Ask Ubuntu General Room

InkBlend

12:04 AM

What's this about zsh and fish? Real programmers use LISP for their command shell: clisp.org/clash.html

Lucio

12:23 AM

lol

This is nice for people who likes HW: hackaday.com

^ Mateo

Mateo

12:43 AM

@Lucio ah, yeah. that is a fun site

InkBlend

(my previous post was a joke, just in case anybody misunderstood that)

In all seriousness, though, having a Lisp-based shell might be nice for power users and people who want to write a lot of shell scripts.

Ubuntu Questions on U&L

0

Q: Cobbler+Ubuntu: Client can't find preconfiguration file

Trying to install an Ubuntu 14 host with cobbler. The host boots and configures the ethernet interface (I can ping it), then errors out with "Failed to retrieve the preconfiguration file \ The file needed for preconfiguration could not be retrieved from http://127.0.0.1/clbr/svc/ks/system/". I c...

Nathan Osman

Okay, this is just too awesome:

Phantom of the Floppera

►

2

Seth

nicee

Mateo

lol, it doesn’t end there: youtube.com/watch?v=lx_vWkv50uk

floppy drives have a new purpose ;)

InkBlend

12:55 AM

Can't watch because I don't have sound, but it looks awesome.

Speaking of retro, though, did you know that ed still comes installed on most modern Linux systems?

Mateo

woah, this one has a scanner as a instrument:

Queen Bohemian Rhapsody Old School Computer Remix

►

ah, kindof cheating with the oscilloscopes...

woah, that is an interesting move for steam:

a lot of promised games in that mix

InkBlend

TL2 and Magicka 2! YES

@Mateo Thanks for this, I never would have seen it if you hadn't pointed it out.

Mateo

1:10 AM

something to look forward to if on the level, that is for sure

oh, torchlight 2 already launched, cool

looks like today

InkBlend

I find it amazing that Valve has put so much time, effort, and money into Linux/SteamOS games.

Very unusual for a game company.

Mateo

it's quite an awesome thing

Mateo

1:25 AM

ok, time to try a regular ubuntu on my pi 2

Nathan Osman

1:37 AM

I need to build an ARMv7 DEB of NitroShare :P

Mateo

I think you can enable arm builds for ppa's, but someone has to flip a switch for you or something...

anyway, owncloud wasn't on snappy for arm...

ok, moment of truth. then I think I'll try to use lxqt on it

wow, lxde was a lot better out of box than rasbian

Nathan Osman

@Mateo Ah, perfect. I'll go bug someone then :P

Mateo

1:53 AM

;)

aka: they want people trying it on stuff first instead of throwing something at the builders

my guess anyway :)

Seth

@Mateo doesn't rasbian use lxde?

Mateo

yeah, but that is ubuntu, compiled for the armv7

the rasbian was still the same one they had for the old pi

raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=98997

built on 14.10 :)

Seth

2:17 AM

ah, neat!

Mateo

huh, lxqt might not be so easy...

ooo, how about kubuntu!

Seth

KDE is pretty heavy..

Mateo

I used to run it on my old via board all the time (plasma)

although, maybe I don't have enough space on the memory card...

Mateo

2:49 AM

@NathanOsman ooh, idea snappy app - drop target to your snappy box

Nathan Osman

There we go.

Mateo

program it to do a system backup when I turn off my lights ;)

since there is a home automation program on there too...

although it had a plugin for my lightswitch, I couldn't figure out how it wants the host uri formatted...

Mateo

3:21 AM

Nathan Osman

Woot - KDE!

Mateo

So far...

Let's try and adjust the settings

because it doesn’t like the shadows...

Anthony

3:35 AM

Heyo, is anyone here?

Nathan Osman

I'm here.

Anthony

Can I ask you a question? (About installing ubuntu)

Nathan Osman

Sure. I may not be able to answer but hopefully someone here can.

Anthony

When I install windows to my thinkpad t440p, I need to install a bunch of drivers. Do I not need to do this with Ubuntu? Moreover, I've installed Ubuntu before, and I've experienced poor wireless performance, does this have to do with how I'm installing? I'm a little unfamiliar with Linux.

