Is anybody else using Linux?

[mybike]

I just had to use a fix I hoped to never have to use: emergency file system repair via bootup. For some reason, my Linux desktop PC found some filesystem corruption, and as a preventive measure it remounts the root filesystem (i.e. the one mounted on the '/' directory) as read-only.
So I had to

1. reboot.
2. hold down Shift key at the BIOS splash screen to show the grub menu.
3. select Advanced.
4. select Recovery mode.
5. select "Drop to root shell".
6. run the following to repair filesystem errors: fsck -A
7. run the following to remount '/' as read-write: mount -o remount,rw /
8. run the following to continue booting: reboot

Once I'd done all that, after Linux was running again, everything seemed normal, so it seems to be all good again.
Sorry, I omitted step 0: before doing ANY of the above, while Linux was still running with '/' mounted read-only, I backed up about 2GB of essential directories to an external disk, because backup ALWAYS comes before any corrective action, ALWAYS!

Anyway, just thought I'd post the above, in case any of you ever need to use it. Fortunately, having '/' mounted read-only isn't quite as bad as it seems, because it's the filesystem mounted on '/home' that contains most or all of your working files. So I was still able to read emails, run Firefox, etc. But I was getting odd errors when starting up Dolphin file manager, and running the 'sudo' command for any reason just didn't work properly.

Regards,

--- Victor (the ex-birthday 'boy').

Thanks, that looks really useful. Presumably the odd errors would be down to failure to log events.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just had the most frustrating weekend of Linux ever!
For some reason, after I returned from France just under 2 weeks ago, Linux Mint 17.3 running on my home desktop PC would no longer suspend-to-RAM properly. The fans and lights would turn off, then about a second later, it will all start running again, and the desktop would re-display. I must have tried just about every fix mentioned on the internet for this problem, and none of them worked! (although I did learn more about Linux's more obscure configuration files and utility programs )
Then, after having dinner last night and watching TV for about 90 minutes, I returned to the desktop PC, only to find that it was sitting there with no lights or fans running, because it had in fact suspended to RAM! So now I don't know exactly what change I made fixed the problem.

I also had to apply the file system corruption fix again, the one I mentioned 2 posts above. It happens rarely, so it's nice to know the fix is fairly reliable.

Unfortunately, power-management is one of Linux's weak points, or that's the impression I get from various online fora and other web sites. Suspend-to-RAM can mysteriously stop working when the kernel version, or your graphics driver version, gets updated. I updated both of these on the weekend, but only after I noticed suspend-to-RAM had stopped working, so I don't think these updates caused the problem.

 

[mybike]

I just had the most frustrating weekend of Linux ever!
For some reason, after I returned from France just under 2 weeks ago, Linux Mint 17.3 running on my home desktop PC would no longer suspend-to-RAM properly. The fans and lights would turn off, then about a second later, it will all start running again, and the desktop would re-display. I must have tried just about every fix mentioned on the internet for this problem, and none of them worked! (although I did learn more about Linux's more obscure configuration files and utility programs )
Then, after having dinner last night and watching TV for about 90 minutes, I returned to the desktop PC, only to find that it was sitting there with no lights or fans running, because it had in fact suspended to RAM! So now I don't know exactly what change I made fixed the problem.

I also had to apply the file system corruption fix again, the one I mentioned 2 posts above. It happens rarely, so it's nice to know the fix is fairly reliable.

Unfortunately, power-management is one of Linux's weak points, or that's the impression I get from various online fora and other web sites. Suspend-to-RAM can mysteriously stop working when the kernel version, or your graphics driver version, gets updated. I updated both of these on the weekend, but only after I noticed suspend-to-RAM had stopped working, so I don't think these updates caused the problem.

I've always suspected that swap disk space is a prime factor in the failure of suspend.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I've always suspected that swap disk space is a prime factor in the failure of suspend.

Agreed, and various web sites said the same. My swap space is slightly larger than the RAM size, and the UUID for it in /etc/fstab matches the one in the script file /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
I can't explain why it started working.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just found a fix for an annoying Linux bug existing in Linux Mint (and possibly other Linux types) for years, in which you try to shutdown the PC, but a few seconds after the fans and lights go off, it boots up again. That means the only way to force it to shutdown is to wait until everything appears to be off (which as I said, is only for a ffew seconds at most), then hold down the Power button to force power off.
The fix is here:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewto...f=42&t=117686&p=651173&hilit=shutdown#p651173
Zorba, you're an absolute legend.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I got bored with Linux Mint, so now I'm installing CentOS (an open-source Redhat Linux fork) on my desktop PC. I'm using CC from my laptop PC right now.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I'm now using CC from CentOS on the desktop PC.
I like the "shiny new" feel of a brand-new Linux installation, and it's fun trying out different distributions of Linux.

 

[KneesUp]

I'm now using CC from CentOS on the desktop PC.
I like the "shiny new" feel of a brand-new Linux installation, and it's fun trying out different distributions of Linux.

This is the reason that now I've finally got around to installing Linux on my new laptop instead of running it off a USB stick, I've got Mint KDE -not used KDE for a while - I gave up when I couldn't get Kubutu to sleep three laptops ago.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

This is the reason that now I've finally got around to installing Linux on my new laptop instead of running it off a USB stick, I've got Mint KDE -not used KDE for a while - I gave up when I couldn't get Kubutu to sleep three laptops ago.

Now I'm using OpenSUSE 42.1. Printing to my Canon printer in CentOS turned out to be a disaster: it was barely readable. OpenSUSE, on the other hand, does it really well.
So I've just installed 2 Linux OSes on the desktop PC today. Lots of fun!

