Amateur Linux Hour

[Susanna]

Considering the ISO is to configure the drive controller that the system probably booted off of I suspect as soon as you tried to hand off the PCIe card to the VM it would all come crashing down.

No, you shouldn’t boot the system you’re already in inside a VM. That’s just going to cause a mess unless you do so much preparation that just isn’t worth it. I’d boot off of a USB drive and set up the VM from there. Even such an old server ought to be able to handle a basic desktop running off a ramdisk and a VM simultaneously.

Somehow I don't feel like that would be safe when updating system firmware, if it even works at all. Rufus already doesn't recognize it as a bootable disk, meaning it probably means something unique to the bios - but only when accessed the correct way.

I guess it depends on whether you need to flash the firmware from BIOS, or if you can do it from the operating system. If it is indeed the BIOS, the easiest way to feed it the update would probably be to burn a disc. What a dismal setup, shame on Lenovo.
GRUB is capable of mounting an ISO and chainloading it, that might be worth trying if just dding the image to a flash drive wouldn’t work.

 

[Grub]

So, I have a laptop running KDE neon 5.19 on the ubuntu bionic base. I haven't used it for a couple of years now. I got some new speakers yesterday and wanted to try them out and turns out, pretty much everything in my os is now broken. Bluetooth doesn't work, pulseaudio's fucked pretty much everything's out of date. Normally I should be able to use the system upgrade tool to update, but that option seems to be unavailable. I could just reinstall everything from the latest live CD, but I don't want to.

I updated everything I could from the bionic repositories. That broke some more stuff. The Linux firmware update failed so I had to roll back to an older kernel version to boot back into the system. Anyway, I went and manually updated the repository list to the jammy repositories. Now I've got 4400 packages that need to be updated at 13GB.

Am I missing any steps in here? Should I update? Will I break everything?

 

[Betonhaus]

So, I have a laptop running KDE neon 5.19 on the ubuntu bionic base. I haven't used it for a couple of years now. I got some new speakers yesterday and wanted to try them out and turns out, pretty much everything in my os is now broken. Bluetooth doesn't work, pulseaudio's fucked pretty much everything's out of date. Normally I should be able to use the system upgrade tool to update, but that option seems to be unavailable. I could just reinstall everything from the latest live CD, but I don't want to.

I updated everything I could from the bionic repositories. That broke some more stuff. The Linux firmware update failed so I had to roll back to an older kernel version to boot back into the system. Anyway, I went and manually updated the repository list to the jammy repositories. Now I've got 4400 packages that need to be updated at 13GB.

Am I missing any steps in here? Should I update? Will I break everything?

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo update-manager -d

Then let Jesus take the wheel

 

[Grub]

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade
sudo update-manager -d

Then let Jesus take the wheel

KDE neon recommends using dkcon instead of apt. Apparently apt won't update all the KDE packages properly.

 

[Betonhaus]

KDE neon recommends using dkcon instead of apt. Apparently apt won't update all the KDE packages properly.

Boot in safe mode and switch to the command line, run the apt updates, update manager, then dkcon. Then reboot and run them all again.

https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/upgrade-kde-neon-20-04/

This may help too

 

[Grub]

https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/upgrade-kde-neon-20-04/

I checked this out. It wasn't really helpful because i'm trying to go from 18.04 to 22.04

Though maybe this part is what I was missing

Following the update command, run the upgrade command to install all of the new packages available to install from the Focal repository for Neon.

sudo apt upgrade -y
Following the upgrade command, you will need to run the dist-upgrade command with the –allow-downgrades command-line switch.

sudo apt dist-upgrade --allow-downgrades
Finally, run the autoremove command to remove all of the packages from Neon 18.04 that are still present on the system. These packages could cause problems for the new update, so it’s best to remove them.

sudo apt autoremove
With all of the old packages uninstalled, reboot your computer. Once logged back in, you will be using KDE Neon 20.04!

Meh whatever fuck it. I'm just going to go for it. I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

[Jotch]

I checked this out. It wasn't really helpful because i'm trying to go from 18.04 to 22.04

Though maybe this part is what I was missing


Meh whatever fuck it. I'm just going to go for it. I'm sure it'll be fine.

I reccomend backing up all the files you can while you can before something breaks the OS even more, then do a clean install.

It's a caveman option but minimal work for total victory.