Currently I have a partitioned drive- and I never use Ubuntu because it seems really glitchy on my computer. I'm not sure how Ubuntu works, but I assumed it must have just been particular to my machine for some reason.

In any case, I really want to just use Ubuntu, as that seems to be what the majority of people in the CS department are telling me to use...

Nathan Osman

I have had to install a driver on Ubuntu only once.

It was for a Realtek wireless chip in an older netbook.

Anthony

3:43 AM

So how does Ubuntu know what to install?

Nathan Osman

For the most part, the Ubuntu kernels contain drivers for pretty much everything you're going to plug into it.

Anthony

Hooooow. Why is Windows so stupid?

Nathan Osman

@Anthony The drivers are open-source. Because a lot of the drivers share common functionality, the amount of code required to support a vast array of hardware is reduced.

Anthony

What do you mean the drivers are open source?

Nathan Osman

...rather than having a ton of code duplicated in closed-source drivers produced by manufacturers.

@Anthony The source code is freely available for anyone to look at and improve.

Anthony

3:45 AM

For Ubuntu you mean?

Nathan Osman

For Linux in general (Ubuntu is a specific distribution of Linux).

Anthony

And Windows just doesn't do this because it isn't open source?

Nathan Osman

Windows drivers tend to be closed-source since they're written by the manufacturer.

Anthony

Oh...

Nathan Osman

Linux drivers included in the kernel are open-source and written by ordinary people like you and me :)

Mateo

3:47 AM

Anthony

Why don't manufacturers write drivers for Linux?

Nathan Osman

@Anthony Some do, but most don't.

Anthony

Any ideas why?

Nathan Osman

Probably marketshare. Not nearly as many people use Linux on their desktops.

Anthony

I see.

Mateo

3:48 AM

not bad, bit of theme choosing, and render settings, +Firefox

Ubuntu Questions on U&L

0

Q: Can't run binary executable on Ubuntu 12.4

I get the following error: ./cataclysm: command not found when trying to run this executable on a Linux server over SSH. when I run ldd cataclysm, I get: linux-gate.so.1 => (0xf7759000) liblua5.1.so.0 => /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/liblua5.1.so.0 (0xf7716000) libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/i386-linux-gn...

linux ubuntu ssh binary

Anthony

Pretty cool that the hardware is abstracted enough that you can have drivers that work fairly universally.

Nathan Osman

@Anthony There are a few that do - Realtek, for example.

Anthony

I see.

Mateo

bet xubuntu is going to be amazing on this :)

Nathan Osman

3:48 AM

Other manufacturers release closed-source drivers for Linux. AMD and Nvidia fall into this category.

Anthony

Oh. My graphics card is Nvidia.

Nathan Osman

The drivers are free and written specifically for Linux. But nobody can access the source code.

Anthony

Do I need to specifically install a driver for it? For windows I was downloading the drivers from the Lenovo site.

Nathan Osman

Nope. It won't work if there isn't a driver for it.

If it's working, you've got a driver for it :P

Anthony

Oh, wait, does the graphics card power the display?

Nathan Osman

3:50 AM

Yes.

Anthony

lol

Nathan Osman

Although there's a bit more to it than that.

Anthony

Yeah, I figured. Anyway I should be fine not installing anything extra, just about?

Nathan Osman

Virtually every video card on the face of the planet supports a few basic screen modes that are used to display the BIOS / boot screen, etc.

In order to use more advanced features of the card, such as 3D acceleration, you'll need an appropriate driver.

However, the Linux kernel (at least for Ubuntu) ships with generic drivers for AMD and Nvidia cards.

Anthony

I see.

Nathan Osman

3:52 AM

These are open-source drivers written by community members that work fairly well most of the time. They don't always work as well as the ones provided by AMD and Nvidia themselves.

Anthony

Drivers just tell the computer how to interact with devices, right? Like in particular, the kind of information they should be sending?

Nathan Osman

Yup.

Anthony

(And receiving)

Another thing is that apparently the newest BIOS for my computer didn't like dual booting- I ended up screwing up the BIOS and had to send in my computer- they fixed it, but I don't know what the BIOS is right now, but should I just go ahead and get rid of the two partitions, install Ubuntu, and not worry?

