Ubuntu Studio 18.04

[TazManiac]

[intro text on it's way}...

edit- It IS a year later and the truth is I just jumped right over ver 18.x to 19.04, as of 22Apr2019.

If the interested reader is interested, they can see my entry for the process on the second page of this thread...

That said, I'd likely continue that narrative in a whole new thread titled something along the lines of 'Ubuntu Studio 19.04'...
(If it doesn't take me another year to get around to it.)

[lake_wrangler]

Almost a year later, and we still haven't seen the "intro" text...

Meanwhile, I went and done goofed!

At some point last year, I finally upgraded my system from Ubuntu Studio 14.04 to Ubuntu Studio 16.04. This was for two reasons: one, I was tired of the nagging popups reminding me to upgrade, and two, my system was starting to freeze more and more often, and the regular ways to unfreeze Linux (which I found on different websites) did not seem to work. I did test my memory (it was one thing that was suggested as a possible culprit), but my memory was fine. So I upgraded, in-situ, as opposed to a full-blown install. And it worked. For a while, my system stopped freezing. Although now, it was bugging me to upgrade to 18.04, but I just ignored it...

Lately, however, it started freezing once in a while, again (while my Win 7 installation did not freeze like that), and whenever the software manager informed me of updates available, it would tell me that some updates could not be completed, and would I like to do a partial upgrade, in order to complete the updates. After a while of turning down the offer, so to speak, I decided to do a full upgrade, not the partial one suggested by the software updater. So the next time the reminder appeared, letting me know I could upgrade to Ubuntu Studio 18.04, I went ahead and told it to do the upgrade. And nothing happened. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After a few such tries, I decided to attempt the upgrade via the command line. It tells me to finish updating my software, before I could upgrade. I tried, and it didn't seem to work. Some dependencies missing. Tried to fix that. Now, the upgrade seems OK to start. But it hangs partway! And complains again of incomplete updates before it could upgrade. But by now, the repositories were pointing towards Bionic Beaver, rather than Xenial Xerus (the code name for the 18.04 and 16.04 versions, respectively), something which I did not pay attention to enough, when I first attempted to start the update-upgrade process again. But it was too late. The update process was pulling its stuff from the newer version. And it hung partway through, giving me some error of some sort as to why it could not continue. So now, I'm pretty sure I have a mix of old and new in there, and I'm sure nothing will work, once I reboot.

So I decided to do a full install of 18.04 from the live USB, instead. The install did not take all that long, though I couldn't tell you exactly, since I fell asleep while it was going on... It's getting everything set up the way I like it, which is taking a long time...

First, the Display manager is having a tough time trying to figure out my three monitors. Whenever I try to enable all three, it ends up putting one below the other, and the third to the right. But when you apply it, it turns off one or two of the monitors. And won't return the primary display to the one monitor that is still on, so I can't even continue fiddling with the settings until I physically unplug the monitors that are blank, to return to a one-monitor configuration. Once I selected the proprietary Nvidia drivers, though, I was able to use the Nvidia configuration tool to get all three monitors working right.

What also took a long time was figuring out how to get the home folder moved... I have separate partitions for Root folders, so I can have different distros on there, but one partition for Home, big enough for different distros to use together, provided that users have their Home folder in a separate subfolder (like /home/Ubuntu.Studio.18.04/cdoucet/, instead of just /home/cdoucet/) That way, different distros keep their stuff separate, but disk usage is more efficient as the folders grow in size, at different rates, rather than having different partitions for each, and being stuck with harder to grow partitions... (It makes sense, in my head...) But finding the way to manage that took a while, and attempting it took even longer. I had to create myself a second user, in order to modify my user from without, rather than from within, and I still ran into errors along the way. In the end, the only way I managed to solve the problem was to go modify a file that tells where the home folder is when creating a new user, deleting my original user, and creating a new one that automatically would have its home folder in the right place.

There is still a bunch of stuff I need to do, in order to get the system just how I had it before, but I'm confident I'll get there eventually. In time. With patience.

