Saab:

Mandriva has very good support for most, if not all, drivers of WPA and WPA2 enabled cards.

FWIW: 2nd on the list of Linux distros that I find work mostly out of the box is OpenSuSE.

Opensuse 11.2 was released yesterday. I'll install it tonight.

Have just upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10. I dont have any of the flash-player / DVD playback problems I experienced with 9.04. I presume all the required codecs came bundled with it. A definite improvement from my point of view - but I'm only a "lite" user though and somebody more Linux savvy may find it a total different experience.

I'm going to post this problem I have with my Package Manager in Ubuntu in the hope that someone can point me towards resolving it.

Although I've been using Ubuntu- in its various versions- for a couple of years- I'm pretty clueless about it as an operating system but as it's been very tolerant of me, and reliable, that hasn't been a problem.

A few days ago the icon that relates to the Package Manager turned a nasty shade of red and when I hover my mouse over it I get the following error message :


“Error Opening the cache (E=Encountered a section with no Package: header, E:Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/
gb.archive.ubuntu.com_dists_jaunty_universe_binary-i386_Packages, E the lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.)”
This usually means that your installed packages have unmet dependencies

I looked on the Ubuntu forums and found the same problem with some instructions to follow. For example in the Terminal try:

1)sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

2)Change the software source and enter sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install -f

With the result I've ended up with virtually the same snag.

Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.canonical.com_ubuntu_dists_jaunty_partner_binary-i386_Packages
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

As things stand I can't keep my system up to date so if I can't fix it I will execute plan B (to reinstall Ubuntu usingJaunty Jackelope as opposed to the one previous).

If someone has any ideas to help me – and of course simple enough for me to understand - I would be grateful.

Looks like the problem described here, where the solution is just to delete those package files from disk. They get re-created when you Update again:

Bnt...

Re: Your last..do you actually have a reference file for these sort of command line inputs or are they "fluent" to you? Did you learn from study, experience or from error?
What is the best way to "get" Linux?



I've only just sussed out sudo apt-get update!
:}

Well, with any command, you have a basic reference right in the terminal: you just say "man <whatever>" e.g. "man apt-get". You pick up various things over time, and the Internet is a great help here. Otherwise, just get your hands dirty - but make backups before changing files.

It might help to remember that "Linux" really only refers to the kernel, the "engine" under the hood. Applications like apt-get, or X-Windows and anything running under are not core and can be changed. Even the shell where you enter commands (usually "bash") is optional, though Ubuntu installs a lot of these applications to make the system usable by mere mortals.

The various "package managers" - systems for installing and deleting applications - are among the major differences between competing Linux systems. Red Hat, Mandriva & some others use the Red Hat system (RPM), SuSE has its own system, while Debian-based systems such as Ubuntu use the DPKG system. The "apt" commands are a friendlier layer on top of the "dpkg" commands", and there are also X-Windows applications that make it even easier, such as Synaptic or the new Ubuntu Software Centre.

I admit to having been a little confused by "sudo" at first: put it in front of any command, and that command runs with root privileges, just by entering your own password. Isn't that a security risk? Yes, it is, but it's not automatically enabled for all users, just the first user you create during installation. The alternative to that is logging in as root, which could be seen as an even greater risk, since the root user really can do anything, including things that can kill the installation stone dead - and you can get blasé and careless about it. You can use "sudo" to enable the root account if you want, but I wouldn't, since "sudo" does the same job, one command at a time.

edit: I should add that the location of those files is not the kind of thing you'd figure out by yourself - except for the general idea that they'd be in the place generally recommended for an application's working files i.e. under /var. I don't think /var/lib/apt is ideal, though - I'd say /var/cache/apt would be better, alongside the downloaded packages. In other words, while there are guidelines, the exact location is set by the developer, not dictated by Linux itself.

Thank you very much bnt,the little red Package Manager icon has disappeared and I assume everything is now ok.

Well perhaps not everything as this was tacked on to the end.



W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 iso Image/dists/karmic/main/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs

W: Failed to fetch cdrom://Ubuntu 9.10 iso Image/dists/karmic/restricted/binary-i386/Packages Please use apt-cdrom to make this CD-ROM recognized by APT. apt-get update cannot be used to add new CD-ROMs

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.


So flushed with success I entered apt-cdrom and got the following(I thought in for a penny in for a pound) even if I didn't really know what it all meant.

~$ apt-cdrom
apt 0.7.20.2ubuntu6 for i386 compiled on Apr 17 2009 04:25:38
Usage: apt-cdrom [options] command

apt-cdrom is a tool to add CDROM's to APT's source list. The
CDROM mount point and device information is taken from apt.conf
and /etc/fstab.

