, and then you can set it up with Omnibar. For example, I have mine set to Google by default. But I have a shortcut set to the a key. So if I type a before my search, it searches the AUR instead.

I was also having flash troubles but yesterday I found out that the old flash browser plugin (using NPAPI) is no longer being supported by Adobe. You can still get updated versions for Chromium, but it makes me wonder what the future of flash is going to be on Linux.

[QUOTE=Larikang;43826565]I was also having flash troubles but yesterday I found out that the old flash browser plugin (using NPAPI) is no longer being supported by Adobe. You can still get updated versions for Chromium, but it makes me wonder what the future of flash is going to be on Linux.[/QUOTE] Hopefully other web technologies can step up their game to be about as good as Flash when it comes to multimedia besides videos and music. Flash has been said to be on the verge of being outmoded for how many years now? Probably as long as this year being the year of the Linux desktop. Best course of action is to not use Flash if you can help it.

Flash through Wine (Pipelight) actually works better than the Linux version

First major issue I've experienced, my network connection keeps dropping, not to the internet, but between my PC and router. It is stable at 100Mbps but at 1Gbps it drops periodically. I have no idea what's caused this, I don't believe I changed anything, simply installed the latest arch packages. It started a few days ago. [CODE][24873.760375] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24875.641075] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24892.002756] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24894.672154] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24901.662905] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24904.314294] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24913.452964] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24916.050759] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24955.244286] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24957.875419] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24984.686847] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24987.303483] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full [24989.025348] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: Link Down [24991.662735] alx 0000:03:00.0 enp3s0: NIC Up: 1 Gbps Full[/CODE]

I'm going to buy a brand spanking new macbook pro (retina) soon and I was wondering how well Fedora 20 would run on it. Is it any good?

This experience, Mint 16 on USB, has been interesting learning. The entire 32 install, a 2.6gb persistent file, updated Firefox(26), Chrome installed, Okular PDF, Wine and Playonlinux installed all fit on 1.8gb of the stick! It's amazing how much fits in such a small space. I've downloaded 32bit Itunes, since my friend uses it to buy his music. I know he won't go for Linux without access to Itunes. I haven't set it up yet, probably do that tomorrow.

[QUOTE=Rayjingstorm;43822957]I would agree, but remember that Linux is a monolithic kernel, just as Systemd is a "monolithic" init system; you could certainly spin off each part into its own neat little module, and then you would have the equivalent of a microkernel, and that isn't always useful. You might say there is a lot of "cruft" running in Ring 0, for example, and while a certain level of modularity is always preferred (see Linux kernel modules), you have to stop somewhere or you end up taking an unacceptable performance hit. Not to say OpenRC doesn't find the right balance or that Systemd does, or that one outperforms the other for this reason, just food for thought.[/QUOTE] The kernel has an advantage in that you can make nearly everything into a module though if you so choose - which means if I update my kernel to 3.20 (bullshit "future" version number), and find that it's having a kernel panic, I can boot a previous kernel, split each thing into modules, and modprobe them individually until I find out what's causing the screwup (then restore my config to nearly-normal and report it to Torvalds and Co.). As near as I can tell, you can't do that with systemd. And since I can't exactly have multiple systemd versions installed and GRUB-selectable, one bad commit into a non-critical part of the code could bring the whole thing crashing down around me until I find my Gentoo DVD again and fix it in chroot. I was already having problems with systemd updates not bringing systemd back up and making a safe shutdown impossible - everything would report an "unable to communicate with init system" error and nothing would happen afterward. I had to hold down the power button until it forcibly powered off. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure this was caused by the Arch package maintainer and not systemd itself) Admittedly, I would have to do the same if udev or OpenRC got screwed up, but since the projects are smaller in scope and more likely to be thoroughly checked with every change*, this is far less likely and also faster, since I don't have to wait nearly as long for either of those to finish building. * My example of "non-critical code". I had the log system in mind when I wrote that, and who the fuck expects that to crash the entire thing? [editline]7th February 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;43829381]I've downloaded 32bit Itunes, since my friend uses it to buy his music. I know he won't go for Linux without access to Itunes. I haven't set it up yet, probably do that tomorrow.[/QUOTE] How the hell do you intend to get that to run it barely works on Windows

He can use Linux music players to listen to music, but he needs Itunes to buy it. He has other devices he can use for that but I know he'll want to be able to fire it up on that computer if he feels like it. Supposedly Wine, with Playonlinux functioning as a graphical frontend, will allow Itunes to run(v10.7).

