XV105

Neat piece of software (vsftp), thanks for the tip. I run a slug on Sarge -I'd never heard of the Book World or Optware - the latter because I didn't take the Unslung route, I guess.

SO

I have the Ubuntu live doing what I want on my laptop, created a "live" USB memory stick as this allows me to put the second battery back into the machine (it goes in to the CD slot). It all works just so.

When I tried to run the Ubuntu Live, from the USB memory stick, in my desktop machine it does not see our wireless network. How should I "enable the wireless"? On the laptop there is a simple keyboard shortcut for it, Fn+F2 toggles the radio on-off.

Thanks,

Rans6...

A pleasure to offer the tip, sea oxen. Having lifted the lid I've been amazed at what I've found and what started out with simple aims has become an all consuming interest!

Next challenge about to be posted (below) to help nudge me along my way :)

Invisible files with vsftpd
 

vsftpd is working fine in so much as I can happily upload files to my MyBook "White Lights" NAS and that the User (validated, not Anonymous) is locked in jail with the folder I have limited them to, but no files are actually visible.

For the record I'm using CuteFTP 8 as the FTP client and after login the folder appears empty. Dragging a file in to it results in FTP transfer though, and dragging it again results in a "duplicate file" message so I know the first one worked even though the folder still appears empty. Connecting to the folder via WinSCP or Windows Explorer (because it has CIFS enabled as well as FTP) confirms that the file exists.

Que?

Google shows that I am not alone and hints at PASV (passive) FTP as the problem but none of the "fixes" I've tried have worked for me.

Suggestions, please?


TVM,
XV

XV:

Instead of using CuteFTP as the client why not try
gFTP? I've used the former and encountered the same problem as you did ie, files which are there no visable in the client.

XV stoping a big jessy using clients for FTP your a command line chap now.

Either write a script which grabs them all for you.

Or stick a webserver on your linux box and get creative. Either ftp from the server or write an application which displays your results.

One would suggest that you investigate the default umask set on uploaded files. Sounds like vsftpd is setting 070 which allows you to write files but not read them. Should be in your vsftpd.conf file. This is common for anonymous uploads, but less so for authenticated sessions.

help!

I bought all of the bits n bobs to put together a new PC, chucked them together and got it up and running with Ubuntu live cd. Sort of OK but quite limiting as you can't save any settings or install any drivers. So I made a "ubuntu boot" memory stick which would not actually boot the machine into a stable state. The memory stick works just fine on my laptop, it allows firefox bookmarks and files to be saved, remembers options and setup etc.

If anyone knows why this might be I am interested but only as a secondary option.

So, I installed Ubuntu on the first hard disc and got it up and running, apparently stable although I can't actually set anything up to leave it doing something. I ran the memory test from the Ubuntu startup screen and it chugged all of the way through the mmemory with no errors. Then I enabled the networks and wireless driver (all point and click stuff) and got it to connect to our wireless router and the WWW and started to surf and find that it crashes, often, and re-boots and then offers to send an error log to somewhere.

The error appears to related to a file called ooops. Is there anything in the error log, if I can find it, which will help me to find out why the crashes happen?

I have a copy of which XP I could install but am reluctant to do this if there is a hardware fault on the system.

What would be a sensible thing to try next?

Rans6...

rans6:

Very unusual that Ubuntu, or any Linux distro, would cause a system crash.
Seems as if it could indeed be hardware.

Open a terminal and enter the command dmesg and see if you can spot any errors there.

XV105,

My guess....

If you want me to PM you an example working VSFTPD config file lemme know.

I bought all of the bits n bobs to put together a new PC, chucked them together

I'd be happier to read "installed carefully, using anti-static strap and making sure all connectors were cleanly seated and nothing touched things they shouldn't".

Seriously, if you didn't use anti-static precautions while installing CPU and memory in particular I'd worry about b*****ing those. If the CPU fails you probably won't get it to boot at all, but corrupted memory can cause all sorts of weird errors that look like different problems entirely. I'd run Mtest86 for several (say 4) passes before clearing the memory of suspicion. That will take a few hours no matter what the speed of CPU, memory or buses.


So, I installed Ubuntu on the first hard disc and got it up and running, apparently stable although I can't actually set anything up to leave it doing something.

Do you mean it won't stay running with no-one logged in? Or it crashes every 5 minutes, or what?


I ran the memory test from the Ubuntu startup screen and it chugged all of the way through the mmemory with no errors. Then I enabled the networks and wireless driver (all point and click stuff) and got it to connect to our wireless router and the WWW and started to surf and find that it crashes, often, and re-boots and then offers to send an error log to somewhere.

If it crashes in much the same way every time it could be corrupted memory or corrupted disk. I have also had a machine (the one I'm typing on now actually) crash like that thanks to a spider's web and the dust it collected on the back of the motherboard, this shouldn't be your problem today though.

