Ubuntu Linux questions

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Mint will kind of divorce from ubuntu sooner or later and go along the Debian trail exclusively.

That appears to be part of the problem. Not installing security updates in the kernel is another. If Mint divorces itself from Ubuntu it loses the world's largest and most reliable repository of curated and malware-free software.

The software repositories are the only strength Mint has left. Going down its roadmapped way, it will lose everything. They should concentrate on developing Cinnamon and making it available for other distros. The Mint dev crew doesn't have the horsepower to remain relevant.

There have been plenty of distros with similar troubles. The bottom line is regressing to Debian means an aged software basis four or five years behind the present state of the art. It means abandoning the incredible Ubuntu software repositories. The size and quality of software repositories is a quality much more important even than using Cinnamon vs Unity. If you have nothing to run they way you run it doesn't matter. And you can run (I am) Cinnamon in Ubuntu anyway.

Mint has nothing to offer. As it stands, it's slightly modified Ubuntu. If it abandons its Ubuntu base and the Ubuntu repositories, it loses its greatest assets. It then becomes a five years out of date Debian clone that runs Cinnamon, also available in Debian and Ubuntu.

Here's a well balanced discussion of the situation from a variety of people from Mint fanatics to Mint critics. It's an interesting read.

And there's this story about how Mint has to give up developing their KDE Plasma version and is farming that out to the Kubuntu team. Did I predict something about Mint ceasing to exist and merging with some of the Ubuntu teams? It's already happening.

It'll all work out in the end. In the Linux world it always does.

[Rockin Robbins]

I'm trying out an up and coming browser, Vivaldi, in Ubuntu here. It's a cross-platform browser, working in Windows, Linux (lotsa flavors!) and Mac. It really looks clean and nice, works snappily too. It had a somewhat rocky start, but I like it a lot now! Great to see a team come from nowhere and do something new and exciting!

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by Reece

...

The only real hassle is when an application is installed where does it go? and since they are not exe files I'm finding it hard to figure out how to work with them, what ever they are!!!
...
I am quite familiar with MSDOS and even better the CP/M systems. (showing my age again) I preferred these but that was many years ago.
...

Where the program is installed to depends on what program you are installing.

For example, installing DirectX in Windows, it would install to the Windows folder.
If you where installing Steam, you can install it where ever you like.
PLEASE NOTE: I'm referring to Windows up to WinXP.

In Linux, programs install to a predetermined point based on what part of the OS they are, and what they are designed to do.


The Kernel(s) install to the /boot directory
(which may be its own partition), where your machines boot info is stored.
(Everything I've ever read about it leads me to believe that is where they are, but it's late, I'm tired, and I've had to redo this a few times so far!)

Other programs might install to your "home" directory.
Let's assume that your username is "Reece".

So your "home" directory, would be:
/home/Reece
If you install Steam in Linux, after running the Steam installer, Steam would install in:
/home/Reece/Steam

This would mean that if RR was on the same system, his home directory would be:
/home/RR
He could neither see, or access your Steam folder, as his Steam install would be:
/home/RR/Steam

As far as passwords are concerned:
There are 3 MAIN user levels in Linux:
User
Super User (or Power User)
root

The one thing to remember, Linux is based on the same "standard" that Unix is/was.
UNIX was a MAINFRAME OS, meaning that all the low level users had "dumb terminals", and "root" was the system administrator sitting on the mainframe itself.

IF you are a Super User, you have the "authority" to install and remove programs using the "official" means.

Root on the other hand, can do whatever he/she wants.



Barracuda

[Reece]

Thanks for the heads up, looking at those files is a nightmare, I will wait till I know a lot more.
I now want to install Wine for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I got the Ubuntu Software Center to search and it seems to only come up with a development version 1.9.6. Should I install this?
I could just download it from firefox but again not sure of a suitable version.

