Raiders of the Lost Downboat

Zanna

6:05 AM

must think positive

Zanna

6:36 AM

I think kos is wrong here

that answer is a good one, seems to me

Zanna

7:47 AM

I voted to undelete

Zanna

12:30 PM

I have to laugh

I'd do the same thing, typical zanna screw up

Eliah Kagan

1:02 PM

I'm reluctantly thinking this answer should stay (or at least that we should not vote to delete it). It's almost certainly wrong and might have involved misinterpreting the question, but I don't think it's actually an attempt to answer a different question than the one that was asked. What do you (anyone here) think?

Zanna

1:30 PM

@EliahKagan I vote to delete useless generic things. I don't want people to come here and find things like that :/

Eliah Kagan

I just noticed they deleted it, possibly due to my comment.

Zanna

Yeah I saw. But I'm answering in principle... every case makes the law, I guess

Eliah Kagan

I'm somewhat worried about accidentally deleting things that may turn out useful. I think the answer's author had no reason to recommend it after considering my comment but I couldn't predict that for sure. The command appears (twice) as one of several in this apparently useful answer, and I expect that for most or perhaps all users that command is pointless--if downloaded .deb files are corrupt, their signatures won't verify--but it's hard to be certain.

Here on Ask Ubuntu we seem far more willing than other SE sites to delete things that seem like they're not useful:

This might not settle the issue; I think our site's policy is something best decided by the Ask Ubuntu community as a whole. But deleting answers for being wrong is generally regarded, network-wide, as an incorrect use of the 20k delete privilege. The SE-wide faq-tagged meta answer that we officially link to says "Answers that are wrong or that dispense poor advice should be downvoted, not deleted." I think we can override this, but I don't know that we should. — Eliah Kagan Jul 25 at 22:50

I like how we do it better than Stack Overflow where even answers that are clearly attempting to answer a totally different question, and are dangerous, and are downvoted, and don't really serve to demonstrate anything particularly useful even when taken together with their votes and comments, stick around forever and flags on them are swiftly denied.

Btw I should've mentioned before (since this is Raiders of the Lost Downboat!), I think we should consider the question either unclear or a duplicate of apt-get update very slow, stuck at “Waiting for headers”.

To be clear, if I were to argue that we should be less willing to delete, I would not use that answer as an example to make my argument. I came here with it hoping for a reason to cast a delete vote on it that I had missed. It's only in general that I'm concerned about this issue -- in many, I think most, cases, I agree with your delete votes. Of course, I do mostly find out about them by looking at posts that have been deleted after I cast the third delete vote... :)

Zanna

1:51 PM

:)

sorry I was just switching devices

Eliah Kagan

No problem. I step out for hours, sometimes days, without telling people in chat. :)

Zanna

@EliahKagan Yes it would be bad if we deleted something useful. If it might be useful, I try not to delete it. Sometimes I am a bit too keen to delete

I know that person has posted things in the past that just might work where there's no way of knowing if they would really solve the problem

@EliahKagan that's good to know :)

Zanna

2:16 PM

Hi @Anwar :)

I wonder if Shog would write a script to change bodhi.zazen's comments

Anwar

@Zanna Hi :)

Zanna

Hope all's well with you

Anwar

Yeah. By God's grace :)

This question looks like a normal dependency problem based Q. OP may have added some PPA for libc6 and then it was looking for higher versioned equivalent of similar application. But by then the PPA was removed or somehow apt/dpkg lost track of the software source, failing to fetch required version

Not very useful question imo. But what do we do? Up or CV? I vote for upvote

Zanna

so how would that be fixed? Database is corrupt?

We should probably point out somewhere that removing libc is probably the worst possible thing you can do to a Linux system...

if the question is going to live anyway

Anwar

No. Database is ok. But somehow he/she got newer libc6 which wasn't matching with g++

OP didn't remove libc6 (that would be impossible afaik), they downgraded it

Zanna

2:24 PM

yes you are right, but in the question they say "should I remove it and reinstall it?" I think

I think it's actually not impossible, but APT will make you type in "yes do as I say" or something like that

Anwar

Oh. I get it.

Zanna

Anyway, if you think that Q&A makes sense, I completely accept that

we can upvote it and maybe make some edits or comments to warn people

Anwar

Let me see what I can do

Zanna

:D

Anwar

Is it okaish now?

Zanna

2:31 PM

excellent work

thank you!

