Ask Ubuntu General Room

Zacharee1

00:00

lol, the MythBusters are such bad actors xD

Seth

didn't mythbusters end?

Zacharee1

I think so. I'm just watching some older episodes

Actually, no. It has one more season left

Wow @A.B. askubuntu.com/questions/691391/…

Terrance

Yep, this is Mythbusters last season

Zacharee1

That guy seems to be copying comments and posting them as answers

Terrance

@Zacharee1 That happened to me on my very first person I helped. Another person copied word for word my comments and made them his answer. >:(

Zacharee1

00:14

Maybe it was him on another account? :p

*he ;p

terdon

I'm afraid answers posted as comments are fair game.

Zacharee1

Are they really?

terdon

Yup.

Zacharee1

wow

In that link I gave, though, that's a direct copy of a comment that's meant to be a comment

terdon

It's considered polite to reference the original comment but not essential. Answers should be posted as answers, not comments.

Terrance

00:15

It is still annoying though. He actually was doing it right after each post I made.

Zacharee1

wow

terdon

Well, don't post answers as comment then.

Comments are supposed to be ephemeral, they're easy to miss and hard to read. Answer belong as pretty, big and clear answers.

Terrance

I was working on getting an answer, but I was collecting info from the OP at the time.

Zacharee1

Isn't that technically plagiarism though? Copying even almost word for word without proper credit is.

Terrance

But, lesson learned, and I moved on.

terdon

00:16

That's the only way a question can be marked as answered. When you answer ina comment, it often leads to the question remaining open for ever.

Zacharee1

@terdon but without credit, it shouldn't be allowed

terdon

@Zacharee1 It is, technically. But the site needs answers, not comments. Hang on, I'll find you a couple of relevant meta posts.

Terrance

Or someone that doesn't understand your comment to click the gray checkmark next to your answer if it helped.

terdon

@Zacharee1 Comments aren't allowed. I mean, they shouldn't be used for answering.

Zacharee1

So SE allows plagiarism because a comment should have been an answer?

terdon

00:18

47

A: What should be done with questions that have been self-resolved as a comment instead of an answer?

We discussed this on meta.serverfault a short while ago and decided that you should Steal comments that answer the question and post them as an answer. You can always tick the Community Wiki box if you're not comfortable rep whoring.

^^ That

It's not about credit or rep, it's about the site having answered questions. Answering in the comments actively harms the site.

Zacharee1

It still doesn't explain the plagiarism part

terdon

The best behavior is to 1) ask the person who commented to post an answer instead; 2) wait; 3) post the answer yourself, referenceing the comment if you haven't expanded on it.

Zacharee1

It only says to take the answers, and even gives credit to comments it took

Right now what you're saying is plagiarism is fine, as long as it closes the question

terdon

Yes, it is certainly nicer if you give credit. I'm just saying that the network consensus is that comments are fair game.

@Zacharee1 No, I'm saying that posting an answer repeating a comment is fine. Don't generalize it.

Zacharee1

But that's the definition of plagiarism - not giving credit where credit is due

Nathan Osman

00:21

@Mateo the Go packages are here!

They are now being uploaded... \o/

terdon

@Zacharee1 Yes, I know. That's why you can make it community wiki.

Basically, we want to avoid having answers in comment so much that even plagiarism is better.

Terrance

I actually agree with @terdon It took me a bit when I first started coming here to realize that comments are just that. It did upset me at the time that he was copying everything I was commenting on when I should have taken it to chat and worked on it there with the OP

Zacharee1

That's just wrong

Seth

@Zacharee1 look at the timestamps. Answer was posted first ;)

Zacharee1

@Seth whoa...

terdon

00:22

@Zacharee1 Look, personally, I'll either know the answer anyway or can understand it well enough to expand on the original comment and make it a full fledged answer or, if there's not much to add, I'll make it a CW post so I won't get rep from it.

I will post the answer though, it's really annoying when questions remain unanswered because someone was too lazy to take the time and post a decent answer. Do we now have to leave the question unanswered for fear of offending whoever couldn't be bothered to actually answer in the first palce?

Zacharee1

I think it's good to get the answer in, but not without something like "like @so-and-so said..."

terdon

In any case, as @Seth points out, this particular case is something else. Not only was the answer posted earlier, it is more complete since it also mentions apt-get install -f which was not in the comment and which may well help.