Commands:
add - Add a CDROM
ident - Report the identity of a CDROM

Options:
-h This help text
-d CD-ROM mount point
-r Rename a recognized CD-ROM
-m No mounting
-f Fast mode, don't check package files
-a Thorough scan mode
-c=? Read this configuration file
-o=? Set an arbitrary configuration option, eg -o dir::cache=/tmp
See fstab(5)

I think it's referring to the download I had of Ubuntu ISO Image 9.10 on my desktop- in anticipation of having to reinstall Ubuntu if I was unable to get help for my problem.

As far as I can see - because I put a cd in my player - the player is recognised, and plays.

Thanks again for your help, although I did try the Ubuntu forums I think I might have tried in the wrong forum.

Yep - it was looking for a CD (or image) that wasn't where it was expected. I'm guessing you had the downloaded ISO image mounted to look like a CD (which is convenient) It's annoying but not fatal. If you want it to stop doing that, you can launch Synaptic, go to Repositories, and un-check the line that points at the CD. Or, if feeling adventurous, do this in the terminal:
sudo we already discussed: nano is a simple text editor, and the rest is the file to edit. Scroll down till you find the line with "cdrom" in it, and put a # in front of it on the same line. This serves to "comment out" the line, like the old DOS "REM" command. When done, hit Ctrl-O to save the file, hit Enter to accept the name), and Ctrl-X to exit to the terminal. Do another sudo apt-get update afterwards to refresh the repositories.

Personally, I really like the apt-get system - it's one reason why I stick with Ubuntu, though I know other Debian-based distros have it too.

I'm probably going to make myself look foolish here but I went the terminal route, typed in sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list and put a hash on the correct line then entered ctrl-o and ctrl-x and I get this:
File Name to Write: /etc/apt/sources.list....*
(This is shown in white on black at bottom)
If I were to try to exit by closing the terminal it says "a process is still running."
*Do I put in the apt-get update in here?

Sorry - that was from memory. The "file name to write" step is there in case you want to write to another file name. In this case you don't, so you just hit Enter to save to the same file name. Then it's Ctrl-X to exit to the terminal before you enter any more commands.

In addition to using the 'man' command at the terminal for help with commands, syntax, qualifiers etc., I offer this other, hopefully helpful, qualifier to 'man'.

#man -k

The -k qualifier is used to search all short descriptions and manual page names for a keyword. And then prints out any matches.

Example. Say you're looking for help on something to do with rpm but you're not sure exactly which 'man' page would be applicable.

You would enter #man -k rpm

Which would then return all the 'man' pages having to do with the rpm package manager.

I find the -k qualifier handy when looking for a man page I'm sure exists but not sure of its exact spelling.

Hope this is helpful. To someone anyway!!

Thanks for your help everything is back to normal now. So nice to see updates happening once again.

So, do we think this thread is worth a Sticky? :8

I do believe the mods made it clear that like the ex-Mac sticky, the thread should live and die based upon its own popularity.

I agree with that policy. Therefore no sticky would be my vote.

A while ago I posted a thread about being unable to installed Windows 7 on a laptop HDD that had a corrupted installation of Ubuntu on it. Nothing would let be wipe it or delete partitions. Everybody agreed it was buggered etc.
I have solved it. Heres how I did it:

I ran Testdisk off the Ultimate boot CD and analysed the disk. It showed various errors. One of the options presented to me was "recover superblocks". I did not, and still dont really know what they are but as I had nothing to lose I clicked it and away it went...
I was then able to scan the disk again and recover bad sectors. After that I was able to format the disk and install operating systems on it again.

Hope that helps somebody:ok:

Incidentally, just discovered a new bug on Ubuntu 9.10...It would not let me add application launchers to the desktop. The problem went away after a restart and I had about 20 open office icons on my desktop from my previous attempts. Anybody else encountered this?

Sounds like your desktop process hung not a problem with the OS a such more the desktop. Which one was it?

As for the super blocks did you try beating the disk to death with Fdisk and advanced options?

Those errors from TestDisk about superblocks - they only refer to the partition already on the disk, which is probably ext3 since Linux was on it. However, since the plan was to install Windows on that disk, there's zero point in worrying about that ext3 partition, since Windows can't use it and will expect you to delete it during installation. It's toast.