Eliah Kagan

@Zanna We could ask. Does Shog have to be pinged or does he just instantly know when anyone mentions his name in chat? :)

Anwar

@EliahKagan hi :)

It's a long time I've seen you again

Eliah Kagan

Yeah it's been a while since I visited this room. I had forgotten I was one of the room owners!

Spam.

Zanna

@EliahKagan haha say his name exactly nine times, then throw a pinch of salt over your left shoulder, and he shall appear

Eliah Kagan

So that's what the 9 in Shog9 is for!

Zanna

2:37 PM

AFAIK, we need a mod to contact him for us... it wouldn't be very nice to @ him on twitter about it XD

edwinksl

i still think it is better to @ him in twitter :p

Zanna

most of the people who come to this room own it apparently

@edwinksl fill your boots then, I'm not going to do it XD

edwinksl

7 people in this room? :O

Zanna

is that a record?

edwinksl

think so

at least in modern times

Anwar

2:39 PM

I don't

bbl

Eliah Kagan

What is happening with this question? I understand the two unclear votes (though I disagree with them, and I have edited the question to make it a little clearer). But why do people think this is off-topic? It's not about a specific website, it's about Firefox. It's even answered, in a way that clarifies that it has a solution in Firefox... and the author of the answer claims in the answer that the question is off-topic (which is the only reason I haven't yet upvoted the answer).

1

Q: When I type something in any website inside a form, it's hard to see

In Firefox, when I type something in any website inside a form, it's hard to see. I can see it but it's very faint. This happens on almost every website. How can I fix this?

firefox

edwinksl

reopened

Zanna

I don't think that question is off topic at all

I voted to leave it open earlier as I don't think it's particularly unclear either...

why would you answer a question and vote to close it as off topic?

hmm admittedly I do that, but I only answer in the comments haha which other people probably find silly and annoying

this is the last post on the board that isn't in no fix or left a comment

Hmm... I get a few hits about it that seem to verify

what about this?

Eliah Kagan

@Zanna If you're answering a question in a comment and voting to close it as off-topic as "not reproducible" I think that's usually bad. Otherwise I don't see it as a big problem. Sometimes users answer and VTC as off-topic because they think it is off-topic where posted but will be swiftly migrated somewhere on-topic. That clearly doesn't apply to that Firefox question, though, and is unlikely to apply to most posts on AU since we need moderator intervention to migrate except to meta.

I mean I don't see using comments that way as usually a big problem, in cases where it's not good to post an answer. I don't mean answering and voting to close as off-topic is not usually a problem. I think that is usually a problem--usually either the answer shouldn't be posted or the question shouldn't be closed.

@edwinksl Huh? Oh you mean voted to reopen, not reopened yet.

Zanna

2:55 PM

I was thinking of posts about Mint/Kali/Zorin/elementary etc, where I write something like "well, Mint is off topic here, but you could try some command or [this post here](link to post) and it might work. If not you can ask on Unix & Linux"

@EliahKagan exactly, one or the other

Eliah Kagan

Well, or neither. I don''t answer every question I don't VTC as off-topic. :) :) :)

Zanna

haha if only that were possible

Eliah Kagan

It would involve answering a lot of unclear questions and questions that were deleted before I joined the site.

Zanna

fair point XD

I'd be prepared to make some new cards today. I have some CAD drawings to do for my dad though, and on Sunday/Monday we'll have fresh data, so maybe we should just take the rest of the week off?

state of procrastination:
I want to launch QCAD to do some work, but realise I need to run it with `$HOME/opt/qcad-some-long-version-string-tab-completed-for-me-thank-you-bash/qcad` so I decide to fix this by dropping a symlink in my path for it, then I think perhaps I'll make an alias instead, then I realise I haven't touched my bashrc on this new system, then I realise I haven't installed Vim, so I run `sudo apt update` just because... it takes time, so I switch to another program... 2 hours later, QCAD still isn't even open

edwinksl

@EliahKagan oops, i meant voted

Zanna

3:11 PM

10k powerz going to your head XD

edwinksl

maybe i should just type VTR :p

Eliah Kagan

I don't know if it's used to mean this anymore, but I remember people (I think especially in this room) have sometimes used "VTR" to stand for "vote to resolve" where there's a solved question but the answer isn't upvoted, so the question will be "resolved" out of the unanswered questions list if it gets votes.

Zanna

oh I never heard that. Seems useful. We do a lot of that here. I usually type VTR-O for reopen

Eliah Kagan

Haha: Why can't we downvote our own posts?

