/fglt/ - Friendly GNU/Linux Thread

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Users of all levels are welcome to ask questions about GNU/Linux and share their experiences.

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Before asking for help, please check our list of resources.

If you would like to try out GNU/Linux you can do one of the following:
0) Install a GNU/Linux distribution of your choice in a Virtual Machine.
1) Use a live image and to boot directly into the GNU/Linux distribution without installing anything.
2) Dual boot the GNU/Linux distribution of your choice along with Windows or macOS.
3) Go balls deep and replace everything with GNU/Linux.

Resources:
Your friendly neighborhood search engine (try to use a search engine that respects your benis such as searx, ixquick or startpage).

$ man %command%
$ info %command%
$ help %command%
$ %command% -h
$ %command% --help

Don't know what to look for?
$ apropos %something%

Check the Wikis (most troubleshoots work for all distros):
wiki.archlinux.org
wiki.gentoo.org

Sup Forums's Wiki on GNU/Linux:
wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Category:GNU/Linux

>What distro should I choose?
wiki.installgentoo.com/index.php/Babbies_First_Linux

>What are some cool programs?
wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/list_of_applications
directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page

>What are some cool terminal commands?
commandlinefu.com/
bropages.org/

>Where can I learn the command line?
mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide
linuxcommand.org/tlcl.php
grymoire.com/Unix/

>Where can I learn more about Free Software?
gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html

>How to break out of the botnet?
prism-break.org/en/categories/gnu-linux

/t/'s GNU/Linux Games: /t/'s GNU/Linux Training Videos: /fglt/'s website and copypasta collection:
fglt.nl && p.teknik.io/wJ9Zy

Other urls found in this thread:

without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_systemd
youtube.com/watch?v=VSbNumR9Z8k
twitter.com/AnonBabble

What's systemd?
What's the botnet?
What's bash?
New guy installing Xubuntu on Windows10 so I can install Sourcemage so I can install gentoo.

Anyone use Ubuntu with just open-box or i3?

Source Mage GNU/Linux

...

Why does PID 1 refuse to be killed through basically any means? Is there a way to kill it? just out of interest. I tried killing it with basically every signal and nothing happens.

why is systemd so bad?

all my coworkers like to crack jokes about systemd but no one could explain me what it did, and most importantly, why it was bad/good.

I understand it's a complex topic so you can keep it short desu

without-systemd.org/wiki/index.php/Arguments_against_systemd

killing it would probably result in something like a system halt
I don't see why you'd wanna try that
if you want to go initless, add init=/bin/sh to the kernel parameters in grub when you boot

is there any reason not to just do this, start all the services myself, and then startx manually?

For what purpose?

What would be the general architecture of a script that sends a broadcast udp packet on a given port, then prints out the hosts that replied?

I tried that myself, got everything to work except xorg and wayland (weston)
some stuff like audio and framebuffer access required setting the permissions for those files for regular users
also, udev cannot function without systemd, so when you plug a usb, it won't be visible in /dev

is there any reason not to just write all your software yourself?
why use something someone /else/ made?
this is what you're asking

That's basically single user mode isn't it?

when you boot with /bin/sh as your init, you're logged in as root and all you get is the console, which is like a tty, but lower (the thing that appears right after grub, before any login prompt, where init systems dump all that text, the device file is /dev/console)
from there you can do almost anything you'd do in a regular tty, but some keyboard shortcuts don't work (like ctrl+c and such) and you'd be in trouble if something took a shit and you couldn't change the tty and kill it
from there you can enter a tty though
just type
agetty tty1 linux

you'd need to type that for each tty you want to use
from there you can login as a regular user if you want

I'm not sure how single user mode is defined though

Yeah some of the old Linux stuff I don't have a definition of like single user mode, and I honestly don't know what runlevels are or for.
I would personally just define single user as being dropped into root without needing a password