Should I install version 2.0 this way:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable
sudo apt update (I don't have a previous version, is this needed?)
sudo apt install wine2.0

[Reece]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

I'm trying out an up and coming browser, Vivaldi, in Ubuntu here. It's a cross-platform browser, working in Windows, Linux (lotsa flavors!) and Mac. It really looks clean and nice, works snappily too. It had a somewhat rocky start, but I like it a lot now! Great to see a team come from nowhere and do something new and exciting!

Looks interesting, one of the most important things to me is the Bookmarks, I assume they will be similar to firefox.
How easy is it to adjust to taste? (settings) Firefox is a bit of a pain imo.
Let us know your final decision whether it gets a or a

[Skybird]

I still have not figured out how to bind in a second Hd and then have not just data (archives for exmaple) stored there, but stuff being installed there. Okay, the second HD is bind into the system now, but I cannot install there, only manually store data and archives there.

All input I got on that in anothe forum so far tells me that this is to so easily possible. I have a hard time to bveleive that, since it would represent a monumental disadvantage of Linux, if true.

My laptop has a small SSD where Linux was preinstalled, and a 1 TB HD that I intended to use for installing working/gaming software. So far I ave not had any need to do so and only manually moved some mp3 and photo arhcives on the second, big HD. But if I would want to install some Steam-Linux games on the second HD with its much bigger storage capacity - how to do that?

This is one of the things that has driven me crazy so far.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I still have not figured out how to bind in a second Hd and then have not just data (archives for exmaple) stored there, but stuff being installed there. Okay, the second HD is bind into the system now, but I cannot install there, only manually store data and archives there.

All input I got on that in anothe forum so far tells me that this is to so easily possible. I have a hard time to bveleive that, since it would represent a monumental disadvantage of Linux, if true.

My laptop has a small SSD where Linux was preinstalled, and a 1 TB HD that I intended to use for installing working/gaming software. So far I ave not had any need to do so and only manually moved some mp3 and photo arhcives on the second, big HD. But if I would want to install some Steam-Linux games on the second HD with its much bigger storage capacity - how to do that?

This is one of the things that has driven me crazy so far.

Did they actually tell you that couldn't be done? Foolish mortals. Here's the deal. The file tree in Linux isn't a literal file tree as we think of in Windows. In fact (play the mysterious music) EVERYTHING in Linux is a file: monitors, disk drives, printers, keyboards.........yikes.

Everything Linux does is organized into a tree and each part of that tree can live wherever you wish. If you make a partition and register it as /.home it's your home directory! The easy way to do this stuff is to identify the part of the tree that needs to live on another drive.

Here is some light reading that will blow what remains of your mind after reading the above. There basically is no Linux equivalent to Windows' \program files or \program files (x86) directories. Programs hang out in /bin or /sbin or /usr/bin or usr/share or /opt or /usr/local. That's fine. But then it gets crazy. Linux programs aren't little mutually exclusive universes. They share capabilities with each other by sharing all their libraries--the equivalent of Windows' .dll files.

So when I install 7zip in Linux, its functions are picked up and used by the Archive Manager, which picks up the ability to use 7zip files! so you better include /lib, /lib32 and /lib64 in your list of directories to move to the big mondo-drive.

Okay, you know what is good to move. Here's the plan. First you copy the directory you want moved to the other drive. Then you put a symbolic link in the Linux directory tree to have it look there.

So if you're moving /somedirectory to a new drive you'd do this

mv /somedirectory /media/otherdisk/somedirectory
ln -s /mnt/otherdisk/somedirectory /somedirectory

Your path to another drive may be /mnt/<diskname> instead of /media/.. like in Ubuntu. The first line moves the directory to your other disk and path of your choosing. I'd use cp (copy) instead of mv (move) because I'm just chicken that I'd break something.... Once it works you can delete the original directory with "rm /somedirectory."

The second line says make a link (symbolic) for your other disk directory into the tree of /somedirectory. Then whenever Linux needs to reference /somedirectory it will look where it lives, thanks to the symbolic link.