Zanna

haha that made me smile. Love the username in the context

Zanna

3:34 PM

here's another post voted off topic that seems to me not to be off-topic also with an answer saying it's off-topic...

> I pasted the script into the terminal and it ran, then I realised I have no idea what I'm doing

XD

Eliah Kagan

3:51 PM

Oh that's the same author too.

"First, this Not About Ubuntu." Sorry to be a broken record, but what? — Eliah Kagan 1 min ago

Zanna

yeah. By some folks' standards I can't figure out what actually is about Ubuntu...

Eliah Kagan

Well it's inevitable that people will disagree. (Though in the case of the Firefox one, I don't think there is actually any possible policy that would make it off-topic, short of adding a "not this one" link from the help to that one question. There's no way to explain why that shouldn't be allowed but still have a site.)

But that's what we have the help and meta for. Which I don't think people consult enough before voting to close and commenting make statements about what the policy is.

Eliah Kagan

4:07 PM

I think sometimes someone comments to say we have a particular policy, then other users--including more experienced users than the commenter--assume the comment is correct and vast their close votes. That really only explains close votes on questions where they're on-topic but where there at least exist arguments for why we should have a different policy, like here:

0

Q: How to install xenomai3 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS?

I'd like to install a kernel with xenomai and I followed this link. It seemed to have successfully installed the kernel, but when I reboot and try to get into the installed kernel, it shows the below message and stops, nothing happens. Loading Linux 4.9.38 ... Loading initial ramdisk ... _ So ...

16.04 kernel

I don't agree or put much stock on any of the arguments people have made (at least thus far) for considering custom kernels off-topic, but the arguments at least exist and a noticeable minority of the Ask Ubuntu community would prefer to exclude them from our scope.

Zanna

Yes, I am a terrible go-along-with-er, because I always assume people know better than me (except when I think I know better, and then I become really arrogant and awful and usually get it all wrong)

edwinksl

so... custom kernels are on-topic?

Eliah Kagan

In contrast, I don't think anyone actually wants a policy of rejecting questions based on them being about officially Canonical-maintained software that ships preinstalled.

Zanna

so when I read people's comments I usually do whatever the comments are suggesting

Eliah Kagan

@edwinksl Currently we have almost a 3:1 majority preferring that they be allowed, so yes.

17

Q: Do custom kernels constitute off-topicness?

$hexafraction$ Originally, this question was closed due to a mis-wording, and is now in the process of being reopened. Another user pointed out to me that they believe that a custom kernel makes a post off-topic (while the original post may have been mentioning a proxy configuration, that is beside the point). ...

discussion scope

edwinksl

4:11 PM

ok

Zanna

there was a case that inspired me to ask my question about it - the user had a problem that was caused by them using a custom kernel

They didn't know the custom kernel was causing the problem, but someone here figured that out

Eliah Kagan

@edwinksl Given the answers and votes on @Zanna's later related but not identical question, I suspect the consensus might actually be stronger--but I don't want to assume it is, since I might be being misled by my own support for the current policy of allowing them. Either way though, the largest expressed opposition to allowing them is way smaller than the expressed support for allowing them that has accompanied it.

15

Q: Can I ask about a problem with a non-Ubuntu kernel here?

I realise that it's perfectly on topic to ask how to install a non-Ubuntu kernel, but what about problems that are specific to non-Ubuntu kernels? Are they and should they be on topic? If not, why not? And if so, given that the kernel is so integral to the OS, and considering how answerable such...

discussion scope

@Zanna ^^^ That one?

Zanna

but that person didn't want to answer the question because they thought it was off topic...

yeah that one... neither the Q nor terdon's answer got any downvotes

and nobody answered to say that it would be off topic

Eliah Kagan

And both the answers got significant upvotes.

Zanna

I still have that problem... I should actually ask a question about it (on U&L)

Eliah Kagan

4:28 PM

So, I think we have a number of answers--both about making custom live ISOs and about other topics that involve chrooting into an Ubuntu system and connecting to a network from inside the chroot--that use instructions from help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization, sometimes modified. But that article itself has been updated with some changes starting at 14.04 LTS... and maybe earlier versions. In particular I am thinking of:

> WARNING: If you do this in 14.04 LTS, you will lose network connectivity (name resolving part of it). /etc/resolv.conf is and should remain a symlink to /run/resolvconf/resolv.conf nowadays. To enable name resolving, temporarily edit that file instead.