>i dont know what runlevels are
See.
This is the world we live in with systemd

when do we start calling it systemd/linux

runlevels are a concept within init systems like sysv init
systemd has an equivalent concept known as targets
each runlevel/target requires certain services to be running
they're basically labels that kinda define the system state regarding services that are running
that's convenient because you can change the system state with one command
if you're on runlevel 5 (or graphical target), you can issue a single command to drop to runlevel 3 (multi user target), which is just terminating all the services required for a graphical session
if you want to go into graphical session again, you don't need to start service by service manually, you can start them all at once by telling the system to go into runlevel 5 (or graphical target)

I'd just like to interject for moment. What you're refering to as Linux, is in fact, systemd/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, systemd plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning systemd system made useful by the systemd corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.
Many computer users run a modified version of the systemd system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of systemd which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the systemd system, developed by the systemd Project.
There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the systemd operating system: the whole system is basically systemd with Linux added, or systemd/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of systemd/Linux!

Runlevels were dumb and deserve to be left in the past.

why?

more like systemd/systemd

Systemd has a "run level" concept, it's called targets.
I am also willing to be money that this guy has not the slightest clue about run-levels, except that "uhm, it's, like, when you start your computer and shut it down". He just likes to scratch the surface of technical topics so he can appear smart.

I have a laptop with Intel HD 3000 and Radeon 6650m. I'm thinking about installing either Ubuntu or Debian. How well does Linux work with switchable graphic cards? Is it possible to turn off iGPU in Linux and use only dedicated GPU?

How fucked am I, Sup Forums? I bought a Dell Precision T1700 at an auction a year or two ago and I keep on getting this same issue.

In Slackware I'll get a segmentation fault while running Firefox. It makes it impossible to run. The same thing happens when I'm compiling and when I'm using Gimp. Everything works once a reboot, but, after an hour or so, pretty much everything starts to segfault again. I've installed Slackware multiple times, with different filesystems and partition schemes. In fact, I've had the same exact issue on Debian and Devuan. When installing both Gentoo and Funtoo, systemrescuecd will consistently segfault during emerge -auDN @world. First it'll segfault while compiling, and, if I run the command again, it will imediately, consistently segfault, and Firefox will crash, too. What should I do?

Why is it advised to run -Syu when wanting to update a package, Instead of simply updating that single package?
For example, If I want to update to the latest Firefox, why don't I run pacman -S firefox

I believe this command also updates the repos and updates all old packages, so unless you want to type that command for each package that needs upgrading use syu
but im not arch user so dont take my word for it

because you probably have more that one package to update and you need to run `pacman -Sy` to update your package lists anyway

-S is fine if you know your lists are still up to date
if you haven't touched anything in a while, you should use -Syu, otherwise;
a. it could fail to find the package(s), if they have been updated since your last list sync
b. packages are made with the assumption that everything else is up to date, so the thing being installed may not work if other things are not updated at the same time

Then wouldn't -Syy solve that?
Also what if I need an older package?

For example application A needs Version 2.00 of package C, while application B needs version 5.00 of package C.

How do I go about that?

It's been a while since I used Linux, and even then, only casually. Debian doesn't come with sudo now, is there another way I'm supposed to do things, or just install sudo?

sometimes listed package from offline database is outdated
for example, when you pacman -S foobar, pacman will download foobar-1.0, while in the repository it's already 2.0, so download would be failed, because pacman download the package according to offline database
and to update the offline database you need to pacman -Sy

that shouldn't happen on an up to date system

use su and install sudo if you think you need it

>Then wouldn't -Syy solve that?
this just means "force update package lists"
it doesn't update packages
and you rarely need to force it, you should only do that if your list files are damaged or something

>For example application A needs Version 2.00 of package C, while application B needs version 5.00 of package C.
this isn't something a user should need to worry about
typically what happens in arch is that the older version is split off into a new package, for example, "libpng12" for libpng 1.2.x instead of "libpng" for the latest version, and packages needing 1.2.x will depend on the the new package instead

When I boot I have to do fsck /dev/sda2 in rootfs (it just automaticly boots into it)
what is causing this problem?

If i do a minimal Centos 7 install, I can install kde plasma simply using the command yum groupinstall kde... right?
The yum install commands automatically know where the installers are on the web right?

just use arch

nothing wrong about installing sudo.

It happens when an older package doesn't get updated.

>when an older package doesn't get updated
well that's not an up to date system, is it?

did you
pacman -Syu

today?