Did I ever mention I don't like upgrading OSes? That it just takes so long, and is a pain in the butt to get it to a state that I'm comfortable with? Yeah. That's why I stick to the Long Term Service versions from Ubuntu...

Meh. We'll see what happens.

Incidentally, my Grub menu now has two Ubuntu options to choose from, the second one being my former 16.04 version, which it now sees as an 18.04 version, but which does not work at all. I was right: the mix of stuff from the aborted update-upgrade process did mess up the system. I may or may not go back and reinstall 16.04 properly. I may or may not, instead, install a different Linux distribution in its place. Perhaps LMDE (Linux Mint, Debian Edition - a version of Mint that is based directly on Debian, rather than on Ubuntu), perhaps openSUSE (to be different, although that may be the distro I put on my tablet, instead), perhaps straight Debian (though not likely). We'll see.

[TazManiac]

Sorry, for a couple of things...

- I started this thread, didn't actually upgrade the main everyday system to 18.x & promptly forgot I had created it.

- It's been my experience that you should set up the location of your separate /Home folder(s)/partition(s) during the Install (there is a choice during Partitioning labeled 'Something Else'), rather than after they've been set up by the default routine.

- aaaaand, just now I gotta run out the door, but plan to follow up this scant reply w/ a better one...

[TazManiac]

(OK, Done w/ this morning's assignment.)

Now then;

- Two quick links expanding on the 'create your separate /HOME partition and/or Directory during Install using the 'Something Else'' option:

How do I use my home directory on a separate partition? AND

How to Install Ubuntu with Separate Root and Home Hard Drives

I'm tossing this (hopefully) useful info on here, not just for Mr. Wrangler of Lakes specifically, but any and all who come across this thread.
I had originally started it in the hopes of sharing info, real life experiences w/ Ubuntu 18.04 (I am partial to the front end variant based on XFCE called Ubuntu Studio...)

That said, having brought this subject back from the ether-regions, I commend our Canadian Bike-Riding, Bus-Driving cohort for his detailed and informative narrative.
tanks'.

btw- We can get into cleaning up those remnants of the previous Kernel (16.x) and it's presence as detected by the GRUB menu building routine.

PS- my bootable util flash drive is indeed v18.04...

[lake_wrangler]

Don't worry about me... My /home has its own partition, and my data (documents, music, pictures, videos, etc.) resides in yet another partition. So any messing up of an operating system will still not wipe out my data.

As for using "other" during installation, I already do that. As a matter of fact, whenever I install and/or configure a program/OS, I usually select any type of "custom" option they give me, so I can review every choice I can make, instead of letting the program choose everything for me (this both in Linux and in Windows...)

I was referring to the fact that I didn't want the user's home folder to be located merely in "/home/[username]", but rather in "/home/[distro-specific folder]/[username]". This would allow me to use the same username in several distros, without ending up with version conflicts between programs and settings from one distro to the next.

It's the / (root) folder that gets its own partition, regardless of distro, according to my scheme.

Incidentally, I had mentioned in the past that I was looking for a way to backup my panel scheme in Xfce (think "taskbar", in Windows, but so much more configurable), and I had ended up backing up a whole folder. It so happens, however, that just last week, as I was putting around in the settings, I found something called "Panel switch" (which I'm pretty sure was not there in 14.04), which allows me to export my panel scheme to a file, and to later import it back into the system. I was therefore able to do so before my first attempt at upgrading the system. Once I have all my programs installed again (I used a very simple command
to backup the list of programs installed, and will use an equally simple command to reinstall everything from the backed up list), I will go ahead and import my panel scheme back.

[Bookworm]

There's no reason for me to give too much advice unless asked (I've been a Linux user since the 15 floppy disk days), but I will say that for anything other than basic service _or_ a very old card, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are pretty much a requirement.

My biggest beefs with the latest OS's are netplan and the "let's screw up 'eth0'" morons.

So, to benefit the _very very few_ companies that have thousands of servers, they screw up all of the individual and SMB users.

Anyway, if you have questions, I have suggestions, but I try not to get too detailed with the "You should run XZQ" for Linux folks.

