General Linux Chat and Small Questions v. Year of the Linux Desktop! - Hardware & Software

Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it? What's your work like? What did you go through to get to where you are today?

[QUOTE=KenjiKusanagi;52231072]I have a question. Is it possible to use both Nouveau and Nvidia 340.xx drivers and switch between them?, Since i'd like to experience Wayland via nouveau but use nvidia 340.xx drivers for some applications.[/QUOTE] As far as I know they are completely incompatible. Nvidia only works if nouveau is blacklisted.

[QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it? What's your work like? What did you go through to get to where you are today?[/QUOTE] I'm what you'd call an apprentice, but I pretty much do full time work anyway. My work consists of the following: * System maintenance * Network design * Email and phone direct to customer support * System security designer * ... I also hate lists, so I'm not going further into details. Basically, I develop and maintain everything that isn't the direct services we provide. And I pretty much dig it. It means I make the decisions on what our server systems should be configured like (mostly), and then I write software to make that happen. I'm more of a developer personally, so that makes my life a lot easier. I can tell you that system administration without development is a major pain the ass, regardless of system you use, because no system is perfect, and you'll always need something better and more flexible and faster and so on. In the end, you might end up providing that yourself. My work consists primarily of providing internal and external support. So I support our staff, and I support our customers. This means solving all problems anyone may have. If we are not the cause of the issue, then I must present a further route for people to go. This last part is often the hardest. I'm currently doing a 5½ year industry-oriented education consisting of ~1 full year of school and the rest spent as a paid apprentice at a company. This means I'm basically working most of the time, and then I go to school about 10 weeks a year, sometimes a bit more. My classes cover Network Security, System development, System administration, Cisco CCNA exams, and much more. Personally, I can recommend reading The CompTIA Security+ book, and maybe getting the certification as well ( [url]https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/security[/url] ) The reason being that security is MUCH more important to know about, than how to install firefox on Ubuntu. You can always sort of get to know how the system works, without being an academic, but for security you'll need to properly understand as many of the concepts as possible.

If you do get your sec+ just be prepared for the fact that it's a mile wide and an inch deep. Be prepared for a lot of info, but little that's extremely technical.

My Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS install keeps hanging after between 15 - 45 minutes of use, resulting in an eventual system restart that occurs around 10 seconds later. What log files should I be checking to help determine the cause? Windows 7 is running fine. Memtest returns no issue.

[QUOTE=colincooke;52246310]My Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS install keeps hanging after between 15 - 45 minutes of use, resulting in an eventual system restart that occurs around 10 seconds later. What log files should I be checking to help determine the cause? Windows 7 is running fine. Memtest returns no issue.[/QUOTE] Smart long test your drive(s)

[QUOTE=Levelog;52246229]If you do get your sec+ just be prepared for the fact that it's a mile wide and an inch deep. Be prepared for a lot of info, but little that's extremely technical.[/QUOTE] In my opinion, that is what is good about it. I'd rather have a lot of people know a bit about most security, than just have very few experts and no one else knowing shit about the rest. You don't need to know about all the technical aspects to be able to deduct the most basic defensive measures that are somewhat obvious, and lots that are less so, but the book does help on that.

[QUOTE=Flapadar;52248245]Smart long test your drive(s)[/QUOTE] Cheers, I've done so. No issues from what I can tell. [CODE]SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended captive Interrupted (host reset) 00% 0 - # 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 0 - [/CODE]

[QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it?[/QUOTE] I work at a fairly large tech org, it's pretty great. [QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]What's your work like?[/QUOTE] I design/deploy/maintain the cloud infra for a couple of our sites (~30 nodes total, so pretty tiny), it's (almost) the standard deal. Make things robust, reliable and scalable. On a less technical side I make processes and tools to help us ship code faster and failures hurt less (DevOps stuff) [QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]What did you go through to get to where you are today?[/QUOTE] Volunteering, hands-on experience always > courses/certs. Can't stress this enough. As someone who's currently hiring for a role with some small ops work involved the difference is huge even just between someone who's done a Linux class in university and someone who's only maintained a VPS for a personal website.