What if the application still calls for the package with same name as the latest version?

Application A calls latest version of libpng with "libpng" while it should call "libpng12"
Or if the older package are no longer in the repo since it got updated?

it's the maintainers' job to make sure things like that don't happen

>What if the application still calls for the package with same name as the latest version?
if it does that and shouldn't, then report it as a bug (with the package)
>Application A calls latest version of libpng with "libpng" while it should call "libpng12"
applications don't load libraries by the names of the packages they came in
>Or if the older package are no longer in the repo since it got updated?
if something is removed from the repos, then it is no longer supported, so you're on your own

adding to these, due to the nature of rolling release, there can be gaps between library and application releases, where things are temporarily out of sync
most of the time you can just ignore it and stay on the older version until things are back in sync

I see.
I have issue running an application that require QT 4 while I'm using QT 5.

>most of the time you can just ignore it and stay on the older version until things are back in sync
How do I do that?
Do you mean I downgrade or something?

you needn't concern yourself with the jobs of the maintainers
shut up and enjoy your distro

no, i mean just let it fail to upgrade until the dependencies are valid again

for example, lets say libpng was updated, and something you currently have installed depended on exactly the version you have
libpng will fail to update, as doing so will break the requirements of that other thing
most of the time, the solution is to just ignore it and wait until that thing has been updated to handle the newer version of libpng, or at least changed so it depends on an alternate libpng version package

Bash question:
width=640
height=360

# doesn't work as expected
# only prints 360
echo $widthx$height

# works, prints 640x360
# but is it correct?
echo $((width))x$((height))


Why does 'x' eat '640x' in the first example?

how is bash meant to differentiate "$widthx" from "$width"?
use ${width}x${height}

as for
Why does 'x' eat '640x' in the first example?

bash is getting the variable name by reading every valid variable name character after $, which is "widthx" in this case
you haven't set "widthx" to anything, so nothing is printerd

What if it was the other way around?
For example an application was updated but it needed the newer version of libpng?
But libpng won't update because it will cause conflicting with another application?

some hardware failure
monitor cpu and system temperatures (maybe it overheats during high load like compilation), check RAM (memtest), drives (SMART,full scan), see if replacing the PSU help

/fglt/-chan daisuki~

that application won't be updated until everything can be satisfied

>bash is getting the variable name by reading every valid variable name character after $, which is "widthx" in this case you haven't set "widthx" to anything, so nothing is printerd
Ok. I assumed (derp) would only point to variables I had defined.

I was trying to Google search what 'x' did in bash, thinking it was a command of some sort that I needed to escape.

But it makes sense now.

>use ${width}x${height}
Thanks user.

How often you should run -Syu?

>2017
>Not knowing how parenthesis work

anyone on Arch know how to install Discord without using the AUR?

I really hate using the AUR because I don't want shit being broken due to packages maintained by random neckbeards

cry

I run it about 2 times a day, whenever I remember

In general, you can read the package itself to see what it's doing.

I have some gnome tool installed idk how and why but I get a popupp saying how many updates I have
its a nice gui
I run it 1 time a day but update later updates with that tool

Is Xubuntu actually different than Ubuntu, or is it just Ubuntu pre-set to use Xfce? Like, do they share repos, or does Xubuntu use it's own?

you're a retard, the one from the aur is the same one you'd download from the upstream
the only difference is that you've got a nice pkgbuild that someone else has written for you so you can install it as a package through pacman

>packages maintained by random neckbeards
kek do you even know what the AUR is?
there is 0 actual packages in what you call the "Arch User Repository"

>Not knowing how parenthesis work
Well the double parenthesis worked when I needed to do some math. So I started using it everywhere and took a shot with this problem.