OpenSUSE boots up blindingly fast too: it took a few seconds on the first bootup!
It just took about 65 seconds for a complete shutdown and restart after its update manager applied some updates, which is pretty fast. This is probably partly because I chose XFCE as the window manager, rather than Gnome or KDE, which are bloatware by comparison.

I also verified that OpenSUSE suspend-to-RAM works fine, although I have so far just done it once manually. I have set a suspend-to-RAM timeout, though: just have to wait for it to elapse.

So overall, OpenSUSE is looking better than CentOS.

 

[KneesUp]

I tried openSuse at the start of my Linux experiments too - but that also failed to suspend. I suspect that at that time the Kernel didn't like the laptop I happened to own. My current laptop (which is no longer made) came pre installed with Ubuntu in some countries so plays nicely with most things. EDIT It even hibernates.

I will one day get around to setting up the now retired USB stick with various distros to experiment with - it's 128GB USB 3 so it actually runs quite well.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just spent several hours yesterday evening and a few more this morning, trying to find a way to play my MP3 files (because unfortunately most of the music collection on my PC is still in that format, rather than the Linux-friendly OGG format).
I finally found an application which can select and play multiple files, and also load the various playlists I'd created over several years. For OpenSUSE, it seems that installing gnome-mplayer (not the same as gmplayer) is a viable option. It has a very basic GUI, but it plays lists of tracks so that's all I really need.

I also verified that the PC will suspend to RAM after the specified timeout, so manual and auto suspend to RAM work fine, which is good for power management.

I want to convert all the MP3, M4A, etc. files to OGG format, but haven't yet got anything working. I've tried ffmpeg and soundconverter, but couldn't get either to work with the MPEG audio codecs.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just got video (with H264 codec) playing properly with VLC media player! Now I can play the GoPro videos under OpenSUSE.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Now I can run my old Windows games under WINE for Linux, so that's one more item ticked off the checklist.

 

[swee'pea99]

I just had to use a fix I hoped to never have to use: emergency file system repair via bootup. For some reason, my Linux desktop PC found some filesystem corruption, and as a preventive measure it remounts the root filesystem (i.e. the one mounted on the '/' directory) as read-only.
So I had to

1. reboot.
2. hold down Shift key at the BIOS splash screen to show the grub menu.
3. select Advanced.
4. select Recovery mode.
5. select "Drop to root shell".
6. run the following to repair filesystem errors: fsck -A
7. run the following to remount '/' as read-write: mount -o remount,rw /
8. run the following to continue booting: reboot

Once I'd done all that, after Linux was running again, everything seemed normal, so it seems to be all good again.
Sorry, I omitted step 0: before doing ANY of the above, while Linux was still running with '/' mounted read-only, I backed up about 2GB of essential directories to an external disk, because backup ALWAYS comes before any corrective action, ALWAYS!

Anyway, just thought I'd post the above, in case any of you ever need to use it. Fortunately, having '/' mounted read-only isn't quite as bad as it seems, because it's the filesystem mounted on '/home' that contains most or all of your working files. So I was still able to read emails, run Firefox, etc. But I was getting odd errors when starting up Dolphin file manager, and running the 'sudo' command for any reason just didn't work properly.

Regards,

--- Victor (the ex-birthday 'boy').

I just had the most frustrating weekend of Linux ever!
For some reason, after I returned from France just under 2 weeks ago, Linux Mint 17.3 running on my home desktop PC would no longer suspend-to-RAM properly. The fans and lights would turn off, then about a second later, it will all start running again, and the desktop would re-display. I must have tried just about every fix mentioned on the internet for this problem, and none of them worked! (although I did learn more about Linux's more obscure configuration files and utility programs )
Then, after having dinner last night and watching TV for about 90 minutes, I returned to the desktop PC, only to find that it was sitting there with no lights or fans running, because it had in fact suspended to RAM! So now I don't know exactly what change I made fixed the problem.

I also had to apply the file system corruption fix again, the one I mentioned 2 posts above. It happens rarely, so it's nice to know the fix is fairly reliable.

Unfortunately, power-management is one of Linux's weak points, or that's the impression I get from various online fora and other web sites. Suspend-to-RAM can mysteriously stop working when the kernel version, or your graphics driver version, gets updated. I updated both of these on the weekend, but only after I noticed suspend-to-RAM had stopped working, so I don't think these updates caused the problem.

Agreed, and various web sites said the same. My swap space is slightly larger than the RAM size, and the UUID for it in /etc/fstab matches the one in the script file /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume
I can't explain why it started working.

I just found a fix for an annoying Linux bug existing in Linux Mint (and possibly other Linux types) for years, in which you try to shutdown the PC, but a few seconds after the fans and lights go off, it boots up again. That means the only way to force it to shutdown is to wait until everything appears to be off (which as I said, is only for a ffew seconds at most), then hold down the Power button to force power off.
The fix is here:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewto...f=42&t=117686&p=651173&hilit=shutdown#p651173
Zorba, you're an absolute legend.

I just spent several hours yesterday evening and a few more this morning, trying to find a way to play my MP3 files (because unfortunately most of the music collection on my PC is still in that format, rather than the Linux-friendly OGG format).
I finally found an application which can select and play multiple files, and also load the various playlists I'd created over several years. For OpenSUSE, it seems that installing gnome-mplayer (not the same as gmplayer) is a viable option. It has a very basic GUI, but it plays lists of tracks so that's all I really need.

I also verified that the PC will suspend to RAM after the specified timeout, so manual and auto suspend to RAM work fine, which is good for power management.

I want to convert all the MP3, M4A, etc. files to OGG format, but haven't yet got anything working. I've tried ffmpeg and soundconverter, but couldn't get either to work with the MPEG audio codecs.

And people wonder why I stay with Windows....

 

[mybike]

And people wonder why I stay with Windows....

Trouble is, Windows has changed out of all recognition. And now it spies on you.