[QUOTE=mastersrp;52248289]In my opinion, that is what is good about it. I'd rather have a lot of people know a bit about most security, than just have very few experts and no one else knowing shit about the rest. You don't need to know about all the technical aspects to be able to deduct the most basic defensive measures that are somewhat obvious, and lots that are less so, but the book does help on that.[/QUOTE] Agreed. The cert was definitely worthwhile.

[QUOTE=colincooke;52249463]Cheers, I've done so. No issues from what I can tell.[/QUOTE] Gah, had another system hang earlier. It's a shame as a really quite like Ubuntu.

[QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it? What's your work like? What did you go through to get to where you are today?[/QUOTE] Im an associate unix admin, and i mostly work with aix and rhel, though lately ive been doing some storage admin work too, cleaning up our old enterprise backup system. I really like how most of the time ive got a pretty loose leash, and i get to do things my own way. Communicating with other people who have...lets say different communication skills is the most frustrating thing i have to do, most of the time. How i got here was getting two associates degrees, one in system admin and one in network admin, then starting at my current company in an entry level app support/data entry position, then applying to all the more technical positions that opened up until i got in, around 6 months in i believe. Ive been in this position about 2 years now, and im pretty content with it. Eventually id like to become a big boy unix admin, but its not much of a change so no huge rush.

[QUOTE=colincooke;52249463]Cheers, I've done so. No issues from what I can tell. [CODE]SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1 Num Test_Description Status Remaining LifeTime(hours) LBA_of_first_error # 1 Extended captive Interrupted (host reset) 00% 0 - # 2 Extended offline Completed without error 00% 0 - [/CODE][/QUOTE] Lifetime hours 0 certainly doesn't look right. What do the rest of the stats look like?

I have Windows 10 and Arch Linux (systemd-boot) in dual boot on this laptop. I went into the UEFI settings and changed boot order so that Windows would load first since I use that more often, but it seems to revert back to Linux first then Windows second whenever this laptop shuts down or restarts. How can I prevent the boot order from changing on its own?

[QUOTE=daigennki;52253401]I have Windows 10 and Arch Linux (systemd-boot) in dual boot on this laptop. I went into the UEFI settings and changed boot order so that Windows would load first since I use that more often, but it seems to revert back to Linux first then Windows second whenever this laptop shuts down or restarts. How can I prevent the boot order from changing on its own?[/QUOTE] There's a file located at /boot/loader/loader.conf which you can modify to automatically select Windows instead of Arch Linux. Give it a spin. Refer to the [url=https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd-boot]wiki page for systemd-boot[/url] for more in-depth help.

[QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it? What's your work like? What did you go through to get to where you are today?[/QUOTE] Sort of, we practice a lot of 'dev-ops' where we almost completely (but sadly not really) own our application's vm hosts. Quite a bit of deployment set up and infrastructure code, but a good portion of it also keeping updated on the newest security concerns and discussions with infrastructure and other teams on vm performance, allocations, issues, etc. My position is primarily development focused, but a lot of my prior knowledge came from administering my own personal servers. [QUOTE=colincooke;52246310]My Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS install keeps hanging after between 15 - 45 minutes of use, resulting in an eventual system restart that occurs around 10 seconds later. What log files should I be checking to help determine the cause? Windows 7 is running fine. Memtest returns no issue.[/QUOTE] `journalctl -bX` where X is the boot number will show all logs for that boot to shutdown/crash. ex `journalctl -b0` shows your current boot, `-b1` will show your last crashed boot after restarting. Hopefully something interesting comes up prior to the freeze.