[Rockin Robbins]

Vivaldi is configurable in a way both easy and comprehensive. It has Windows 10-like square corners, but is much more attractive than Windows 10 software. The one thing that's impressed me so far is how darned fast pages load. I haven't tried importing bookmarks yet.

It works bookmarks, history, downloads and other things you can add to a retractable side panel that's really neat. Then, for history, for instance, you can expand into a whole window. The way Vivaldi works history is really amazing, with graphs, top domains visited.....they really remade what a history is supposed to do.

[Rockin Robbins]

And I just installed Veeam Agent for Linux in my machine, a kinda equivalent of my favorite backup, Veeam Endpoint Backup, for Windows.



Yes, it runs in a terminal window and does a proper disk image, not just a files backup. Looks great so far and I like running things in the terminal anyway.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by Reece

Thanks for the heads up, looking at those files is a nightmare, I will wait till I know a lot more.
I now want to install Wine for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I got the Ubuntu Software Center to search and it seems to only come up with a development version 1.9.6. Should I install this?
I could just download it from firefox but again not sure of a suitable version.

Should I install version 2.0 this way:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable
sudo apt update (I don't have a previous version, is this needed?)
sudo apt install wine2.0

Sorry, I missed this post. No, I wouldn't install it that way.

I'd use the same rules I use for installing software in Windows, plus hooking repositories into Ubuntu Software and Synaptic Package Manager whenever possible. That way Software Update will update these programs every time it runs and you never have to look for the latest version again. Always go direct to the source group that makes the program. Then hook their repositories to Ubuntu so you can just download them in Ubuntu Software or Synaptic Package Manager.

The place to get WINE stuff is Winehq. Go to this page and follow instructions:

If you have previously installed a Wine package from another repository, please remove it and any packages that depend on it (e.g., wine-mono, wine-gecko, winetricks) before attempting to install the WineHQ packages, as they may cause dependency conflicts.

If your system is 64 bit, enable 32 bit architecture (if you haven't already):

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Add the repository:

wget https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/Release.key
sudo apt-key add Release.key
sudo apt-add-repository https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/

Update packages:

sudo apt-get update

Then install one of the following packages:

Stable branch

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-stable

Development branch

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-devel

Staging branch

sudo apt-get install --install-recommends winehq-staging

Actually, once you get to "sudo apt-get update" after you do that you can search for and install the latest WINE from Ubuntu Software or Synaptic because you've integrated the download process into the operating system itself with that last command. I went for the development branch and have never been sorry I did.

[Reece]

Thanks for that RR, I know nothing about commands yet, getting through the books but a way off yet.
Well if all goes well Wine should work, not game to try it yet.
This is what I did, entered the following commands:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

wget https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/Release.key
sudo apt-key add Release.key
sudo apt-add-repository https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/

sudo apt-get update

Then used Ubuntu Software Center to search and install Wine development version, Hopefully that is correct.

I noticed an app called "Configure Wine", what do you think of that?
If I install that do I need to run any commands?
Thanks again.

Edit:
Whoops I fluffed that up, I have that "Configure Wine" application in the installed list in Ubuntu Software Center with an "Install" button, not a "remove" button, if I am not to install it how do I get the app out of the installed list?

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by Reece

Thanks for the heads up, looking at those files is a nightmare, I will wait till I know a lot more.
I now want to install Wine for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I got the Ubuntu Software Center to search and it seems to only come up with a development version 1.9.6. Should I install this?
I could just download it from firefox but again not sure of a suitable version.

Should I install version 2.0 this way:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/unstable
sudo apt update (I don't have a previous version, is this needed?)
sudo apt install wine2.0

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Sorry, I missed this post. No, I wouldn't install it that way.