Zacharee1

Yeah, I didn't notice that, but my point still stands. It just came from a false case

terdon

Not to mention that it really was the obvious answer. That's what anyone would have suggested.

@Zacharee1 Well, the general point is that plagiarising a comment is better than leaving the question unanswered. If the comment really was what gave you the idea, yes, you should give credit. It's only decent. It is not, however, a rule and it is not a rule precisely to teach people not to post answers in comments.

Zacharee1

wow

terdon

00:28

There's even a tag dedicated to this on the main meta: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/answers-as-comments

Terrance

But when you VTC a question because it has already been answered, it puts the answer in the comments.

terdon

What do you mean?

And here's a more "official" answer from an SE employee:

21

A: Is posting someone's comment as an answer okay?

You don't have anything to feel guilty about. If the person was interested in writing and maintaining an answer, they would have done so. If it was in fact the correct answer it's hardly likely that they would be the only one to think of it. Doing what you did by expanding it into a proper answ...

Zacharee1

What about a whole troubleshooting comment thread that someone reads and just compiles an answer from someone else's process?

Ubuntu Questions on U&L

0

Q: check if java process is running and re-run if it is not running

On ubuntu 15.04, I am running java app through vnc sessions. I have 8 defined sessions that are started during system boot. My question is, how do I create a script that checks to see if the process is still running on the various vnc displays (say :1 to :8) and re-start the java process if I d...

Journeyman Geek

~~if you want it, put a ring on it~~ if you want to answer it, answer it.

terdon

00:30

@Zacharee1 That would nont be cool, no. Not unless this happened a long tine ago and nobody has bothered to post the answer. But yes, I would edit that and add attribution if there was none.

Journeyman Geek

I'd say "based off X's comment..." if I wanted to attribute, but I don't consider that essential

Zacharee1

OK

terdon

I wouldn't do anything else though. Perhaps leave a moderately snarky yet balanced comment :P

Terrance

0

Q: Repair Windows 10's boot

First of all, I have already tried to search for a solution by myself and over the internet, but all I find are either different solutions for different cases, or mine same situation remaining unanswered or with solutions that doesn't work. Still could be my fault for now knowing the "correct" se...

boot dual-boot grub2 windows-10

^Put the possible duplicate right in the comments.

terdon

@Terrance Yes, but that's a link to another question the original will soon be closed. That's not answering in a comment, it's linking to another question that already has a proper answer.

Zacharee1

00:32

I was wondering...

Terrance

@terdon Good point.

No arguments from me. =)

terdon

Yay! Go forth, my child, and convert thy comments to glorious answers!

Terrance

@terdon LOL That is awesome! =)

terdon

:)

Nathan Osman

@Mateo Here are the packages: files.quickmediasolutions.com/deb/golang

Grab those, throw them in a folder and do:

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Mateo

00:45

@NathanOsman wow, sweet

user139252

Go for Pi :)

Mateo

well, I'll be going dark seeing mythbusters live soon

later all ;)

jrg

@Fabby Yes.

Nathan Osman

@Mateo Have fun.

jrg

@Serg Regular Expressions fry your brain cells temporarily, until you have time to grow them back.

Think of it like Mana or something.

You have to wait to regenerate.

The mental strain of holding a regex inside your head, all the rules, etc makes you wonder if the real world is... well, real lol

Nathan Osman

00:50

All I have to say is this: Regular Expressions first came from Perl.

Mateo

will post a find the Tek syndicate logo tshirt pic later ;p

although not as close this year, so probably won't be seen...

terdon

@NathanOsman Which explains why they're so awsome.

And did they really? PCREs did but surely regex predates Perl!

crasic

Anyone run try getting xenomai extensions running on ubuntu?

Nathan Osman

01:07

@terdon I thought that was the case.

I've got the camel book here.

terdon

> Regular expressions originated in 1956, when mathematician Stephen Cole Kleene described regular languages using his mathematical notation called regular sets.[3] These arose in theoretical computer science, in the subfields of automata theory (models of computation) and the description and classification of formal languages. Other early implementations of pattern matching include the SNOBOL language, which did not use regular expressions, but instead its own syntax.

