Is the idea that community-maintained flavors only have LTS support for three years? And if so, does that actually apply to installed systems, or does it pertain only to the issue of how many point releases there will be and support for the installation ISOs?

@EliahKagan LTS releases of community flavours are usually supported for 3 years instead of 5 now. See the first point under "Features of Ubuntu GNOME 14.04 LTS" here.

@EliahKagan Honestly I have zero idea how that works, sounds very counter-intuitive.

Okay. That accords also with that I see at lubuntu.net/lubuntu-1404-trusty-tahr-released. But I'm still unsure if this applies to installed systems. I mean, what if you use the minimal CD and install the task, rather than the metapackage?

That's virtually identical to a system installed from the official flavor-specific media (not exactly identical, probably, because the process of installing with Ubiquity is quite different from the process of installing with d-i, and I think that will leave traces... but darn close).

These sorts of huge policy complexities have gotten me to increasingly wish we never implemented the policy of EOL questions being off-topic. For quite some time, they were on-topic on Ask Ubuntu. The proposal to make them off-topic was raised repeatedly and eventually got enough support to be made policy.

I was pretty much neutral at the time, and even pushed for actually implementing the policy we have today (details are in the meta question), based on the showing of support for it. Now I am still undecided about whether it was right, but I am feeling some pangs of regret.

@pomsky Can you answer it? Either way, I wouldn't close it based on the circumstances you just described. The system they actually have installed on their machine is an Ubuntu system whose software is all from Ubuntu packages, right? I don't think Ubuntu GNOME shipped with any PPAs or anything enabled once it became official, did it?

But I don't want to discourage you from posting on Ask Ubuntu Meta about it if you think it's important to figure out if it's technically on-topic before proceeding. I'm not sure it's possible to figure out if it's technically on-topic...but the main generally good approach to a situation that you don't know how to deal with is to ask other people, and even though not enough people visit our meta site, I think it's still much more traveled than this room.

@EliahKagan I guess not, I vaguely remember I installed gnome-desktop and removed unity from my installation of vanilla Ubuntu Xenial, and it turned into "Ubuntu GNOME" right away!

Certainly I hope you haven't derived any statement about how our polices apply to it from what I've said. Because I have no idea! My hope about our policy is that it is, or will turn out to be, something that is feasible to actually apply. In my opinion, that would requite that there be something concretely not Ubuntu about a system whose repos are all for a particular release, in order for it not to be regarded as supported until the EOL date of that release.

But that's just my hope, and I haven't really thought this issue through yet.

@EliahKagan I posted an answer. Hopefully others will also think it's okay to keep the question open.

[ Natty ] 16.04 Ubuntu not booting properly on Dell Inspirion Mini 1012 By: user820522 3.5;

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL-only title, bad NS for domain in body, bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, +5 more: www.bluesupplement.com/tru-loss-forskolin/ by user820567 on askubuntu.com

→ 3 messages moved to Island of castaway thoughts

OT Raspbian

@EliahKagan woah that question has a lot of zero score answers. I am going to look at the anonymous feedback (voted to undelete the answer, one more vote needed)

this answer has 24 anon upvotes, 4 anon downvotes

this answer has 41 anon upvotes, 54 anon downvotes

this answer has 4 anon upvotes and 1 anon downvote

there isn't much anon feedback for any of the other non-deleted zero voted answers...

(I'm not suggesting any action, just... talking nonsense for no reason as usual XD)

how can I adjust that query to count anon feedback on deleted posts?