Should we be trying to search for posts here and changing them?

I guess I should ask if the problem is confirmed.

Also there are some UEFI-related changes (which probably just apply to actually customizing an ISO rather than to chrooting and using a network in general).

I guess I could ask on meta about this but I'm not sure if I even understand the important issues well enough to ask a good question.

Zanna

That's a really good question and I haven't come across much material on meta about updating obsolete things... I feel like some people think we should preserve old stuff in its out-of-date state, maybe for the benefit of future social historians or something. If I let myself think about it, I feel really worried about all the obsolete stuff gradually accumulating on the site and I hope over time we'll come up with some workable policies to update it

My opinion is we should definitely try to fix those posts, but I am not sure how

I think asking about it on meta is a very good idea

Eliah Kagan

@Zanna I believe in preserving things that are obsolete, except when they were worthless originally or otherwise there's some big problem with them. But I still would support bringing answers up to date so people can continue using them. The old version will still be retained in the edit history and can be read by whoever... including historians.

Zanna

exactly

Eliah Kagan

All the edits we can view (without 10k privileges) are also in the data dump torrents, right?

Zanna

oh yes, absolutely

I don't want to delete everything just because it's old, I just want people to be helped by what they find here wherever possible

Eliah Kagan

4:40 PM

@Zanna Darn that requires effort. :) I will likely post on meta about it but I don't know when. I think I want to actually try those instructions with a recent release to see what happens, to see what else might go wrong and to verify that the bolded changes actually appear necessary. I've done live CD customization many times... but I haven't done it at all in the last few years.

Zanna

hmm maybe I could figure out how to ask the question. I'm sure it would be better if you did it, but I don't mind trying to do it. Or we could try collaborating to figure it out...

I'm looking for a post I tried to update a while ago but searching through revisions is terribad... I might have to write a little query to find it

Eliah Kagan

Which releases do you think should be tested on to help figure this out? I am thinking the latest point release of 16.04 LTS (usually which point release one starts from is irrelevant but this is about live CD customization) and also a daily-live of Artful (to help anticipate problems that may arise in the very near future).

Zanna

That makes sense.

Eliah Kagan

Let me see if I have a machine I can use as a host for a VM to test this. ...I don't know how to make a VM that behaves like a UEFI system with Secure Boot enabled, though, which I think is something that instructions need to be tested against. (So long as kernel and drivers aren't modified--or even if they are, so long as they're just being replaced with another signed version--custom amd64 ISOs should be able to boot with Secure Boot turned on.)

I could probably try booting the ISO on a physical machine, even if most of the testing I do is in a VM.

Well VMware lets you turn on Secure Boot for a guest: docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-vSphere/6.5/…

Zanna

neat!

Eliah Kagan

4:52 PM

Indeed. If I have to have Secure Boot enabled, better that it be in a virtual machine. :)

Zanna

I just got this UEFI machine that seems to be well-behaved. I don't have any unique data on this system, so I can do anything to it with no worries

edwinksl

swirlydino < jokerdino askubuntu.com/questions/949499/not-being-able-to-use-sudo

Zanna

suspected sock?

but jokerdino doesn't use Ubuntu

edwinksl

neither would he change the owner of sudo

Zanna

He would know where to find the duplicate of that post too

so in conclusion, it absolutely can't be him

Eliah Kagan

5:04 PM

Holy crap my download speed from cdimage.ubuntu.com just increased from 200 KiB/s to 3 MiB/s.

Zanna

O.o

curses, I can never find that post of terdon's about chown

Eliah Kagan

Is it this question?

5

Q: Set myself as owner of /etc with chown command now getting all kinds of errors

I needed to edit a .config file (which I know for a fact is not creating these problems, just to clear that up) and it wouldn't let me save it, so I took ownership of /etc and all contents with the command chown -hR username /etc and that let me edit the .config file but now whenever I try to ins...

permissions chown ownership

Zanna

yes :) I found it by searching for
user:85695 etc [permissions]

I don't like that we usually dupe those posts to things that say "you are doomed, just reinstall"

oops I'm supposed to be giving a Skype lesson!

back in an hour or so

edwinksl

as in a lesson about skype? the horrors if that is true ;)

karel

@Zanna You dupe linked to this question a few minutes ago: Set myself as owner of /etc with chown command now getting all kinds of errors. This question has an answer by terdon that has been awarded a +50 point bounty. terdon's answer looks good to me, so I voted to reopen the question.