Nathan Osman

The BIOS has nothing to do with dual-booting. What probably happened is the MBR (master boot record) on your hard drive became corrupted somehow.

Do you want to dual-boot?

Anthony

Not anymore, I'd rather have a nice, clean version of Ubuntu, and learn how to use it.

Mateo

3:54 AM

hm... wonder if desktop-next will install on arm

Nathan Osman

If you're not sure, what you can do is download the Ubuntu ISO, burn it to a disc, and boot right from the CD.

It will leave your existing operating systems untouched and still let you try it out.

Anthony

Sorry, what I meant was I had to change my BIOS because I couldn't install Ubuntu (this was at the recommendation of an answer on this site) and the computer froze during BIOS installation. Anyway, my main point is, I don't need to make sure everything is "up to date" on the machine before I install do I? For instance, should I update to the newest BIOS and see if it works, so that I have the newest BIOS?

And naw, I'd rather just do away with the Windows side.

Nathan Osman

No, I wouldn't worry about the BIOS. Rule of thumb for BIOS upgrades: unless you know why you want to install an upgrade, you don't need to install an upgrade :)

Anthony

Ugh, I hate the idea of not being at the newest thing.

I know there's no good reason to feel that way.

Mateo

for bios it's a if it isn't broke don't fix it thing.

Anthony

3:58 AM

What do they even do to the BIOS in an upgrade?

Nathan Osman

BIOS is a special type of firmware.

So it works roughly the same way as updating the firmware on, say, a router.

Anthony

(Looked up what firmware was)

Nathan Osman

Updating the BIOS without a good reason is asking for trouble - don't do it unless you need to.

Anthony

I see. But why do they update it?

I mean it's not security, or anything that really affects your day to day life I would imagine. Is there some speed aspect? Why are there updatesssss.

Nathan Osman

Often it's to fix really obscure bugs that affect a small number of people or to address minor performance issues.

Mateo

4:01 AM

processor support, fixing things that you might really notice... rare bugs.

Nathan Osman

Ah yes, I forgot about that. To add support for new hardware. That's another reason.

Mateo

had a motherboard that upgraded to support a phenomon processor that had the same socket

of course if you don't switch out the processor, it didn't really matter to have the update

Anthony

I see

Well thanks guys!

I'll be installing Ubuntu soon...

Yay.

Mateo

good luck

Nathan Osman

@Anthony Glad to help.

Mateo

4:06 AM

check back in if you need anything

Mateo

4:18 AM

wow, "steam link" $50 box to stream from your desktop: engadget.com/2015/03/03/…

Nathan Osman

BRB... about to test out Unity 8.

Mateo

cool, I'm restarting to try xubuntu on the pi 2

Nathan Osman

5:18 AM

Greetings from Unity 8!

After much hassles and playing around with package installation, I now have a working Unity 8 desktop.

Couldn't figure out how to take a proper screenshot.

It's very glitchy.

And there's a lot of references to phone equipment that makes no sense on a desktop.

Okay, back to Unity 7.

Amith KK

8:59 AM

It isn't usable at all, is it?

Rinzwind

No it seems to take him longer than 3 hours to get back to unity 7 :-P

Fabby

9:37 AM

@Toroidal: Have you seen the discussion on my answer to you for me using the word "Obviously"??? >:)

Fabby

10:05 AM

@NathanOsman Are you sure it's not Windows 8.0? ;-)

hbdgaf

10:44 AM

@Seth - I'm working through converting Rapid GUI Programming with Python and Qt to Rapid GUI Programming with Python3 and Qt5. It's slow going at the moment, because first I have to copy paste the pdf and fix all the formatting issues, but it is a partial thing. If you want updates on the progress ping me.

Rinzwind

11:36 AM

is this dude being sarcastic? or ...

Thank you sir, your answer helped me a lot. — Srikanth Lattala 2 mins ago

hbdgaf

We get reaver questions quite often. I just ignore them

that said, there are a lot of parts to that question that make me think it's someone joking

KasiyA

12:26 PM

Hi. 1 vote to close: askubuntu.com/q/590574/283843

KasiyA

12:41 PM

Who knows how can I found this recently question on ask ubuntu?

thats title was something like this :"how to prompt to user before replacing with sed"
I googled but I didn't find it.

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