[ Natty | Sentinel ] lxc LXC - public IP mysteriously not working By: Jonny Whatshisface 4.0;

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body, link at end of body, pattern-matching website in body, potentially bad keyword in body, repeated URL at end of long post: Man Plus Vixea as your standard’s trouble by Lorenabrecht on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL-only title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, blacklisted website in title, +1 more: mumybear.com/nitridex/ by user820620 on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body: What is the Cut off for IBPS RRB Result 2017? by triptikhandal on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, link at end of body, +1 more: Nitridex for most legal steroids by squirtsnap1 on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, pattern-matching website in body: Not authoritative abundant vitax forskolin by harryberry on askubuntu.com

[ Natty | Sentinel ] boot Wifi and graphics issues after software update By: T. Grégoire 4.5;

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] URL-only title, bad NS for domain in body, bad NS for domain in title, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, +6 more: supplementlab.org/nitridex/ by Febe Viera on askubuntu.com

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, link at end of body, +1 more: Turmeric Forskolin@Where to Buy? by dhadantoda on askubuntu.com

too broad/opinion based

I've VTC'd it as too broad. One more needed.

@muru Thanks for the dupe suggestion of How to combine multiple commands in terminal? for Semicolon or double ampersand for chaining commands?

Through it, I found Which one is better: using ; or && to execute multiple commands in one line?, which I think is perfect for it. I cast the final close vote, and they're both in the banner -- which I want -- but I suggest changing the order so that the "Which one is better..." question appears first.

I suggest this based not just on the wording of the title but also the content of the question and especially that of its answers. I'd change the order myself but I still have not earned a gold command-line badge. The system deleted your comment when I cast the final close vote, which is why I'm pinging you here instead of attempting to reply there.

@Zanna That question (now closed) is not in good enough shape to be migrated, but I kind of wish the OP would improve it, so that it -- along with its answer -- could be migrated to Unix & Linux or Raspberry Pi.

@Natty Hmm...

I think that's actually giving a solution. I'm not sure the answerer's problem is the same as that of the OP. I've commented.

@Zanna Does SEDE ever make information about specific deleted posts accessible, aside from the situation when they were deleted but the deletion is not yet reflected in the weekly snapshot?

I don't think we would regard this question as OT bug. But is it a duplicate of something? It sounds familiar...

Is this NAA? I'm not sure. make sometimes uses a shell...

Is this question a duplicate of something?

Both this highly upvoted meta post and its answer support flagging comments like that. (The OP wants a command that does nothing. A command that prints a line may be acceptable; a command that clears the terminal is not going to be acceptable.) But should I have custom flagged?

do you want me to custom flag it?

@Zanna Only if you think it needs to be custom flagged. I had not intended that as a request that a custom flag be cast.

@EliahKagan yes, there is a PostsWithDeleted (or something like that) schema

but only limited info is available. There is no post body for them, for example

Normally I ask people to post an answer when they post "half-answers and dumb advice" (to quote the meta post) as comments. But in this case it would be asking them post an answer that I would already know I would downvote and possibly even vote to delete...

well that's the problem, we can't downvote or vote to delete comments...

so I don't know if any kind of feedback is available for deleted posts... need to investigate

@Zanna That question got closed and I have commented and voted to reopen it.

@Zanna Oh, sure, it would have been better if they'd posted it as an answer. But I don't want to advise someone to put in the effort of answering when I so strongly believe it will not be of value to them or anybody else.

@EliahKagan oh thanks for catching that...

@EliahKagan oh I see "please don't answer in the comments as mentioned here on meta... but also don't post this as an answer as it doesn't answer this question"

I would be pretty annoyed if I was expecting nothing at all to happen and what actually happened was that all the output I'd been reading suddenly vanished :)

I custom-flagged the comment

@EliahKagan something like Is a clean install better than upgrading?? but are they asking for instructions there? Which can be found elsewhere...

@Zanna It does something so far from what the OP is requesting, that I think it might be regarded as NAA. I am not certain we would regard it as NAA, but I know I would downvote it, and I would try to figure out if it was flaggable as an answer.

@EliahKagan related to this one?