[QUOTE=WoodenSpoon;52242815]Yo does anyone here work as a Linux sysadmin, and if so how do you like it? What's your work like? What did you go through to get to where you are today?[/QUOTE] Technically, [I]technically[/I], sysadmin is part of my job description. I work at a startup. I'd say we have about a hundred or so devices in the field. It's a diverse set of devices. A bunch of Raspberry Pis, some hosted servers, and a bunch of regular servers. While many Raspberry Pis (not the new ones) run Raspbian, practically all other devices run NixOS. I'm mostly in charge of the software on the Raspberry Pis, but along with my colleagues I also maintain basically all other devices. The fact that these devices run NixOS make maintaining them a dream. I can shit out SD card images for Raspberry Pis such that they require [I]zero[/I] configuration after boot, even though every Raspberry Pi has its own settings and peculiarities. The technologies that allow this make me love the devops part of the job. Routers and other networking stuff is done by a colleague of mine, who knows [I]much[/I] more about Cisco stuff than I do (seriously, Cisco software is [I]weird[/I]). Devops isn't my main task, though. I'm a Haskell programmer. I've got a master's degree in Computer Science, specifically in programming languages.

[QUOTE=FPtje;52254596]Technically, [I]technically[/I], sysadmin is part of my job description. I work at a startup. I'd say we have about a hundred or so devices in the field. It's a diverse set of devices. A bunch of Raspberry Pis, some hosted servers, and a bunch of regular servers. While many Raspberry Pis (not the new ones) run Raspbian, practically all other devices run NixOS. I'm mostly in charge of the software on the Raspberry Pis, but along with my colleagues I also maintain basically all other devices. The fact that these devices run NixOS make maintaining them a dream. I can shit out SD card images for Raspberry Pis such that they require [I]zero[/I] configuration after boot, even though every Raspberry Pi has its own settings and peculiarities. The technologies that allow this make me love the devops part of the job. Routers and other networking stuff is done by a colleague of mine, who knows [I]much[/I] more about Cisco stuff than I do (seriously, Cisco software is [I]weird[/I]). [b] Devops isn't my main task, though. I'm a Haskell programmer. I've got a master's degree in Computer Science, specifically in programming languages.[/b][/QUOTE] Even more reason to be doign devops tasks, or more specifically sysadmin and network design. Understanding the systems you work with is essential. An academic understanding of something is worth a lot more if it's founded or complemented with practical knowledge of the systems. Not that I'm trying to imply anything here. And yes, Cisco software is weird as shit. But more to the point, routers and switches are kind of weird. But wait. Have you heard of Dell I/O modules that are routers and switches but not really, also they're both and more?

How is Cisco IOS weird? IMO it's pretty logical.

[QUOTE=Levelog;52254778]How is Cisco IOS weird? IMO it's pretty logical.[/QUOTE] You don't interface with it, the same way you interface with any other operating system. It's not irrational at all, but it's very different from interfacing with Unix-like, DOS-like systems. They're of course used for different purposes, and although Linux has a router-like interface that you can use via the new iproute2 tools, it certainly is different from interacting with The Cisco IOS, Juniper OS, or anything like it.

[QUOTE=supervoltage;52253542]There's a file located at /boot/loader/loader.conf which you can modify to automatically select Windows instead of Arch Linux. Give it a spin. Refer to the [url=https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd-boot]wiki page for systemd-boot[/url] for more in-depth help.[/QUOTE] Actually, I just realized I could set Windows as default by pressing D with it selected in the systemd-boot EFI menu, that works. Thanks anyways.

[QUOTE=Levelog;52254778]How is Cisco IOS weird? IMO it's pretty logical.[/QUOTE] I know next to nothing about it as I haven't properly looked into it. I've logged into cisco devices with ssh to have a look around using shell commands only to find out that I couldn't. My colleague explained about the different modes you can be in, and that you have to be in a shell mode to do shell stuff. As mastersp said, that's very different from what I'm used to. I'm quite sure things would start to make sense when I read documentation. Maybe the design decision to interface based on "modes" has some merit to it, but I haven't seen it before.