The error appears to related to a file called ooops. Is there anything in the error log, if I can find it, which will help me to find out why the crashes happen?

A crash of this sort doesn't have time to get into the logs. If you want to try, they are stored in /var/log -- you can ignore the ones with names ending in .gz although "zmore <filename>" will show them. The others will have the most recent boot at the bottom, so you may need to flick through the whole thing to find messages timestamped around the time of your crash. If the whole shebang just keels over in a flash don't hold out much hope though.

'b

thanks aerobelly. Right, I did observe good static precautions, being in electronics design and proto building I have the necessary stuff, wrist straps, mains lead with only earth connection etc.

The machine boots up and stays up as long as the wireless network is not enabled. I don't have any applications that I can leave running to test everything stays good. I have run the Ubuntu memory test and it goes through the 6 Gb of ram repeatedly without error. As soon as I enable the wireless network it becomes unstable and reboots at irregular intervals, from a few seconds to 20 minutes. It has connected and downloaded a few (200+ !) updates for Ubuntu and I have got as far as getting Adobe X... mpeg player add-on for Firefox before the system re-booted.

The wireless card in the new system is a known working card pinched from an old, but still working, desktop machine.

This morning I swapped the wireless network cards between the new system and my Dell desktop, which I am using for this browsing session. This was fruitless as neither machine had the correct drivers for the cards so I have swapped them back.

in /var there is a "crash" directory with 3 files in. I'll search through them and dmesg to see what they reveal.

Thanks again,

Rans6... (very new to unix)

Right, I did observe good static precautions, being in electronics design and proto building I have the necessary stuff, wrist straps, mains lead with only earth connection etc.

Excellent, if only everyone did....


The machine boots up and stays up as long as the wireless network is not enabled. I don't have any applications that I can leave running to test everything stays good.

A trivial test that never completes is easy, but it won't thrash the memory & disk enough. I kick off graphics tasks that take up to 12 hours, but there's gigabytes of raw files involved. I think the answer is elsewhere though....



I have run the Ubuntu memory test and it goes through the 6 Gb of ram repeatedly without error. As soon as I enable the wireless network it becomes unstable and reboots at irregular intervals, from a few seconds to 20 minutes.

Yeees. The card and its interrupts (ISA card I assume), or its driver come under suspicion now.


It has connected and downloaded a few (200+ !) updates for Ubuntu

That's the way Linux updates & fixes work: little & often. Unlike the Windows way of huge and yearly. (Server-grade Windows is monthly updates -- look up "patch Tuesday".) If your e.g. office, multimedia or graphics applications came through Ubuntu they get updated at the same time automagically, so you don't have to go round all the vendors to find their latest patches.


The wireless card in the new system is a known working card pinched from an old, but still working, desktop machine.

This morning I swapped the wireless network cards between the new system and my Dell desktop, which I am using for this browsing session. This was fruitless as neither machine had the correct drivers for the cards so I have swapped them back.

Linux does suffer a real problem with add-on cards. The developers often refuse to sign their rights away to see the proprietary information needed to handle the card, and the manufacturers can't be bothered to provide proper Linux drivers. So the result is that someone takes a flying guess at how the card works. And that can result in problems. If you absolutely have to have wireless networking I'd research what vendors provide proper Linux drivers and get one of their supported cards. If it's not an absolute necessity then you'll improve your security (or save yourself a lot of work setting it up properly) by reverting to a wired network.

I have no need of wireless at home, and have in the past refused to countenance it for businesses, unless the hours (weeks?) of research and experiment into how to configure it securely could be resourced. I was paid to be paranoid, and I think I did a good job ;-)



in /var there is a "crash" directory with 3 files in. I'll search through them and dmesg to see what they reveal.

/var/crash is empty on this Ubuntu system :-
uptime 20:13:03 up 60 days, 3:07, 4 users, load average: 0.01, 0.03, 0.00

... so hang on in there, the problems are not unsolvable.



'b

further to my previous info, the /var/crash files cannot be viewed as they are locked by the owner process that generated them, I forget the name, begins with app something or other.

The DMESG command gives a long script and the only thing that caught my eye is a number of timeouts of eth1, right at the end of the file. I don't know if eth1 is the wired network card or the wireless, can't check without interupting the memory test.

Also, the suggestion that it only crashes when the wireless network is on is a red herring. It can crash before it has even finished booting up. I ran it for about an hour, playing video off USB drive, wireless network disconnected, and it crashed again. When it rebooted it crashed almost straight away, and then after about 15 mins. I tried to send an error report after the last crash and it reported that my copy of Ubuntu is not an original source.

I have, since then, re-installed the Ubuntu to the hard disc, where it failed to boot several times. For over 3 hours now, I have had the machine running the memory test from the first option screen of the Ubuntu Live CD. It has gone through nearly 4 times with no errors.