[QUOTE=lavacano;43829583]The kernel has an advantage in that you can make nearly everything into a module though if you so choose - which means if I update my kernel to 3.20 (bullshit "future" version number), and find that it's having a kernel panic, I can boot a previous kernel, split each thing into modules, and modprobe them individually until I find out what's causing the screwup (then restore my config to nearly-normal and report it to Torvalds and Co.). As near as I can tell, you can't do that with systemd. And since I can't exactly have multiple systemd versions installed and GRUB-selectable, one bad commit into a non-critical part of the code could bring the whole thing crashing down around me until I find my Gentoo DVD again and fix it in chroot. I was already having problems with systemd updates not bringing systemd back up and making a safe shutdown impossible - everything would report an "unable to communicate with init system" error and nothing would happen afterward. I had to hold down the power button until it forcibly powered off. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure this was caused by the Arch package maintainer and not systemd itself) Admittedly, I would have to do the same if udev or OpenRC got screwed up, but since the projects are smaller in scope and more likely to be thoroughly checked with every change*, this is far less likely and also faster, since I don't have to wait nearly as long for either of those to finish building. * My example of "non-critical code". I had the log system in mind when I wrote that, and who the fuck expects that to crash the entire thing?[/QUOTE] I'm sorry if I'm just not reading this correctly, but to me, it sounds like you're comparing apples to oranges (systemd vs kernel) throughout most of this. Systemd/OpenRC/initscripts isn't responsible for allowing you to boot into fallback kernel versions: that's only between the bootloader and the kernel. Systemd/OpenRC/initscripts also have nothing to do with kernel modules, that's the work of [url=https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/]module-init-tools[/url] in the user space, and the kernel itself. Systemd's role only comes in to play after the kernel has unpacked initramfs and executed init. Its responsibility is entirely in the user space: starting programs and services, taking control of the journal, dbus, etc all the way until shut down. When people describe systemd as monolithic, it's mostly to do with the fact that every systemd feature is built in, and you can not pick to leave out, for example, QR code validation or the built in HTTP server.

[QUOTE=cecilbdemodded;43830745]He can use Linux music players to listen to music, but he needs Itunes to buy it. He has other devices he can use for that but I know he'll want to be able to fire it up on that computer if he feels like it. Supposedly Wine, with Playonlinux functioning as a graphical frontend, will allow Itunes to run(v10.7).[/QUOTE] Use xnoise to replace itunes graphical wise and use something like mutracker to download it [t]http://i.imgur.com/MGSWWnO.png[/t]

[QUOTE=lavacano;43829583]The kernel has an advantage in that you can make nearly everything into a module though if you so choose - which means if I update my kernel to 3.20 (bullshit "future" version number), and find that it's having a kernel panic, I can boot a previous kernel, split each thing into modules, and modprobe them individually until I find out what's causing the screwup (then restore my config to nearly-normal and report it to Torvalds and Co.). As near as I can tell, you can't do that with systemd. And since I can't exactly have multiple systemd versions installed and GRUB-selectable, one bad commit into a non-critical part of the code could bring the whole thing crashing down around me until I find my Gentoo DVD again and fix it in chroot. I was already having problems with systemd updates not bringing systemd back up and making a safe shutdown impossible - everything would report an "unable to communicate with init system" error and nothing would happen afterward. I had to hold down the power button until it forcibly powered off. (Incidentally, I'm pretty sure this was caused by the Arch package maintainer and not systemd itself) Admittedly, I would have to do the same if udev or OpenRC got screwed up, but since the projects are smaller in scope and more likely to be thoroughly checked with every change*, this is far less likely and also faster, since I don't have to wait nearly as long for either of those to finish building. * My example of "non-critical code". I had the log system in mind when I wrote that, and who the fuck expects that to crash the entire thing? [/QUOTE] Anyone interested in systemd vs other init systems should probably read [url=http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/the-biggest-myths]this[/url].