Ah:

> In the 1980s more complicated regular expressions arose in Perl, which originally derived from a regex library written by Henry Spencer (1986), who later wrote an implementation of Advanced Regular Expressions for Tcl.[11]

Getting all this from the WP page on regexes.

Nathan Osman

Yeah, reading my book hasn't revealed anything.

And it isn't the camel book. It's the llama book :P

I think...

Whatever this is:

terdon

Hey! Welcome to the dark side!

Nathan Osman

Hard to tell...

Despite Perl's reputation, that is a pretty good book.

terdon

I love how two of the three authors of the camel book are active on SE.

Nathan Osman

01:11

Does a great job of explaining things.

crasic

@NathanOsman Pretty versatile animal

terdon

@NathanOsman Which edition? If it's Tom Christiansen's, the man can write.

Nathan Osman

4th edition.

terdon

Ah, Schwartz, Phoenix, and brian d foy according to WP.

And Perl's reputation is really undeserved. Perl coders might deserve it but not the language itself.

jrg

sigh

To generate #1 albums, 'jay --help' recommends the -z flag.

terdon

01:13

@jrg Yeah, you're right, let's talk about editors instead :P

crasic

Serious question, when should initramfs be rebuilt?

jrg

@crasic when shouldn't it be?

terdon

@jrg Tuesdays.

jrg

(OK, that was a bit of a trollish answer.) But what specifically are you asking?

@terdon OK, so unless today.weekday.is_equal_to 'tuesday'...

crasic

What system changes aside from replacing the kernel image entirely require a rebuild of the ramfs

say if I'm making changes outside of the apt sandbox

jrg

01:15

I think that's it.

All that comes to mind anyway...

crasic

the flipside of the question is when should I include an initramfs hook into a driver package

Nathan Osman

I'm a bit fuzzy on the purpose of initramfs... isn't that what the kernel uses before the root FS is mounted?

Or... something else?

jrg

Bootloader loads initframfs into memory

the initramfs then contains just enough to load the kernel and init.

and then hands off the boot process.

crasic

Im looking at it now

its a basic FS with your typical suspects in /bin and /sbin

jrg

Nathan Osman

01:20

Ah.

Seth

@jrg I have 99 problems. So I used regex. Now I have 0 problems.. or at least that's what the bug tracker says.

6

crasic

I think the kernel works in the ramfs after init, until fstab loads the root fs

jrg

There. that actually does a pretty good job of explaining where initramfs/initrd fits in during boot.

crasic

Initramfs includes copies of all kernel driver modules under /lib/modules

so it would appear that any module you want loaded at boot should be put into the ramfs

so If I want to include a development driver outside of the apt sandbox it would appear I need to rebuild ramfs

jrg

Yup

Nathan Osman

02:18

Running debootstrap on a Pi should be considered a form of torture.

This is funny:

.@elonmusk Are you accepting candidates with only enterprise cloud computing experience? And can I still be CEO of Box?

Tweeted by levie on November 20, 2015 at 1:55 AM in reply to elonmusk

crasic

02:34

@NathanOsman why not just run debian in LXC?

Mateo

cool, spoted sudo make me a sandwich t in the wild ;)

Nathan Osman

@crasic On a Raspberry Pi?

crasic

@NathanOsman Yeah, why not?

Nathan Osman

@Mateo That reminds me - I was in the elevator the other day and someone saw my "Ask Ubuntu" shirt and said they were using it at their workplace (I think they were referring to Ubuntu).

@crasic I never considered that. Might have to look into that.

crasic

LXC is a kernel level container, there is no virtualization hit

Nathan Osman

02:35

sbuild is just a chroot so there's no performance hit there either :P

crasic

Of course, LXC is basically the millenial developers chroot

Nathan Osman

Lol.

Mateo

@NathanOsman cool, did they say what work?

Nathan Osman

No, it was a short elevator ride :P

And he said that as he was exiting.

Seth

02:57

@NathanOsman interesting. Have you considered the focus issues might be a hardware/software issue?

Chan-Ho Suh

03:24

speaking of programming books and millenial developers, after I mentioned something in a programming book, one asked me, "You have programming books? I thought only programmers over 50 read programming books!"

Nathan Osman

@Seth Are we talking about the camera?