I'm not sure. I've posted a "maybe related" comment.

hopefully they'll comment or write an answer if it helps

This edit needs a second rejection. The editor should post their own answer if they want to present such a changed version of the script.

rejected. I probably would have skipped that if you hadn't mentioned it, as I wouldn't know whether they had just corrected some minor indenting atrocities etc

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad NS for domain in body, bad keyword in body, bad keyword in title, blacklisted website in body, link at end of body, +2 more: Turmeric Forskolin is really works? by windsouzaa on askubuntu.com

[ Natty ] 16.04 Can I install PulseEffects (v3.0.6 or newer) to Ubuntu 16.04.3? If yes, how? By: Abhinav Ananth 3.5;

[ Natty | Sentinel ] drivers Sound card not detecting By: Popat Babu 4.0;

@Zanna Minor atrocities. :)

@Natty tp

whitespace melodrama :)

Unclear

if only we could call the compiler as a witness

@Natty tp

(but attempted to fix it as the link looked promising)

[ Natty | Sentinel ] usb External CD/DVD writer (LG GP57EB40) not detected on Ubuntu 16.04.1 By: JohnFluter 5.5;

@Natty tp

I think this question is unclear so far

This is a dupe, but a better target is askubuntu.com/questions/969784/…

ok, added that as a suggested possible duplicate :)

Thanks! :)

@Zanna The situation there is confusing. I don't agree that the two commands they showed should do what they want, because the second command will undo the substitutions performed by the first command. After all, it is not reading from the output file, and the changes from the first command should not have been made to the input file itself.

The only way it wouldn't undo them would be if it modified the file in place. I wonder if they mean something other than what they are saying, about which files are being modified and which files they want to (or do not want to) be modified. Anyway, I would be extremely surprised if they had some other command called sed that ran the regular sed with the -i option or otherwise overwrote files. Who wants in-place changes with sed by default?

@EliahKagan that's true, but they wouldn't do what OP says they do either

@EliahKagan malicious people

(I mean, that would be terrible and nobody would want that for themselves)

@Zanna Indeed they would not.

@Zanna That seems like sort of weak way to cause harm, considering what's possible. :)

lol

I mean, a person doing a horrible prank

I've VTC'd as unclear and commented.

thanks :)

@Zanna Other than the several messages you moved recently, the most recently moved messages were from before discussion of the bash/C++ question we each answered.

They did include the messages about the earlier sudo question you answered, though. Might you have been thinking of that?

very likely, because that answer had a lot of similar things in it, it seemed to me

Similar things in this answer and that answer?

hmm... maybe the feeling I'm having that I'm writing the same answer over and over again is some kind of delusion caused by... excess SE exposure

Hmm, well as I once mentioned in a footnote on meta, there are important things in life besides SE. :)

haha +1 to the footnote

I get a 404 for the link in the first footnote btw

seems deleted

must earn rep on MSE oh wait... what was that 2nd footnote again?

@Zanna Thanks. I've just fixed the link.

thank you Web Archive

@Zanna Thanks. :) Really it's Jon Ericson's post (linked and discussed in my meta answer) that's good, though.

yes, I like that post too :)

@Zanna Indeed. Downloading and using an old data dump is a hassle.

thanks for editing that question... I wanted to, but I feel guilty bumping meta posts

I'll try and move messages about that answer to the island soon. (If we discuss it further before I move them, I'll move the newer messages too.) Should I also move the messages about comment pings over here? It's not the central topic of this room but it's about how the site operates; we'd definitely not move them to the island if they'd started here. I don't know what's best.

I think those messages belong here, personally. I think in my mind the scope of this room is roughly anything that would be on topic on meta

Okay. I'll move them. I might do that sooner, actually, as it's the quicker and easier move. :)

indeed

@Zanna Having just edited my answer, the question was already bumped, so I felt like I should fix anything in the question that needed fixing, too.

haha I guess it didn't register with me that you needed to edit your question to fix the link. Most of my brain is definitely elsewhere today this week most of the time

Do we (as a community) automatically despise YouTube links in question (and perhaps consider spammy?)? Pretty sure this got downvoted just because of the link.

@pomsky They should try to describe the problem as exhaustively as they can as well. But there's nothing wrong with YouTube links per se. It can be very helpful for an OP to show a video or animation that clarifies what they are asking.