The machine is an i7 930, with 6Gb ram on a Gigabyte x58 motherboard. Nothing in it seems to be running warm.

Is it possible that Ubuntu 9.1 is just not compatible with the spec of the machine?

eth1 is more than likely the wireless card. eth0 is more than likely the wired NIC card.

eh ? Since when ? he/she may just have more than one NIC ?

Depends whats going on in modprobe.... :cool:

Teamviewer now released for Linux (and STILL free for personal use)

further to my previous info, the /var/crash files cannot be viewed as they are locked by the owner process that generated them, I forget the name, begins with app something or other.

type "sudo more <filename>" and give your password when asked to. On Ubuntu systems "sudo ..." gets around all restrictions like that, so be careful.



The DMESG command gives a long script and the only thing that caught my eye is a number of timeouts of eth1, right at the end of the file. I don't know if eth1 is the wired network card or the wireless, can't check without interupting the memory test.

The Gigabit X58 series all seem to have onboard ethernet, so I would expect the BIOS to find that before an add-on card, so the LAN would most likely be eth0 and the wireless eth1.



Also, the suggestion that it only crashes when the wireless network is on is a red herring. It can crash before it has even finished booting up. I ran it for about an hour, playing video off USB drive, wireless network disconnected, and it crashed again.

I would try it with the wireless card removed, in case it's an ISA/EISA problem. You did say that it's an old card.


The machine is an i7 930, with 6Gb ram on a Gigabyte x58 motherboard. Nothing in it seems to be running warm.

Is it possible that Ubuntu 9.1 is just not compatible with the spec of the machine?

X58s have been around for nearly two years, so I'd be surprised. Just one thought, some Linux distributions are built in different versions for up to 1Gb of memory, and more than 1Gb (Fedora perhaps?). Is the Ubuntu you're using a full 64-bit, unlimited memory version? I use magazine-cover copies, but I'm careful to make sure I've got the right one for the architecture, AMD 64 bit, or i386 depending on which of my 4 machines I'm installing on.


'b

I don't think that any commercial ISA wifi cards were ever made.

SD

the wireless card is not ancient, although not brand new. It is a Netgear PCI MA311. A trawl of the net suggests that Orinoco is not the best driver for this card although that is what seems to be referred to in the scripts I saw somewhere.

If I find a better driver, do I need to re-build the whole OS to install it? Sorry I am new to Unix at this level.

The memory test ran through 9 times in about 7 hours before I stopped it. It flagged up that it had found 6 Gb of ram, I don't know if the version of Ubuntu I have is 32 or 64 bit, I guess there is an easy way to find out? I got the CD from a friend who had downloaded and created the "Live" CD it from the Ubuntu free site, I understand.

Will a disconnected wireless card still have any activity in the system? I will try unplugging the card, tomorrow.

to find out if you're running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Ubuntu enter the
command: uname -a at the shell prompt.

When downloading Ubuntu from their web site you have to specify the 64-bit
version from a drop-down menu. Otherwise you get the 32-bit version by default.

thanks to everyone for their interest.

I appear to be running only a 32 bit Ubuntu, I can download a 64 bit but doubt that it has any bearing on my system crashes.

On the good side, I have removed the MA311 wireless card and the system has been up for 5 hours now, no sign of any instability.

The question must be - is there a driver more suited to the MA311 card? If there is I can get it onto a memory stick and then onto the machine, how should I install it? Is this a kernel rebuild process? Scary stuff.

Rans6...

after shifting the whole shooting match into the other room I find that the wired ethernet does not work at all. I have tested the wired connection using my laptop, running Ubuntu, and noted all of the info in the network configuration menus. The same info, except for the mac address, is copied to the new machine and..... nothing. At least the wireless did connect for a while, until the machine falls over bigtime.

The laptop auto eth0 has a mac address in the boxes, I think it was picked up automatically, the new machine does not. Is this something I need to find and enter or should it pick up for itself?

Rans6....

use a live OS fedora and see if it works

phew! The lack of connectivity through the ethernet wired link was caused by my failure to find all 3 bits of the bios to set up. I had spotted the option for power saving of the network hardware and the option for enabling the hard wired LAN but I had missed the option to turn on the LAN boot rom.

Just need to sort out the driver for the MA311 wireless card and then cart all the stuff back to my play room.

Rans6...

Personal Productivity
 

Ok Linux Dudes, is anyone here running any personal productivity software on Linux that they like/recommend?

At the moment I use TiddlyWiki for note taking, but am frustrated by the lack of a good calendar / reminder / task list type function. You can get some "tiddlers" to do this stuff, but I find they take away the flexibility of the note taking.

I also tried OneNote under Windows but it was worse

Anyone got anything they think is good for this stuff?