I'd use the same rules I use for installing software in Windows, plus hooking repositories into Ubuntu Software and Synaptic Package Manager whenever possible. That way Software Update will update these programs every time it runs and you never have to look for the latest version again. Always go direct to the source group that makes the program. Then hook their repositories to Ubuntu so you can just download them in Ubuntu Software or Synaptic Package Manager.

The place to get WINE stuff is Winehq. Go to this page and follow instructions:


Actually, once you get to "sudo apt-get update" after you do that you can search for and install the latest WINE from Ubuntu Software or Synaptic because you've integrated the download process into the operating system itself with that last command. I went for the development branch and have never been sorry I did.

Due to external interference, my update from Fedora 24 to 25 failed, so I had to install 25 from disk, so my Ubuntu Virtual Machine isn't functioning at this time....

1.9.6 isn't a 'bad' version, it is just 1 year old.
Depending on which program you are trying to run, newer, is not necessarily better.
I say this because the Steam DX11 version of Red Faction Guerilla ran great in DX11 mode in 1.9.8, but 1.9.9, all the way up to the current 2.3 (that I have installed) it no longer works. Although, the DX9 mode still works well.
This is what is known as a "regression".

However, WINE 2.0 is a STABLE release.

Unstable "branches" may not be "unstable", but they are not tested enough to be "sure".

Usually what the "package maintainers" do, is exactly what RR quotes, they setup the "package" to do the work for you.
In addition to a few other things, such as testing for bugs.

I don't have to install the 32bit libraries as this is done by default with the Fedora repositories.
This is one of the reasons that I like Fedora, I don't have to do all the work.

If it works for RR and he has the same version as you, then you should be good to go.
BUT, YMMV.

If you just want to get familiar with WINE, then installing 1.9.6 would be a good place to start. Really easy to remove at that point.

Originally Posted by Skybird

I still have not figured out how to bind in a second Hd and then have not just data (archives for exmaple) stored there, but stuff being installed there. Okay, the second HD is bind into the system now, but I cannot install there, only manually store data and archives there.

All input I got on that in anothe forum so far tells me that this is to so easily possible. I have a hard time to bveleive that, since it would represent a monumental disadvantage of Linux, if true.

My laptop has a small SSD where Linux was preinstalled, and a 1 TB HD that I intended to use for installing working/gaming software. So far I ave not had any need to do so and only manually moved some mp3 and photo arhcives on the second, big HD. But if I would want to install some Steam-Linux games on the second HD with its much bigger storage capacity - how to do that?

This is one of the things that has driven me crazy so far.

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Did they actually tell you that couldn't be done? Foolish mortals. Here's the deal. The file tree in Linux isn't a literal file tree as we think of in Windows. In fact (play the mysterious music) EVERYTHING in Linux is a file: monitors, disk drives, printers, keyboards.........yikes.

Everything Linux does is organized into a tree and each part of that tree can live wherever you wish. If you make a partition and register it as /.home it's your home directory! The easy way to do this stuff is to identify the part of the tree that needs to live on another drive.

Here is some light reading that will blow what remains of your mind after reading the above. There basically is no Linux equivalent to Windows' \program files or \program files (x86) directories. Programs hang out in /bin or /sbin or /usr/bin or usr/share or /opt or /usr/local. That's fine. But then it gets crazy. Linux programs aren't little mutually exclusive universes. They share capabilities with each other by sharing all their libraries--the equivalent of Windows' .dll files.

So when I install 7zip in Linux, its functions are picked up and used by the Archive Manager, which picks up the ability to use 7zip files! so you better include /lib, /lib32 and /lib64 in your list of directories to move to the big mondo-drive.

Okay, you know what is good to move. Here's the plan. First you copy the directory you want moved to the other drive. Then you put a symbolic link in the Linux directory tree to have it look there.