Seth

yeah

Nathan Osman

Yeah, I'm not sure. It sometimes has difficulty auto-focusing when the shutter is depressed halfway.

...even in ideal lighting.

Though to be fair, it didn't always do that.

Seth

have you checked if there is a firmware update?

Nathan Osman

No, that might be worth doing.

Though I've never seen a point-and-shoot camera that actually got a firmware update more than a year after the original manufacturing date.

Zacharee1

04:27

Wow, two spam posts in a row

Had to screenshot

C'mon people. More spam flags; they're still there

LOL. The link on this one doesn't even work

-2

Q: How To Firm Up Sagging Neck Skin?

But what are wrinkles? Lines are like good lines as you are able to discover on the skin's surface, they seem once we grow old because the cells separate less easy, along with the central coating of skin, the dermis, becomes finer. Elastin, that will be the protein that confers the amount of qual...

php

dat grammar tho

Zacharee1

05:40

WOW

A LOT of spam

Zacharee1

06:00

Is anyone even here?

@Ravan you online?

Ionică Bizău

06:12

Morning!!!

How are you doing guys?

jokerdino

3 messages deleted

Nathan Osman

06:33

I'm here now.

jokerdino

06:48

Hi there.

A.B.

07:00

Morning all :)

@Zacharee1 what do you mean with "Wow"?

kos

Morning @A.B. o/

A.B.

@kos \o

edward torvalds

07:31

does anybody know what does option 7 mean? it is from logs of mounting a drive on boot: Ownership and permissions disabled, configuration type 7

Nathan Osman

@jokerdino Hey. Long time no see.

edward torvalds

hi people o/

Nathan Osman

@edwardtorvalds o/

A.B.

@NathanOsman have you seen? You got an answer for a five years old question :)

Nathan Osman

I did?

Which one?

A.B.

07:38

Oh, let me check

@NathanOsman :). askubuntu.com/q/74478/367165

Ok, four years.

Nathan Osman

Oh cool!

Thanks!

kos

That won't work because the package has runtime dependencies that won't be installed with apt-get build-dep. — Nathan Osman Sep 19 '12 at 1:35

So apt-get build-dep is unreliable? O.o

Nathan Osman

It works. Just not for this purpose.

apt-get build-dep installs the packages needed to build something.

That may not include packages needed to run something.

kos

@NathanOsman Nevermind. I never posted anything.

:D

Ask Ubuntu Meta

1

Q: How can I get people to continue to respond to my question?

I currently have a question posted, "I have partially uninstalled wireless driver iwl4965, wireless never worked, no option to install proprietary drivers". And I haven't had a response in 2 weeks. What can I do to encourage the two experts who initially offered suggestions, to revisit my problem...

discussion

Nathan Osman

07:51

According to the repository the Raspberry Pi folks have set up, overlayfs is built as a module in kernel 4.1.

However, I'm getting strange errors when I try to use it.

jokerdino

@NathanOsman Sure about that? We meet every other week..

Nathan Osman

My memory fails me on a weekly basis so there's that :P

@jokerdino Anyway, nice to see you here. Even if it has only been two weeks :)

jokerdino

Likewise. (:

Nathan Osman

Hrm. According to /proc/filesystems, this kernel doesn't support any of the overlay filesystems.

And yet here it is in the kernel config.

Just finished building NitroShare for the original Raspberry Pi.

hg8

08:10

Good morning =)

kos

@hg8 o/

hg8

@Fabby I am here if you still need help....

A.B.

Folks, today the... Legendary badge... Perhaps ^_^

@hg8 o/

hg8

@A.B. Perhaps ? When was the last time you did not hit the 200 limits ? =P

kos

Please VTC this, it's around since yesterday: askubuntu.com/questions/699939/list-installed-program-using-c-c

Byte Commander

08:23

Good morning people!

kos

Morning @ByteCommander

hg8

@ByteCommander Hi =)

Byte Commander

o/

Stefano Palazzo

@Zacharee1 "...collagen materials (which are meats that serve in encouraging the skin)"

:D

morning all

hg8

@StefanoPalazzo o/

A.B.

08:40

@@ByteCommander @StefanoPalazzo o/

@hg8 -_- but today is the last day and maybe some happens...