However this might happen again. If you haven't touched anything but the speakers, and the machine has been powered off then what could cause the programs to change in that time?

I would be very suspicious of your boot drive for losing data over time, try looking into its SMART stats.

 

[Grub]

I reccomend backing up all the files you can while you can before something breaks the OS even more, then do a clean install.

All my personal files are on separate partitions from the rest of the system.

It's a caveman option but minimal work for total victory.

However this might happen again. If you haven't touched anything but the speakers, and the machine has been powered off then what could cause the programs to change in that time?

I would be very suspicious of your boot drive for losing data over time, try looking into its SMART stats.

Nothing was lost. Everything is out of date updating broke things more. It's a partial rolling release distro and the repositories I used to update originally have been depreciated. For example, the Bluetooth service has been completely replaced with a new one, the current one just no longer functions, this is why I cannot connect to my speakers.

 

[Betonhaus]

For anyone working with Swizzin I modified a script that makes second instances of Sonarr and made it work for sonarr, radarr, readarr, and lidarr, giving you the choice for custom names and ports. I'm still trying to make it a bit more user friendly and elegent but it works fine now. Just don't look at the commit history, I haven't been able to come up with a suitable metaphor but it's bad.

https://github.com/Betonhaus/swizzin2

 

[StealingElectricity]

So, I have a laptop running KDE neon 5.19 on the ubuntu bionic base. I haven't used it for a couple of years now. I got some new speakers yesterday and wanted to try them out and turns out, pretty much everything in my os is now broken. Bluetooth doesn't work, pulseaudio's fucked pretty much everything's out of date. Normally I should be able to use the system upgrade tool to update, but that option seems to be unavailable. I could just reinstall everything from the latest live CD, but I don't want to.

I updated everything I could from the bionic repositories. That broke some more stuff. The Linux firmware update failed so I had to roll back to an older kernel version to boot back into the system. Anyway, I went and manually updated the repository list to the jammy repositories. Now I've got 4400 packages that need to be updated at 13GB.

Am I missing any steps in here? Should I update? Will I break everything?

Right, so this will be a huge shot in the dark (even though I'm probably late to the party). But since KDE Neon is based off of a stable Ubuntu kernel and in 5.26 there was a change in the kernel version (moved from 20.04 to 22.04), it probably interfered in some way with the newer packages supplied by the KDE repositories, which would explain quite a lot. Again, this is a shot in the dark, and it might be completely missing the mark, but it would make sense. If that is the case, just archive everything (which you seem to have already done) and reinstall the OS.

 

[Grub]

Right, so this will be a huge shot in the dark (even though I'm probably late to the party). But since KDE Neon is based off of a stable Ubuntu kernel and in 5.26 there was a change in the kernel version (moved from 20.04 to 22.04), it probably interfered in some way with the newer packages supplied by the KDE repositories, which would explain quite a lot. Again, this is a shot in the dark, and it might be completely missing the mark, but it would make sense. If that is the case, just archive everything (which you seem to have already done) and reinstall the OS.

That would make sense. Yeah I was on kernel 4. something before. I ended up just reinstalling fresh. I forgot I already had kubuntu 14.04 installed on a different couple of partitions so I just wiped that and reinstalled, copied my home folder over and it was pretty much good to go. It ended up being not much fucking around in the end. Though, now my issue is the kxstudio repositories seem to be out of date and I can't seem to find all the music recording software I had before.

On a side note though, fuck snap. Seriously, why the actual fuck does the snap dir need to be in fucking /var/? I kept my /var/ partition around 10GB because I never needed to make it bigger before. Now i'm kind of fucked. I tried moving /var/lib/ to a new partition and symlinking it and now snap is broken. Is there a way to change the snap directory? Flatpak doesn't have this problem.

 

[Susanna]

That would make sense. Yeah I was on kernel 4. something before. I ended up just reinstalling fresh. I forgot I already had kubuntu 14.04 installed on a different couple of partitions so I just wiped that and reinstalled, copied my home folder over and it was pretty much good to go. It ended up being not much fucking around in the end. Though, now my issue is the kxstudio repositories seem to be out of date and I can't seem to find all the music recording software I had before.

On a side note though, fuck snap. Seriously, why the actual fuck does the snap dir need to be in fucking /var/? I kept my /var/ partition around 10GB because I never needed to make it bigger before. Now i'm kind of fucked. I tried moving /var/lib/ to a new partition and symlinking it and now snap is broken. Is there a way to change the snap directory? Flatpak doesn't have this problem.