Unless the it actually is spam, like them telling us they're showing us one thing but actually linking to a video about a product or to their own entirely unrelated YouTube channel, I would not consider it spammy.

they wouldn't be able to take a screenshot at that stage...

@Zanna Yes, the first comment is not at all helpful.

Is this question answerable?

Despite some timewasting caused by @EliahKagan, I have edited the post to add a very poor quality image of what I think OP meant. I was distracted by a foot sprouting from their screen, but I think I got it...

The edit looks good.

@Zanna thanks!

thanks for bringing it up!

@EliahKagan not by me

[ Natty | Sentinel ] drivers Ubuntu 17.04 - dummy output By: Madhu 5.5;

OP edited that post but I don't think it makes any more sense than it did originally

@Zanna Perhaps slightly. I've posted another comment.

As the question currently stands, I still think we should close it as unclear.

rules out the evil fake sed program at least

At least it makes that possibility less likely.

@pomsky I think we can just flag that comment as no longer needed, especially since Zanna's edit includes a still image.

@EliahKagan Done! And it vanished immediately! Does the system automatically remove a comment once it gets a stipulated number of flags?

I believe so. There are also some words in comments that make them disappear instantly when flagged. One of them is "accept"... Any expletive will also work. I think there's a character limit below which a post that contains "thanks" will be instantly deleted if flagged too?

Should this be posted (with proper attribution) as a CW answer?

This comment isn't needed anymore, is it?

@EliahKagan Yeah, missed it. Thanks for pointing out.

@EliahKagan I've done that, because I thought it was a good idea

please upvote on my behalf if possible

@Zanna Thanks! I've upvoted that CW answer. Sorry I didn't take the initiative and post it myself.

no problem! thanks for upvoting and for pointing out the valuable comment. I meant to come back to that question and see if anything could be done, but I got distracted (I blame the internet for totally destroying my attention span)

What to do with this?

The error says OP is not running GNOME shell.

OP never clarified whether this error is a false-negative.

seems unclear to me, unless the reason for getting that message can be figured out

Yeah, OP didn't reply to my comment too. Looks like Washington Irving fell asleep for 20 years!:D

(à la Rip Van Winkle)

alas, you are talking to an ignoramus :( but I voted to close the question

I've added my close vote.

This is neither no-repro nor "went away on its own"!

IMO

Yeah, I've voted to reopen that question.

@Zanna (same question) Relating to what you had said, it's not a great question or anything, but part of what was going on seems like it may have been a conceptual misunderstanding, and the answer addresses such a misunderstanding.

And anyway, this particular SE site (Ask Ubuntu) does not have a policy of closing questions that boil down to typos.

Btw I would definitely not upvote that question in its current state, and I don't advocate that anybody else do so either (because it's an image instead of copied text), but if anybody retracts their downvote, then it will take the rest of the 48 hours from when it was first posted to be deletable by 20k users (unless someone then downvotes to bring it back to -3).

That question has a delete vote, and I do not think it is a good candidate for quicker than usual deletion, even if people decide to leave it closed.

@EliahKagan yes I agree. And I don't think we should have a policy that "typo=no-repro", not only because of what I said, but because of what you said about how that policy works on U&L. If they can't apply it helpfully, I don't see why we'd do any better here. People would just be arguing about what was in OP's head

I think I've already (possibly repeatedly!) mentioned my personal grievance against that policy XD

I haven't downvoted that question, btw

I had not assumed you did. Instead, I had downvoted it, and I removed my downvote, taking it from -4 to -3, then I posted those messages about it.

(I've voted to reopen it though)

[ Natty | Sentinel ] drivers How to install driver for DVB-T2 USB TUNER EVOLVEO SIGMA T2 on UBUNTU 17.10 (or newer ubuntu rls.)? By: Lukáš Hofman 4.0;

@Natty tp

← 5 messages moved from Island of castaway thoughts