Zanna

5:14 PM

@edwinksl lol thankfully not

@karel I think it's the best answer we have about borked permissions

Added my vote

Student isn't answering. She's probably having a nap

edwinksl

bloody hell

Zanna

Btw muru gave that bounty for the exemplary answer, but still the post is not well enough known imho

karel

I upvoted that answer too when I read it.

Zanna

thanks :)

Eliah Kagan

5:56 PM

@EliahKagan So, I had failed to notice that those instructions are for VMware vSphere, which I do not have. I don't know if Workstation or Player will virtualize machines with Secure Boot enabled.

This problem apparently went away by itself--see the recent edit--so I think we can close it as off-topic -> a problem that cannot be reproduced, since there's really no hint at all about what fixed it.

@EliahKagan I don't think it's supported in Player and Workstation. I haven't found anything for 12 (the current version) by searching, and it wasn't supported in 10.

Eliah Kagan

6:26 PM

I can make it use EFI instead of BIOS but I can't make it use Secure Boot.

Zanna

@EliahKagan voted

how do you manage to reply to your own messages?

edwinksl

chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/39600485#39600485 test

failed

Zanna

I don't have my userscripts on this machine. Need to fix that

Eliah Kagan

@Zanna I write : and paste in the number for the message I want to reply to. As far as I know the easiest way to get that number is to open the permalink and copy it from the address bar.

Zanna

Anyway, if needed I can try to boot anything with secure boot enabled

@EliahKagan thanks! I sometimes want to do that

Eliah Kagan

6:42 PM

It's nice because it links to the previous message and highlights it on mouseover too.

Zanna

then you can figure out wth you were talking about so much more easily

Eliah Kagan

If you reply to your own message and don't "read" the reply for a while, you get a network-wide notification, same as with any unread chat message that @s you. :)

edwinksl

@edwinksl test

:O

Zanna

lol

this could be a life-changing moment

edwinksl

@edwinksl very much so

Eliah Kagan

6:45 PM

@EliahKagan I believe jokerdino taught me this.

@EliahKagan I recall something about replying to future messages, too, but I don't remember if it's that you can or can't. It works!

edwinksl

hax

Zanna

haha jokerdino knows all the things

edwinksl

not really. for example, he doesn't know how to be in this room more often ;)

Eliah Kagan

@EliahKagan I think a message can reply to itself, too. Yes. And each edit to this message pings me because it is an edit to a message that implicitly @s me!

The numbers aren't consecutive, but are they predictable? Can I reply to the next message that will be sent?

edwinksl

crazy

you will break SE chat at this rate

but eh, for science

Zanna

6:51 PM

@edwinksl maybe he knows how to do that, but he doesn't want to do it

edwinksl

hmm

Zanna

hmm you're right, that's an insane idea

Eliah Kagan

9 secs ago, by Eliah Kagan

Can a chat message onebox itself?

2

Zanna

hahaha

Zanna

7:21 PM

here's what I was looking for - this was a difficult edit and I don't know if it was right - trying to update an essentially broken answer

here's the query I wrote for that - I want to know how to get the post even if I wasn't the last editor but I don't know what schema to use for that. My SQL skills are sub-basic

also, question is unanswered

I wonder if we can do anything with that question...

Eliah Kagan

Are there still wireless adapters whose only working drivers on a Linux kernel require ndiswrapper?

Zanna

I think I came across that post because I was looking for a dupe target or some information that would be useful to someone who asked a new question about the same card

@EliahKagan I hope not :S but someone was trying to do the most awfully convoluted process to install it and I couldn't find anything useful for them

here's the post

Zanna

8:06 PM

Speaking of answering questions closed as no-repro, I think my most or second most upvoted answer on U&L is to a question that is closed as a duplicate of a question closed as no-repro. That always tickles me

But they have different ideas over there. To them no-repro means something like "if a Linux-savvy person would never make such a silly mistake, it can't be reproduced"

but we had an almost identical question here recently I seem to recall...

Zanna

8:20 PM

I don't think this is unclear

but not sure we should reopen it

Eliah Kagan

9:36 PM

Yeah I'm not sure either. It's a duplicate if it's interpreted generally, or it needs more information if a more specific answer is needed.

Zanna

10:25 PM

Exactly...

Transcript for

Raiders of the Lost Downboat