Why Linux?

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

I've also read that Linux isn't totally immune to viruses. Should I install some protection? Any recs?

Myself and the missus have run linux since 2001 (we used to use windows in the 90s). We surf online basically everywhere, do ecommerce, home banking etc.

Never had a virus. Never installed a checker.

Just don't take the name of root in vain, and you'll be fine.

UNIX is awesome.

[ReformedCharacter]

I think I've tried that before...but still, no luck.

I now have one of my videos on my desktop which opens with VLC. A couple of clicks and the sound comes on. Not ideal, but fine.

The speaker icon in the bottom right hand corner starts to work when do my sound activation process, but there doesn't seem to be a way to save settings.

Cheers

This looks helpful:

https://livingthelinuxlifestyle.wordpre ... inux-mint/

Good luck!

RC

[Infrasonic]

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-on-your-laptop-a-closer-look-at-efi-boot-options/

A review of what EFI boot (UEFI firmware) is, how it works, how it interacts with Linux installations, and a few tips and personal experiences on how to configure and maintain it.

Cont.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-on- ... -firmware/

This will be my last foray into UEFI firmware for quite a while. For those who are already tired of my writing about it, I apologize in advance; for those who have asked for more, here it is.

For the rest of you, I hope that you can find a few interesting and helpful tips and tricks in the following information.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcmkw22jV4g&t=0s

ExplainingComputers 6 Oct 2019

Manjaro & PCLinuxOS review and demos. For more information on how to install a Linux distro, see my “Linux Mint 19 For Windows Users” video, as linked below. You can follow the same process -- downloading an ISO and using Etcher to write it to a bootable USB drive -- for Manjaro and/or PCLinuxOS.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.howtogeek.com/442332/how-to ... lfp3-TP61U

How to Work with Variables in Bash
Variables are vital if you want to write scripts and understand what that code you’re about to cut and paste from the web will do to your Linux computer. We’ll get you started!

Cont.

[Infrasonic]

https://arstechnica.com/information-tec ... installer/

A detailed look at Ubuntu’s new experimental ZFS installer
Let's take a sneak ZFS peek under the hood of Ubuntu Eoan Ermine's latest build.

Cont.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

https://www.howtogeek.com/442332/how-to-work-with-variables-in-bash/?fbclid=IwAR3WMJNHkeF6fftN21IPyVACSMG-cUPn_jraWWZiiXSwALed9lfp3-TP61U

How to Work with Variables in Bash
Variables are vital if you want to write scripts and understand what that code you’re about to cut and paste from the web will do to your Linux computer. We’ll get you started!

Cont.

Not sure how far ahead you are on this, my friend, but do beware that if you assign some variables in a text file e.g.

PRINTER="192.168.0.55"
MAX_JOBS=5
..

then executing this file from your current shell, will not result in those variables being assigned into the shell. This is because current shell creates a subshell to run the script, and unless you state otherwise the lifetime of those variables will be bound to the lifetime of the subshell.

In order to assign the variables into your current shell use the "export" directive e.g.

export PRINTER="192.168.0.55"
export MAX_JOBS=5
..

and in order for bash to parse your variables file text use either the "dot space" syntax or "source" command, e.g.

$ . file.txt

or

$ source file.txt

Hope this helps. Apologies if this "old hat" for you!

Matt

[Infrasonic]

Cheers TMB, all grist for the mill.
I'm just posting stuff I find that might be of interest to Linux users (current or potential future) with no verification as to the accuracy of the links, so feel free to criticise with real world experience, the more the better.
HTG is generally quite good but they do get things wrong now and again, especially on article updates that have old dead links or (now) redundant procedures.

[tsr2]

Not sure how far ahead you are on this, my friend, but do beware that if you assign some variables in a text file e.g.

PRINTER="192.168.0.55"
MAX_JOBS=5
..

then executing this file from your current shell, will not result in those variables being assigned into the shell. This is because current shell creates a subshell to run the script, and unless you state otherwise the lifetime of those variables will be bound to the lifetime of the subshell.

In order to assign the variables into your current shell use the "export" directive e.g.

export PRINTER="192.168.0.55"
export MAX_JOBS=5
..

and in order for bash to parse your variables file text use either the "dot space" syntax or "source" command, e.g.

$ . file.txt

or

$ source file.txt

Hope this helps. Apologies if this "old hat" for you!

Matt

That doesn't sound entirely accurate to me, or maybe I'm just not reading it as intended?

Using export in a subshell does not make the variables appear in the shell the subshell was run from.

Using source or . makes the current shell run the commands instead of launching a subshell, therefore the variables will then appear in the current shell, regardless of whether export is used.

Export changes whether variables are passed to subshells, so if you have a shell file called test.sh that looks like this:

Code: Select all

echo $TESTVAR

then running

Code: Select all

TESTVAR=hello
test.sh

will print a blank line, but

Code: Select all

export TESTVAR=hello
test.sh

will print "hello"

[Infrasonic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpvlEbd ... pLheZH%3A6

ExplainingComputers 13 Oct 2019
Raspberry Pi 4 OMV NAS tutorial, including hardware selection, software installation and configuration. This video explains all you need to know to start using a Pi 4 -- or any other Raspberry Pi -- for sharing files across a local area network (LAN) using OpenMediaVault.

Cont.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Im still loving the Linux after ditching W10/MS Edge. It's quite a familiar desktop now - almost to the point where Windows is looking a bit strange.

The only issues I have are intermittent sound (and by intermittent I mean that sometimes it works on boot up and sometimes not). This is partially solved by playing a saved video and getting PulseAudio to start up in that. After that it works well on any video or sound clip.It is getting better (perhaps there was updates), but it's no biggie to start that vid and get it working.