Got tvheadend working on my HTPC. [IMG_THUMB]http://i.imgur.com/cOfleWS.jpg[/IMG_THUMB]

[QUOTE=deadeye536;43833323]I'm sorry if I'm just not reading this correctly, but to me, it sounds like you're comparing apples to oranges (systemd vs kernel) throughout most of this. Systemd/OpenRC/initscripts isn't responsible for allowing you to boot into fallback kernel versions: that's only between the bootloader and the kernel. Systemd/OpenRC/initscripts also have nothing to do with kernel modules, that's the work of [url=https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/kernel/module-init-tools/]module-init-tools[/url] in the user space, and the kernel itself. Systemd's role only comes in to play after the kernel has unpacked initramfs and executed init. Its responsibility is entirely in the user space: starting programs and services, taking control of the journal, dbus, etc all the way until shut down. When people describe systemd as monolithic, it's mostly to do with the fact that every systemd feature is built in, and you can not pick to leave out, for example, QR code validation or the built in HTTP server.[/QUOTE] I made the analogy in my original post; we aren't saying Systemd manages kernel modules, we're just using the analogy to make the point in the last part of your post: "When people describe systemd as monolithic, it's mostly to do with the fact that every systemd feature is built in, and you can not pick to leave out, for example, QR code validation or the built in HTTP server." The kernel was originally purely monolithic, but when its scope became too large it had to begin modularizing, especially for drivers and the like which make up a huge percent of the entire codebase at this point, or else it is too unstable to use. I've never had any trouble personally with Systemd instability, other than corruption in the journal (which didn't result in an unstable system, just a borked system log, and it was easy to pinpoint where the problem was). At the same time I don't think there is any perfect formula for when KISS means to break something up into multiple tools (everything done one thing and does it well; communicate through text), or when it means pick one tool that does the job right and simplify the codebase using assumptions which that allows you to make (build in things like logind so user account security is handled internally from the terminal to the GUI without need for an intermediary like ConsoleKit) One thing I like about Systemd (and this isn't related to the topic really) is that unit files are declarative, not interpreted. I'm perfectly fine with having a full shell environment for configuration because I've written some bash, but not everyone who wants to administrate their system is, and I don't believe it is essential that they be. Other examples of this are xmonad and haskell, awesome-wm and lua, etc. These are great if you like their choice of config syntax, but in the general case they are sub-optimal because you have to first learn the language before you can use the WM; if I were to choose a default WM for a system I would choose something like i3-wm, because it has a simple, declarative, yet powerful configuration syntax and provides options for everything you could possibly dream of it doing. Same goes for init systems. If I were to choose a default based purely on config syntax I would choose Systemd, because it is simple, declarative, yet powerful. Still not arguing that Systemd is The Right Choice™, only that it is a reasonable one.

[QUOTE=deadeye536;43833323]I'm sorry if I'm just not reading this correctly, but to me, it sounds like you're comparing apples to oranges (systemd vs kernel) throughout most of this.[/QUOTE] The comparison that was made was that both systemd and the kernel were monolithic, so I'm trying to point out why the kernel gets away with that and systemd doesn't. Which very well could read as an apples to oranges post. I'm not trying to say systemd should be responsible for kernel nonsense (because that's beyond a dumb idea for numerous reasons) - I'm saying much of what makes the kernel good at this model (modules, etc) is functionality noticeably absent from systemd (e.g. I can't unload the "netctl" module from systemd). [quote]When people describe systemd as monolithic, it's mostly to do with the fact that every systemd feature is built in, and you can not pick to leave out, for example, QR code validation or the built in HTTP server. [/quote] [b]Exactly[/b] why I don't like systemd.