The only sensible option is to use fdisk on it, like mad_jock says, or a low-level format option. The Windows 7 installation is going to do this anyway, if it can, but I remember when I tried Vista a few years ago it couldn't recognise what was on a disk before and refused to wipe it - probably as a safety feature. I had to boot from a Linux "live" CD and wipe the disk. I call that the Aliens strategy: take off and nuke the thing from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. :cool:

Fdisk did not work and the live CD didnt either. It loaded but "hung" when re-partitioning. It would not let me delete partitions or change file system type or format either. I/O errors was the reason.

Right here is one for you all. A situation that someone wants me to define a solution for. And mods don't worry it's for an old aged pensioner to get an emergency call system working. They only have access to an anal retentive ISP which has the IP address down as a VoIP site and a 3G dongle isn't cutting the mustard. Its based in the UK and to my knowledge completely legal to do.

Situation

A certain box needs to get access to an IP address which is blocked by the ISP.

What I propose is connect said box via a cross over cable to a linux box via the eth0.

Then route that over to the wireless wlan0 which has a vpn connection on it thus bypassing the ISP blocked sites.

The dhcp on the eth0 is easy to take care of with the gateway being defined as the IP address being bound to the eth0 interface.

Now anyone know enough about openvpn on linux so you can force it to only use the wlan0 or will it just try both interfaces and use the one which it can connect to the server on?

after that I presume you would only need to start the routing using ip_forward and add the route in between the 2 networks.

Any comments on my cunning plan?

I know you could just buy a wireless VPN router but this way we should just be able to use an old laptop and a 3 quid cross over cable.

One thing missing from your description is where the VPN goes to on the Internet. When you say the other box "has a VPN", can I take it that means that it does so in conjunction with another system, out there on the Internet, beyond the ISP? If so, and you know how to set up the routing etc. (installing some router package), you ought be able to make it work - hard to tell from here.

However, I can think of other ways of doing it on the first system:
- install a VPN client on that system
- if the emergency alarm system uses HTTP (WWW) and supports a Proxy connection, then you could tell it to use one of the free proxies out there. The outgoing IP address, visible to the ISP, would be that of the proxy.
- Or, also if HTTP-based, install a Tor client. This is also a proxy solution, but the proxy runs on your computer and can route traffic across multiple external proxies (so it's less likely to fail).

I'd be concerned about the amount of maintenance & monitoring any complicated solution might require. The more complex, the greater the chance ot all goes wrong at precisely the wrong time - especially if you have an ISP that thinks it's acceptable to decide what you can and can't do on the Internet. :mad:

The other end of the VPN is sorted 60 quid a year and there are about 20 world wide servers and the openvpn client is pretty robust in my experience and if one route fails will quite happily go looking for another server.

The box is just that with an Ethernet port, a webserver to do the setup on it, a speaker, microphone and I presume a DEC interface to the triggers. I have a sneaky feeling it does actually use VoIP for when its triggered and is pretty easy for the ISP to sniff that and block it. So the proxy option is out.

Once I have the guts of it sorted out its not actually very complicated. I will have basically created a VPN router, a couple of cron jobs to do the house keeping and restart the VPN connection every 24hours so we don't get any security certificate errors. Barring hardware failure it should be pretty robust, its not as if the coffin dodger is going to be using the laptop.

You don't need install any routing software on unix boxes to route its all under /proc/sys/net/ipv4/

Firefox 3.6 update help for Linux
 

I have an Acer Aspire running Linux.
On my last visit to Youtube it announced that I must upgrade Firefox to 3.6.
Is there anyone out there game enough to show me how to do this?
I've downloaded the update but I just can't get any farther.

I know nothing about Linux....These guys might. They seem to be discussing the very issue. What is the ""Correct" way to upgrade to Firefox 3.6? - Linux Forums

Which version of Linux?

Re Firefox 3.6
 

I initially had some probs, again on an an Acer One - Running Ubuntu 9.10 - The screen kept darkening; as if the application was "Busy" and not under control of the O/S - There then followed an update from Canocial, about three days ago and all's well since. Use your Linux system update options to see if there's an operating system update waiting in the wings. I'm sorry that I do not know about anything other than Ubuntu.

CAT III

This is starting to intrigue.
The computer is running Linpus Linux Lite version 1.0.3.E
I hope this makes sense.

Sorry, don't know Linpus but the generic instructions are:

1. Download Firefox from the Firefox download page to your home directory.
2. Open a Terminal and go to your home directory: cd ~
3. Extract the contents of the downloaded file:tar xjf firefox-*.tar.bz2
4. Close Firefox if it's open.
5. To start Firefox, run the firefox script in the firefox folder.~/firefox/firefox

Firefox should now start. You can then create an icon on your desktop to run this command. Copied from:
Installing Firefox on Linux

A "global" installation (available to all users) is possible by installing as root user (a.k.a. super user) - the traditional location would be in /usr/local.