[lake_wrangler]

In case anyone is wondering, I did run into the usermod command fairly quickly into my research on the subject of what I needed to do. I read up on it, and the following code should have worked:

Code: Select all

sudo usermod -d /home/Ubuntu.Studio.18.04/cdoucet -m cdoucet

-d indicates a new home directory path to use, -m indicates you want to move the contents of the user's current home directory into the new location.

Unfortunately, I could not get it to work, as it kept telling me that a process was locking up the specified user. So whether logged in as the user, or logged in as a different user, it refused to work. I even tried to kill the specified process, but it ended up borking the system (think trying to forcibly shut down the Windows Explorer process... not just the program, but the whole process... Windows IS Windows Explorer - or was, at the time - so shutting down the process completely would freeze Windows...)

I even tried manually moving the folder, and modifying the /etc/passwd file to indicate where the new home folder was, but when I did that, I could not log in... it just kept kicking me back to the login screen again.

That's when I decided to log in as a second user, manually change the file that tells where to put the home folder for a new user, delete the original user and recreate it. Result: a new user, with the home folder where I want it, but bare bones as for content. I copied the old home folder into the new one, and bingo: it works! All the settings I had fiddled with earlier in the day were back. Except that when I log in, I do get one error message, for a program that is looking for a folder where the old home folder used to be. Upon examination, I am guessing I need to find where the $HOME variable is defined, so as to change it from what it used to be, since it is most likely still configured, in some text file, somewhere, to point to the old location, and said file was copied over when I copied the old folder to the new location.

As for the usermod command, I suspect that I need to not have logged in with a user, in order to be able to modify it without it being locked. So either a reboot and logging in with a different user, or downright booting into the command prompt should do it. I will test that, this weekend, to satisfy my curiosity.

There's no reason for me to give too much advice unless asked (I've been a Linux user since the 15 floppy disk days),

My hat is off to you, in admiration. No, my hat is not red...

but I will say that for anything other than basic service _or_ a very old card, Nvidia's proprietary drivers are pretty much a requirement.

That's what I'm slowly finding out. Although that is not always without difficulties... It's not for no reason, that there is a YouTube video in which we see Linus Torvalds (does he still need any introduction?) say "F*** you, Nvidia!" (Apparently, Nvidia does not always play nice with Linux, and is not all that cooperative, either...)

Anyway, if you have questions, I have suggestions, but I try not to get too detailed with the "You should run XZQ" for Linux folks.

Yeah, I am learning, with time, that Linux users can either be very eager to help, very eager to receive help, comfortable looking for help in forums online, but also sometimes very condescending towards the "noobs" who "should know better, and if they can't handle it, they should run back to Windows, where they come from..."

Linux users are an odd bunch, that's for sure...

[Warrl]

What also took a long time was figuring out how to get the home folder moved... I have separate partitions for Root folders, so I can have different distros on there, but one partition for Home, big enough for different distros to use together, provided that users have their Home folder in a separate subfolder (like /home/Ubuntu.Studio.18.04/cdoucet/, instead of just /home/cdoucet/) That way, different distros keep their stuff separate, but disk usage is more efficient as the folders grow in size, at different rates, rather than having different partitions for each, and being stuck with harder to grow partitions... (It makes sense, in my head...) But finding the way to manage that took a while, and attempting it took even longer. I had to create myself a second user, in order to modify my user from without, rather than from within, and I still ran into errors along the way. In the end, the only way I managed to solve the problem was to go modify a file that tells where the home folder is when creating a new user, deleting my original user, and creating a new one that automatically would have its home folder in the right place.

The way I would probably first try to do that:
1) In the install process, set it up to mount your home partition somewhere other than /home... say, /allhomes
2) After the install, reboot back into the liveCD, not into what you just installed. Identify your new (just installed) Root partition; if it isn't mounted, mount it at, say, /newroot. Also get /allhomes mounted. And create the directory /home/newversion. (note: not /allhomes/newversion.)
3) If this is not a reinstall, copy /newroot/home to /allhomes/newversion.
4) Delete /newroot/home and replace it with a symlink to /home/newversion.
5) Now reboot into the new installation.