No sound through headphones. This is a bit annoying. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually

Volume control buttons on pc not working. Again, not a huge issue as I can adjust the volume via the tray or in video.

Firefox kept freezing. Not very often, but enough to annoy. And I don't like that DuckDuck search engine. Solved by switching to Google Chrome browser.

The touchscreen doesn't work. No great loss.

Other than that, I like the Libre office set up and everything else, including the mini pc's keyboard, touchpad as well as a USB mouse seems to work fine.

To be fair, I'm never going to exploit the full potential of Linux. I'm just chuffed to see my ASOS laptablet working well.

Highly recommended! And FREE!

I'm sorry you're getting sound issues.

What hardware and distro are you using?

My days of such problems were more so in the 2000s with using RedHat and FedoraCore. I'm using Ubuntu-18.04 these days, seems very stable and functional.

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

You made me look for that......but now I know where to find that information (after looking up what 'distro' meant first....<ahem>.

Cheers!

System: T101HA Kernel: 4.15.0-65-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 7.4.0
Desktop: Xfce 4.12.3 tk: Gtk 2.24.31 wm: xfwm4 dm: LightDM Distro: Linux Mint 19.2 Tina
base: Ubuntu 18.04 bionic
Machine: Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: T101HA v: 1.0 serial: <filter>
Mobo: ASUSTeK model: T101HA v: 1.0 serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends
v: T101HA.203 date: 07/15/2016

And it it helps

Audio: Device-1: Intel Atom/Celeron/Pentium Processor x5-E8000/J3xxx/N3xxx Series Imaging Unit
vendor: ASUSTeK driver: N/A bus ID: 00:03.0 chip ID: 8086:22b8
Sound Server: ALSA v: k4.15.0-65-generic

Hi Snorvey,

Well it sounds like you're content with what you've got (TBH I think UNIX/Linux is fantastic, and ditched windows as my home OS back in 2001).

If you like, it's really up to how much of your time you want to spend....e.g. typing reports and uploading information, but there's nothing stopping you getting involved and raising *any* issues with the Ubuntu people themselves. These people thrive on making Linux as good as they possibly can, so it's quite possible someone in the Ubuntu development group will pick your report and run with it!

You'll have to either google yourself "ubuntu 18.04 reporting problem bug" and see where that takes you, or see if I am guiding you correctly with this link I've found just now:
https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-h ... ug.html.en

Sorry I couldn't be more help!
Matt

[Infrasonic]

https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/feature ... twork-boot

The latest Raspberry Pi is about to get a whole lot cooler, literally speaking. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has released a firmware update for the Raspberry Pi 4 which reduces its power usage and correspondingly its heat output -- and this time it doesn’t come with a nasty bug that causes certain USB 3.0 devices to switch from throughput measured in hundreds of megabytes to single-digit kilobytes. For those willing to play with beta software, there’s also a new bootloader to unlock the Raspberry Pi 4’s long-awaited network boot functionality.

No USB boot yet though.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh03L2CUgnk

Explaining Computers
10 Nov 2019

LattePanda Delta review and demo, including full hardware specifications of this Intel Celeron based, Windows and Linux x86 SBC. Also performance tests using CrystalDiskMark and PassMark Performance Test 9.0.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBph0XA ... APOrVB%3A6

Explaining Computers 17 Nov 2019
Icybox trayless mobile rack upgrade for my i3 PC, plus a new 1TB Samsung EVO SSD. All to ease my transition from Windows 7 to Linux Mint.

[Infrasonic]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ7Ly-9sX4k

ExplainingComputers 1 December 2019

Review of Photoshop alternatives for Linux, evaluating GIMP, Krita and Photopea against five key Photoshop capabilities.

[Infrasonic]

^^ What kind of backup/snapshot plan are you running with Linux?
https://linuxmint-installation-guide.re ... shift.html

[Infrasonic]

https://www.google.com/search?q=linux+m ... e&ie=UTF-8

Have a look through, see if any are the same as your issue. The Linux forums are pretty good for help, generally Linux aficionados are technically proficient (by necessity really...) so there's normally someone who has solved the issues and posts the procedure.

[Infrasonic]

Thanks.

I guess because it was a relatively new set up of mint I wasn't too bothered about a reinstallation.

It might be different several years down the line though....

If you start to rely on it as your primary OS you definitely want to be able to fix basic problems, restore snapshots and work out how to do file shares across various OS' et al.
It's one of those rabbit holes that is difficult to avoid going down unless you can afford your own personal systems admin guru...

[TheMotorcycleBoy]

Well I had my first major issue with Linux on Friday - and apparently this isn't an uncommon problem (with Linux Mint XFCE at least).

I was caught in an endless 'password loop'. The password was good via the terminal, but just not on the normal login screen, where the screen went black and returned to the password login. There was all sorts of fancy resolutions, which I didn't really fancy trying. I did, via the terminal, get into what looked like a safe mode ('Root'?) and I tried to reset it to an earlier version, but I didn't really know what I was doing and, to be honest, I couldn't be assed trying to work it out.

As Linux had only been on the system for a short time and I still had my USB installation stick, I thought 'what the hell' and just wiped and reinstalled. It didn't take long.

The only thing that was a bit of a pain was starting up all the websites I use and re-inputting all the passwords.

Sounds like X windows was misconfigured. It sounds like it couldn't load the graphics environment properly after you'd logging. Sometimes you can find a logfile, from a regular console login and get a clue whats up.