So if you're moving /somedirectory to a new drive you'd do this

mv /somedirectory /media/otherdisk/somedirectory
ln -s /mnt/otherdisk/somedirectory /somedirectory

Your path to another drive may be /mnt/<diskname> instead of /media/.. like in Ubuntu. The first line moves the directory to your other disk and path of your choosing. I'd use cp (copy) instead of mv (move) because I'm just chicken that I'd break something.... Once it works you can delete the original directory with "rm /somedirectory."

The second line says make a link (symbolic) for your other disk directory into the tree of /somedirectory. Then whenever Linux needs to reference /somedirectory it will look where it lives, thanks to the symbolic link.

Skybird,

As far as installing Steam games to another drive, you can in the steam settings, tell it to install the games to another directory.

On the menu bar:
Steam --> Settings
Downloads tab: "STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS" button near the top.
"Steam Library Folders" box, "ADD LIBRARY FOLDER".
Then all you have to do is enter the directory that is your 2nd hard drive.


I did this on my Dual-Core in Fedora 20.
I was running an old 40GB IDE, and I had a SATA2 10,000rpm WD Raptor hard drive "mounted" at '/mnt/raptor'.
(usually as a user, you can't touch this directory, but it was still a NTFS partition, so Linux let me have full access.)
I set my Steam Library to /mnt/raptor/steamlibrary

Now as far integrating your 2nd drive:

1st: Are you clicking on the hard drive in your file manager to "mount" it?
Or is it automatically mounted when you boot your PC?

Second: If it is NOT being automatically mounted you will have to do that in

/etc/fstab

DO NOT PLAY WITH THIS FILE, YOU CAN BREAK YOUR SYSTEM.
When I say "Break", I mean it will no longer boot.
And unless you are comfortable with -JUST- the command line, fixing it could be -nearly- impossible.


This tells the system all the partitions that should be "mounted" at boot.
At which point, you can then proceed with setting up your system/programs to use the new drive.

If you can tell me how you are accessing it (i.e. mounting it manually or not), then we can figure out the next step.

If the 1TB isn't automatically mounted, then adding the symlinks that RR mentioned won't work.
As you would be pointing to another directory "mounted" on the same drive.
You need to first "mount" the 1TB to the filesystem, THEN you could symlink as required.

PLEASE NOTE: I tried to cover the basics of many aspects of this. I could explain this verbally really quickly. BUT typing this takes forever, and by the time I get home after reading the post on my phone, it is late and I've forgotten most of what I was going to type...

Barracuda

EDIT: To clarify, There are many things I "just do" with Fedora and a friend's Raspberry Pi, (running "Raspian", Debian based) without thinking about it. It is there, if you dropped your PC in front of me and said "I want it to do this." I would set it up. After, I would tell you what was where, and if you wanted to know more I would explain.
But, typing instructions out, "converting" to win/dos terms, and doing this across distrobutions (2 different ones in this case) on top of being VERY tired... and my post get either VERY long, or I start skipping (or repeating) things. And at the level Skybird would be working, could REALLY lead to bad results.
Once things calm down, I should be able to get back to having clear, detailed post about this.
My apologies if anything was unclear in this post.

[Rockin Robbins]

Suffice it to say that Linux treats resources entirely differently from how Windows does. Linux is about interoperability. Windows is about proprietary exclusivity. Just like translating between two languages like German and English, it's not enough to learn it consciously.

You have to learn to THINK and dream in both German and English, making them truly native processes before you can understand all the nuances. Barracuda is further along in that than I am. I know enough to go find what I need and probably understand it.

Just had a fun time learning about .desktop files. When you're looking at them they don't look like "VeeamAgentforLinux.desktop." Inside the file is the specification for what it will look like, what the icon is and where it lives in the guts of Linux. So "VeeamAgentforLinux.desktop" might display as "Micky Mouse" and you might not have any clue what it is! Luckily, people just don't do that.