Thanks

batninth

by totally disabling the wired network in my system I seem to have sorted the wireless connectivity issues. Hurrah!


Now, I am having issues with some video files and video streams. If I get the BBC sport live video up on the screen the computer crashes after a few minutes. Also, I found 2 video files (.mpg format) on my portable hard disc which crash the system as soon as they are loaded into a player. Other files play perfectly happily though.

Ubunto 9.10 updated, 32 bit OS, i7 system with loads of grunt.

Two build updates have installed themselves since I loaded from a live cd. The latest one doesn't boot properly. When it gets to the point where there is a white Ubuntu emblem on a black screen it freezes. On a press of the reset button it restarts and I am offered normal or safe starts from 3 builds, the second one launches normally. How might I determine what is wrong with the highest numbered build option? And fix it!

Newbee on a steep learning curve,

Rans6....

edited almost immediately to remove those typos that the submit button causes!

Batninth:

Try using the app named Evolution. Not only is it an email client (and has connectivity to Exchange servers) but it also has Task lists, Contacts, Calendars and Memos. I very nice productivity application. Does everything MS Outlook does, and then some.

For another very fine personal productivity app try OpenOffice: Spreadsheets, Word Processing, Presentation, Database, and Drawing applications all in one. You can open MS Word documents, for example, and save OpenOffice documents in MS Word format.

rans6:

In all my years of working with Linux I don't think I've ever met up with someone having as many problems with a Linux distro as you have!!!!! And it is extremely rare to see a Linux distro crash either itself or the system hardware.

Disabling the wired network card to get the wireless one working seems odd.

Perhaps you might want to try a different distro: one which may not give you all the headaches you've been experiencing? (Mandriva Linux comes to mind. I run it myself and it works "out of the box" as well as supporting most modern hardware)

"In all my years of working with Linux I don't think I've ever met up with someone having as many problems with a Linux distro as you have!!!!! "

Agree. And the failures seem to occur in a rather un-Linuxy way.

"And it is extremely rare to see a Linux distro crash either itself or the system hardware."

What usually happens when it does is that a process locks up or the X-server crashes. Fix by ending process or restarting x-server. Full blown kernel panics are unusual. Never known a Linux distro spontaneously reboot, that's Windows type behaviour.

I suspect either a troll or a duff motherboard (Memtest only tests memory, not other components).

Mac

:ok:

I too am concerned about the possibility of it being a duff motherboard, as it is such a complex item that convincing the supplier that it is the guilty party might be tricky. On the other hand I am not looking forwards to trying it with windows due to the licence registration process and the need to re-licence if it all goes pear shaped.

The system stayed up for some 12 hours, yesterday, with no network hardware enabled. I used it to display some stuff from .pdfs while I was doing my day job. In the evening I went to the bbc website (wireless enabled) to check on the snooker results, clicked "play in a pop out window" and within a few moments it crashed and re-booted the whole system. This is repeatable.

I am still finding my way around the bios in the Gigabyte GDR3a motherboard, it is the most complex (versatile?) board I have ever had to commission. Perhaps I am still not quite there.

Thanks for your interest.

Rans6...

Ubuntu 10.4
 

BOAC:

Getting email and printing up and running will be just as simple as the tasks you've already encountered.

Have fun!

Yep! The printer was so simple even I managed it. Emails set up but not actually downloading at the mo - something to work on, but again sooo straightforward. A breath of fresh air.

BOAC:

Wait until you give OpenOffice a whirl. (If you haven't already.)
Open, read and write documents which can be open, read or written in MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. or, open, read and write documents which can be open, read or written in OpenOffice format.

All for free! (as in free beer!)

Yes - I've used that in Windows. Now sorted the email issue - put a , instead of a . in the server - doh! Set up the video/etc player. Yes, I like it. It's the way free software should be:)

Here is a stoopid question - no sign of Av or firewall that I can find?

Not stupid, just Windows habituated :)

Linux has very little malware so running AV software isn't a necessity to survive. ClamAV is in the software repositories & the likes of AntiVir & AVG do Linux versions - generally run as "on demand" scanners & not running all the time as for Windows.

If you're behind a router then that will generally provide enough basic firewall functionality. Gufw & Firestarter are a couple graphical firewall config tools if you want to run one.

- thanks le P (greetings) - can you recommend a good rehab centre?:)

I'm aware of the 'relaxed' approach to malware in the Linux world, but is it only a matter of time and popularity before it becomes a 'worthwhile' target?

Linux is used extensively on servers & there doesn't seem to be a huge problem with malware there.

Windows has been a very easy target in the past & is the OS of choice for those most likely to do stupid things. At least Vista & Win7 make a better job of stopping the user running as admin. When there's so much low fruit available on Windows why would the malware makers work harder for little extra return?

I may be wrong but my feeling is the Linux environment is more diverse than Windows making it harder to get malware to run effectively.