The disadvantage in a manual installation like this is you have to keep it updated manually - Linpus won't do it for you.

first of all you need to open up the original aspire linux os

To do this go to Files > My Documents to open the File Manager. Then go to File > Terminal.

type

xfce-setting-show

Click on Desktop to get to the Desktop Preferencs and choose the Behavior tab.

Now mark under Menus the Show desktop menu on right click option.

Then type

sudo su-
passwd (enter what you want as the admin password)
yum upgrade

then leave it alone it might take ages once it comes back

it will come up with a list of upgrade packages and ask you if you want to upgrade. Say yes and leave it alone. it will eventually come back to a # then kill the window with the cross.

if that doesn't sort your problem come back and i will tell you how to add in software despo's

Now your desktop will be slightly different when you are finished if you now right click anywhere you will get a drop down windows style menu with all your programs etc which i found better than the simple interface.

I went for about a month using the aspire cut down linux then installed fedora full distrubution. If you want skype etc we can get that sorted for you as well.

Thank folks, I'll give it a go tonight.

O aye while were about it we might as well get you set up for a black screen of death.

Occassionally the bios goes tits up on aspire ones.

Aspire One Black Screen of Death | Eric.Chromick.com

That tells you how to deal with it.

Why do you HAVE to upgrade?

On my main Linux install of Mepis (Debian based) Linux Firefox is 3.5.6 (works fine) and I'll just wait until the FF upgrade hits the Mepis depositories and then it'll upgrade itself automagically.

But, as the others hint above, you CAN quite easily if you don't mind jumping thru a couple of hoops.

Mac

The linpus lite is slightly different to other linux.

Unless you go in and use yum the updates are only triggered by the aspire site.

I can't remember if i had to point it at the fedora main despositries before i could update or load gimp and other such things.

Mad Jock,
Where do I type sudo su-

did mine exactly as follows, worked first time... and am a total linux newbie:


Press Alt+F2 to show the Run program window. Check Run in terminal and click Run, which opens a terminal. If you're not familiar with the Linux command line just follow the instructions step by step. The easiest way is to simply paste the commands into the terminal with Ctrl+Shift+V. Most of them will only give feedback if an error occurs.

The first command uses wget to download Firefox 3.6 from an official mirror. You can edit the lang variable at the end, in this case en-US, if you'd like another language. All available languages are listed here, just hover over the download link to get the language code from the status bar.

wget -N "http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.6&os=linux&lang=en-US"

The next step extracts the just downloaded file and modifies a link to point to it. In a few cases a connection refused error message may be triggered by sudo, which is not an error but a bug in sudo and can be safely ignored.

sudo tar -jxf firefox-3.6.tar.bz2 --directory /opt
sudo chown user -R /opt/firefox
sudo ln -fs /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

The next step links all plug-ins (not to be confused with extensions) to it.

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/firefox/plugins

Launch the profile manager using the command below. Create a new profile, name it anything you like and select it. If you want to keep your bookmarks export them via the bookmark manager first. You can then delete the old default profile.

firefox -profilemanager -no-remote

As a bonus you can also change the icon to the official Firefox icon.

sudo sed '/Icon/ s/acs_//' -i /usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop

Finally reboot the AA1 to make the desktop aware of the new icon and browser location.

Files > My Documents to open the File Manager. Then go to File > Terminal

In the window that comes up. Its like DOS box that you get with windows when you run cmd.

Or if its still running after you have unlocked the xoffice menu system the one you typed xfce-setting-show.

edited to add if you use yum it will be automatic and for ever more you will be able to use yum upgrade and it will sort all your software out.

Persoanlly I would have a think about installing the full fedora OS on it.

It's a good wee box just now but after you install the full OS it turns into a helva powerfull wee PC. Persoanlly I have added a LG Burner and USB speakers now it has about 20 odd DVD's ripped on it and a heap of music. Openoffice deals with work stuff.

Even if your not Linux savy after the install the OS looks after all the updates.

Sorry Mad Jock,
but how do I install Fedora and Yum?
Bet you are sorry you said anything.

You already have a cut down version of fedora install on it.

yum is also installed on it

After you mange to find the terminal you will be cooking on gas

So in the front screen go to files then click on my documents

After its there there will be a drop down menu with an option for terminal.

After you click on that a black background window will pop up.

In that window type

sudo su-
passwd (enter what you want as the admin password)
yum upgrade

I think its best we just leave you with the orginal desktop

Sorry 'jock,
I've tried doing as you say but all I get is Connection not found.

And people wonder why Windows is so popular. :E:E