[QUOTE=FPtje;52256595]I know next to nothing about it as I haven't properly looked into it. I've logged into cisco devices with ssh to have a look around using shell commands only to find out that I couldn't. My colleague explained about the different modes you can be in, and that you have to be in a shell mode to do shell stuff. As mastersp said, that's very different from what I'm used to. I'm quite sure things would start to make sense when I read documentation. Maybe the design decision to interface based on "modes" has some merit to it, but I haven't seen it before.[/QUOTE] There's a very good reason you're not interfacing with it the same way you would other operating systems. They're not routers and switches. The interface you're accessing isn't that of an ordinary computer, but that of a network device that switches and/or routes packages. So the interface is designed around that, instead of designed around a computing node with local storage. [editline]21st May 2017[/editline] It's not too crazy to work with either. For instance, this is how you enter what is know as the "configuration mode". You need to be in that mode in order to configure the device, otherwise you've only got access to showing the status. This is configured using ACLs. [code] Router> enable Router# configure terminal [/code] You may also use the short-hand "conf t" instead, but this is not always supported. [code] int range g0/0/1-20 no shutdown int range g0/0/21-24 shutdown [/code] ... Would enable ("no shutdown") the ports 1 to 20, and disable ("shutdown") the ports 21 to 24, on a Cisco IOS switch. If you wanted to assign them VLANS, you might use [code] int g0/0/1 switchport access vlan 10 int vlan 10 ip address 10.10.15.10 [/code] To assign the first port VLAN 10, and then assign VLAN 10 the IP address 10.10.15.10 (which is a private IP address, not to be routed on the public internet). It's not too difficult to understand, but I can highly recommend playing around with Ciscos own tools, in the form of packet tracer, to learn more about it. I'm sure there's some public labs out there, that you can do, if you want to be more aware of how networking works. The Cisco IOS interface is not so different from Juniper OS or Dell, but there are certainly noticable differences. Knowing the way switches and routers work, will make your life as a developer easier though, especially because you'll have a better understanding of how networking, and the internet, works.

Why is system-config-printer so goddamn broken...

New laptop arrived and I found out at work that the version of GRUB on the Manjaro ISO really doesn't like when you use Rufus to make the drive bootable in ISO mode. Had to wait until I got home to redo it in DD mode so that it actually detected the partition. Had a CentOS ISO lying around at work for some reason or another and that booted fine in ISO mode but the mininal ISO was missing graphics drivers of any kind so only text mode worked. [t]http://i.imgur.com/qsFUbH1.png[/t] So odd when a fresh boot is only using 3% of the memory on the desktop. If I didn't need Windows for games I'd totally be fine with this I think.

[QUOTE=helifreak;52272783]New laptop arrived and I found out at work that the version of GRUB on the Manjaro ISO really doesn't like when you use Rufus to make the drive bootable in ISO mode. Had to wait until I got home to redo it in DD mode so that it actually detected the partition. Had a CentOS ISO lying around at work for some reason or another and that booted fine in ISO mode but the mininal ISO was missing graphics drivers of any kind so only text mode worked. So odd when a fresh boot is only using 3% of the memory on the desktop. If I didn't need Windows for games I'd totally be fine with this I think.[/QUOTE] Heh, maybe this is why I could't get Manjaro to work. I'll give it a shot with dd. [editline]26th May 2017[/editline] Also, is that the Manjaro-XFCE version?

Anyone using Fedora 26? I wanted to use kernel 4.11 because of Ryzen and I couldn't get Arch to install. I tried installing Steam but it complains about conflicting files.

[QUOTE=SataniX;52278085]Also, is that the Manjaro-XFCE version?[/QUOTE] It is.

Fedora isn't exactly optimal if you're looking to run Steam, IMO. You fine with using something else? You could just install a backport kernel. Ubuntu has backport kernels here [url]http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/?C=N;O=D[/url]

Does linux need an antivirus or some kind of anti malware software? Does it even have any? I want to start using my linux machine more day-to-day and for web browsing so idk if I need one or not edit: I'm running Mint if that makes any difference [editline]27th May 2017[/editline] Also is firefox the best browser on Mint?