Byte Commander

Morning! :-)

@cl-netbox When you come back, you could answer this one: askubuntu.com/q/700246/367990

You could answer with GRUB's ISO-boot.

Or better, you add a dupe close vote and answer the linked question instead.

Nathan Osman

09:02

So I didn't need to recompile my Raspberry Pi kernel to enable overlayfs after all. I merely needed to run "sudo modprobe overlay" :P

Rinzwind

09:22

People like @Oli more than me. He only answers half the question and gets twice the amount of upvotes :(

Oli

Heeeey, I was answering the title question.

Rinzwind

LOL

That's your defense you go with? :D

is this worth it to remove mint?

0

Q: How to apply interactive hooks to dual screen - Mint

I have setup interactive hooks. But they only apply to my main (laptop) screen. When I hook up a external monitor they don't get applied there. I tried deactivating and reactivating them. It doesn't work. Any idea's?

multiple-monitors mint

or close it?

Oli

It needs fairly serious expansion to be answerable (ie what are their current "interactive hooks") so I'd lean towards closing it

Rinzwind

ok

HEY STOP COMMENTING BEFORE ME :=D

Oli

:D

Rinzwind

09:27

AND STOP CLOSING IT

geez :D

ah damn, here we go again. Mali 170 people taken hostage :( :(

Takkat

Weird SSH issue I had yesterday: after setting up a new box, installed openssh-server as usual, but then my ssh user@host just sits there and waits... no errors. Now I am stuck how to debug this.

Rinzwind

We do not start with "good morning" anymore and just dump a problem? :=)

edward torvalds

does anybody know what does option 7 mean? it is from logs of mounting a drive on boot: Ownership and permissions disabled, configuration type 7

@Takkat you need to show us error

Takkat

We imagine a "hello to everybody in this world" shouted all the time :)

@edwardtorvalds If I had an error I'd probably not be stuck... but there isn't... it just sits and waits.

Oli

@Takkat Does turning on verbose mode help? Might show you where it's hanging.

edward torvalds

09:31

@Takkat I mean error message?

Rinzwind

@Takkat IP conflict might make it stall

Oli

ssh -vvv user@host

Rinzwind

brb. cake \o/ since there is a b-day here

Oli

That might be too verbose. One v is usually enough.

Takkat

@Rinzwind ah - good idea... my router sort of is very generous in giving away IPs.

@Oli hrmpf... thanks... I totally forgot there was a verbous mode :/

@Rinzwind happy birthday to the unknown birthday-haver :)

Nathan Osman

09:37

1:35am here and I'm still going strong :P

Working through the review queues now.

Takkat

everything up to 4:00 am is manageable :)

provided there is enough coffee around.

hg8

Spam in french now :/

Byte Commander

Can anybody please review my answer here and check if there are any dangerous or wrong things in it? askubuntu.com/a/700326/367990

Takkat

09:55

@ByteCommander manual restore to vanilla: hours to days + outcome doubtful - fresh install: 20 minutes + outcome best. Your second sentence is what made me +1 ;)

A.B.

@Takkat @ByteCommander same here +1

Rinzwind

@ByteCommander changed 1 word. and +1 too

Takkat

If the also want to wipe the drive for their personal stuff they need to zero the disk (takes a loooong time).

Byte Commander

@Takkat Well, sure. I doubt that 20min would be enough for a fresh install, but that the manual thing is a pain in the lower back is for sure. he asked for it though...

Rinzwind

@ByteCommander my record is 18 minutes :=)

Byte Commander

09:57

And thanks to all 3 of you for the upgoat. :-)

@Rinzwind :O

Rinzwind

@ByteCommander ssd as boot disk <3

Byte Commander

That explains it... :P

I have to fiddle around with good old 5600rpm disks.

Rinzwind

and it was with 14.04. The releases after it took longer (as in a 2, 3 minutes more)

Byte Commander

>.<

hbdgaf

So... it seems like I called AMD as bottomed out 6 months ago trading at 1.86 or so. Now it closed at 2.14. 15% gain in 6 months. I just doubled a mutual fund in my head ;) feels accomplished

Rinzwind

09:59

@ByteCommander if we both had a 5600 rpm and you started installing and I went to the store to get an ssd, mount it and then start installing. .... my system would be up and running before yours >:)

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