#!/bin/sh
#--------------------------------------------------------------------
# 4-24-2017
# Create a black image with a white rectangle
# The origin pixel in IM is (0,0)
#--------------------------------------------------------------------
out_file="alpha-04.png"

width=640
height=360

# thickness of black perimeter around image
thickness=40

# starting coordinate of white rectangle
x0=$((thickness))
y0=$((thickness))

# bottom right coordinate of white rectangle
x1=$((width-thickness-1))
y1=$((height-thickness-1))

echo "point0 = $x0,$y0"
echo "point1 = $x1,$y1"
echo "rectangle = $((x1-x0+1)) X $((y1-y0+1))"

convert \
-size 640x360 \
canvas:black \
-fill white \
-stroke white \
-draw "rectangle $x0,$y0 $x1,$y1" \
-fill yellow \
-stroke yellow \
-draw "point $x0,$y0" \
-draw "point $x1,$y1" \
$out_file

#--------------------------------------------------------------------
# [2,278 bytes]
# verified with mtpaint
#--------------------------------------------------------------------

But I guess I went a little crazy with it.

arch is for advanced users only

can someone fill me in on the whole systemd dilemma

if the files needed to generate a package doesn't count as "a package" as well, then i guess distros like gentoo have no packages, since that's all they provide

no, gentoo has it's own repos and patches
the AUR isn't a real repo because it contains no actual packages
it just contains build scripts

the AUR can also contain files alongside the PKGBUILD, like .desktop files, patches, icons, etc
they work the same as gentoo packages

All Ubuntu spins are just Ubuntu with a different default DE.

Not that user, but....

cli = command life interface, terminal

ytdl, mpv and ffmpeg are all programs that can be ran from the terminal.

I think that user was trying to say that the cli offers advanced options for more experienced users.

What does /fglt/ think of the alpine linux?

I am looking into trying it. It looks cool, and it is completely free of GNU components by default (uses busybox+musl).

So nothing is different, it would be literally the same as installing Ubuntu, uninstalling Unity, and installing Xfce and it's Ubuntu theme?

Pretty much, but why would you do that if you can have Xfce already installed by default?

Just wanted to be sure. If there were other differences, I would have preferred to just switch the DE myself, so more of the stuff I'll inevitably run into issues with will be the same as what I'd find on Google.

how the fuck do you make fonts on arch look good? is the infinality package in aur safe to use?

what's a simple CLI way to extract rars on GNU/linux?

install unrar

Post yfw xfce 4.14 is about to depend on consolekit/systemd :^)

youtube.com/watch?v=VSbNumR9Z8k
this face tbqh

FUCK
I was thinking that it would be one of the last DEs to depend on systemd. Also, is KDE going to depend on it eventually/does it already? At least elogind seems functional enough for now. what does logind even offer gnome and xfce that they couldn't do when systemd wasn't around?

How can I escape from Poetteringware? It seems like almost every distro, DE, etc. is going to depend on it.

So i installed arch on my system but there is a glaring problem. I cant seem to install my catalyst AMD drivers and the free drivers just crahs when i start a x session. I just wanted a minimal clean OS thees dependency issues are getting in my way. Has anyone here had better success with the amd drivers

switch to a distro that defaults to using something that is not systemd for init and service management, because it's bloated and buggy. IMO it's not good enough to use a fork of a distro, like devuan. They're still totally controlled by upstream. Eventually debian will integrate more with systemd. after that it's really pretty unnecessary to avoid poettering's and red hat's software. Pulseaudio is in my experience, usable but unnecessary software. Just use a DE that doesn't depend on pulse, and a distro that doesn't preinstall. Other poettering/red hat ware includes dbus, and udev, which at this point are basically inescapable on every distro. There's nothing really wrong with them either. red hat is also one of the largest contributors to the kernel code. there aren't very many DEs that don't depend on poetteringware, so you should probably use a wm like i3 or openbox,

It's going to take a few years before it's released anyway.

Gentoo or move to *BSD.

if you don't want to compile everything you can:
join BSD-cucks or
join Void or Devuan autists or
join the Slackware cult (it doesn't have systemd *for now*, but it may include it in future version since Patrick isn't a systemd-hater)

Does NixOS have systemd?

Probably? Void it is then

ONE OF US

>Does NixOS have systemd?
Yes
In fact that reminds me, I forgot to mention GuixSD as another strain of autism (SD does NOT stand systemd)

Some parts of the KDE desktop can optionally use systemd, but no hard dependencies. It's mostly like that due to KDE's ties with BSD.

why timers when cron was 10x easier