Note: as an alternative to #4, /etc/fstab can be configured such that a directory in a mounted partition also gets mounted in another location. Off the top of my head I don't remember how, but it's in the man pages for fstab and/or mount.

[TazManiac]

Glytch,

Have you tried verifying you are using the right nvidia driver for your chipset?

Now that I think about it, what I'm really asking is What Chipset do you actually have?

[GlytchMeister]

By chipset, do you mean what graphics card do I have?

[TazManiac]

By chipset, do you mean what graphics card do I have?

Yeah, as model number of the card and/or the set of chips that are on it.

The following commands in a Terminal window's Command Line...

sudo update-pciids

lspci | grep -i --color 'vga\|3d\|2d'

sudo apt-get install hardinfo

hardinfo


With Win10, I'd dig out the old Device Manager from a right-click on the start menu.

[TazManiac]

I sometimes respond when I'm traveling around, in between hops, skips, and jumps-

So I wanted to clarify what I was referring to by the term 'Chipset'.

In a nutshell, a very few number of Chip Manufacturers cover most all the whole market, sometimes putting out complete products containing these chipsets under their brand name, and in many, many cases selling the chipsets to other, usually smaller companies who put out their own version of the product under a totally different Model/Brand name.

(It's Nvidia vs AMD vs Intel these days, right?)

SO, broken down: You might have the same chipsets in Video Card ABC aaand Video Card XYZ, despite them looking like totally competing products.

Chipsets are key, it's what the Driver's hang their hats on...

[GlytchMeister]

I’ll have to reinstall Linux mint from usb again to look at it, so don’t expect an answer for... a while. I work this Saturday and that usually destroys my sleep schedule for the whole weekend, and I don’t have time on workdays. So, at best, give me a couple weeks.

[TazManiac]

eh, Create a 'LiveCD' w/ this ISO, but from CD/DVD drive or USB flash drive and take it for a spin.

The LiveCD boot disk will allow try-before-you-buy, but as it's pretty generic and doesn't automatically have all the Drivers ever made loading on start up, might not enable 100% of everything right off the bat.

https://www.lifewire.com/create-uefi-bo ... sb-2202084

Main benefit of a LiveCD is it wont make changes to a preexisting OS on the hard drive while you run the 'test-drive', so to speak, from the boot media.

[Bookworm]

You can also use YUMI and install several different live images on the same USB stick.

That's what I carry around as one of my 'go-to' tools.

[GlytchMeister]

Can I look at system information like that when the os is on the stick? That’s what I have now, I run mint from the stick and hit the icon to install it onto the computer.

[Dave]

Can I look at system information like that when the os is on the stick? That’s what I have now, I run mint from the stick and hit the icon to install it onto the computer.

Almost certainly, yes. The live-CD (or live-stick) OS, when running, has access to all of the hardware. You don't need to install it on the disk to use it.

[Bookworm]

Yes- when you're running a live distribution, it accesses the hardware just like an installed version. the difference is that it's not actually an installation on the usb stick, so you don't get to update it, etc. (with some caveats, not going to get into them)


You _can_ install a live distribution as a full install onto a flash drive. I have an SD card with a full install of Xubuntu, for example.

[Warrl]

Typically with a "live" installation you actually can install and update anything you want... but it goes away when you shut down, because it doesn't actually change the installation on the media.

(So the installations that require a reboot - which is pretty rare with Linux - don't work.)

[lake_wrangler]

Typically with a "live" installation you actually can install and update anything you want... but it goes away when you shut down, because it doesn't actually change the installation on the media.

(So the installations that require a reboot - which is pretty rare with Linux - don't work.)

Although some (all?) Ubuntu LiveCD install can be set to have "persistence": when you first set up the USB key, with whichever program you chose to do so, you have an option to set a few MB for persistence, which allows you to install stuff on the LiveCD that will remain, the next time you use the USB LiveCD to boot your system.