So I wrote a script to run Veeam Agent for Linux as super user in a terminal window, put it in /home/steverobbins/.ssh, then wrote a text file named "VeeamAgentforLinux.desktop" on the desktop. It specifies the name of the program that will be displayed, the path to the actual script and the icon that will be displayed. I understand (poorly) that putting it in /usr/share/applications/ allows me to put it anywhere I want: desktop, launcher, maybe even indicator bar. So I made a copy there as well. Linux icons hang out in the /usr/share/icons directory.

All from the terminal window. I was pretty proud of myself for crawling a few feet there. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see it done in nautilus and gedit GUI applications. But learning the terminal version helps you understand the GUI better.

[BarracudaUAK]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Suffice it to say that Linux treats resources entirely differently from how Windows does. Linux is about interoperability. Windows is about proprietary exclusivity. Just like translating between two languages like German and English, it's not enough to learn it consciously.

You have to learn to THINK and dream in both German and English, making them truly native processes before you can understand all the nuances. Barracuda is further along in that than I am. I know enough to go find what I need and probably understand it.
...

Just to clarify my previous post,

I'm NOT saying that I don't look at the help file, or google to find where something is.
Since I usually forget it, as I rarely have to "fix" something in Linux after I do the initial setup.

What I am saying is that I know the main locations for the "core" of the system files.
I know how to get to the default txt editor (nano in a pinch, which honestly, isn't that bad), and I am (usually) smart enough to "comment out" things that I'm going to change, rather than delete them out-right in config files.
I know how to find the "man pages", and I write down a series of commands in a small notepad (which is currently still in a box somewhere...).
So if I break it, I can fix it.

I put my /home on its own partition.
In case I need to reinstall. Then it is no big deal.

But ultimately, I'm not afraid to "break" it. Just make sure you have a install USB Drive/DVD and can boot from it, then go.

Doesn't hurt that I've been (on someone else's PC) messing with Linux since Redhat 5, and had Redhat 9 installed before I found out about Fedora Core (I think FC3 was the first I installed), and I installed that.

I kept it as a "fix Windows XP" OS, and I also used many of the things that were "standard issue" in Linux to mod games.

I would use the "SDK" for the game to extract files I wanted to mod, then reboot to Linux to use editors and 3d modeling programs to make the changes.
Copy them from my XP drive to my Linux drive, make changes, then put them back in a new "modded" folder in my XP drive.
Reboot back to XP, then use the SDK for the game to put the changes into the game.

Through that, I got comfortable with Linux.
Now that WINE has come so far, I'm just running Linux.
(Better 3D drivers haven't hurt either!)


Skybird,

Open a terminal and type:

man mount

This should display a "manual page" on "mount".
Read it so you can become familiar with the way 'mount' works.

Then quit, should be "q", it should show the main commands that you can use in the "man" program at the bottom of the page.

Then type

man fstab

This will explain the way that "fstab" file automatically mounts your drives on boot.

"q" quits.

At this point you should have a basic, but good understanding of how to mount your 1TB where ever you want!

If you don't feel comfortable with it at that point, read it a few more times.
Try mounting your 1TB manually in the terminal, to see if you have it right.

At worst, it will simply "fail to mount", meaning, no harm done!

If you want some further input let us know.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reece,

I would suggest the same process for you:

open a terminal and type

man apt-get

it should have one.

Fedora has one for "dnf", which is the Redhat/Fedora package manager.
It's the equivalent of "apt-get".

That way you know exactly what you are looking at in the terminal.
And see if there is one for the graphical as well

"apper" is the name of the one in Fedora/KDE, and it has a "man page".

I forget the name of the Ubuntu graphical update program at the moment.

man <name of program>

works for just about everything!

RR should be able to tell you what it is.


I REALLY need to re-install my virtual machine software!

Barracuda

[Reece]

As I had explained earlier (post #26) I have installed wine but I don't know how to run it, there is nothing in the Dash only in Ubuntu Software Center, pressing Launch does nothing!! Where did I go wrong??? Should I remove it?