I don't disagree that snap is garbage, but why can't you resize your /var/ partition?

 

[Grub]

I don't disagree that snap is garbage, but why can't you resize your /var/ partition?

Because I don't want to. That would mean taking space from my data storage and I don't have a ton of that left. I'd also rather not give /var/ more space than it needs. It has a bad habit of filling that shit full of log files no matter how much space you give it. It's really just /var/lib/ that needs more space. I'm just trying to understand why I can't move it and symlink it. snap is the only software that has a problem with it. I know it has something to do with the way the snap directory is mounted but i'm not entirely sure.

It's pretty gay but the easiest way I can think of around this is instead of symlinking the entirety of /var/lib/ symlink every single folder inside /var/lib/ except the snap directory but I think that's going to mean i'm going to have to periodically manually move things and symlink them which is lame as fuck.

 

[Betonhaus]

Because I don't want to. That would mean taking space from my data storage and I don't have a ton of that left. I'd also rather not give /var/ more space than it needs. It has a bad habit of filling that shit full of log files no matter how much space you give it. It's really just /var/lib/ that needs more space. I'm just trying to understand why I can't move it and symlink it. snap is the only software that has a problem with it. I know it has something to do with the way the snap directory is mounted but i'm not entirely sure.

It's pretty gay but the easiest way I can think of around this is instead of symlinking the entirety of /var/lib/ symlink every single folder inside /var/lib/ except the snap directory but I think that's going to mean i'm going to have to periodically manually move things and symlink them which is lame as fuck.

what about using fstab to mount a partition at /var/lib?

 

[Susanna]

To me it sounds like an excellent use case for LVM thin provisioning. Just move the drive to LVM and make thin volumes for all the partitions. You can limit /var/ to 10GB and have data and /var/lib/ share the same physical volume.

 

[Jotch]

You absolutely can simlink /var/lib, you HAVE to do it as root, and HAVE to ensure that the link remains valid, or your system is screwed.

 

[StealingElectricity]

That would make sense. Yeah I was on kernel 4. something before. I ended up just reinstalling fresh. I forgot I already had kubuntu 14.04 installed on a different couple of partitions so I just wiped that and reinstalled, copied my home folder over and it was pretty much good to go. It ended up being not much fucking around in the end. Though, now my issue is the kxstudio repositories seem to be out of date and I can't seem to find all the music recording software I had before.

Not sure why you would need KXstudio, as I'm pretty sure the software available there is in other repositories. At first glance, most of the stuff on their website is outdated or inactive, so I wouldn't really count on them if I were you.

On a side note though, fuck snap. Seriously, why the actual fuck does the snap dir need to be in fucking /var/? I kept my /var/ partition around 10GB because I never needed to make it bigger before. Now i'm kind of fucked. I tried moving /var/lib/ to a new partition and symlinking it and now snap is broken. Is there a way to change the snap directory? Flatpak doesn't have this problem.

Yep, I don't like Snap either. Though you can probably move the var folder to /home (as it currently is with flatpak) and use it from there, come to think of it, I am pretty sure that was the default at some point, though I think it was specifically on Ubuntu. Either way, switching to Flatpak (or using your default package manager) won't hurt.

 

[Gatdam Animal Person]

Are there any good reasons why I shouldn't use Flatpaks for everyday applications?

Beside the constant need to configure permissions (using Flatseal or KDE's flatpak manager), I really do love the fact that games and GUI software just werks.

Using Kdenlive on Fedora, between the native vs flatpak edition, I found out the former needed more depedencies for GPU acceleration. The latter just werks.

However the former seems to be more tightly integrated with the rest of Plasma, which is sorely missing from Flatpak's approach.

 

[StealingElectricity]

Are there any good reasons why I shouldn't use Flatpaks for everyday applications?

Most of the problems with Flatpak are in its design. The first problem comes from sandboxing, which barely works on Xorg (tl;dr: if you are in it for the isolation, use with wayland). Flatpak's runtimes are also rather large, so your first couple of applications will probably take more space than necessary. The theming is very difficult since the apps are isolated from each other (only really a downside if you are ricing). Other than that, the differences are mostly semantics, and maybe configuration is slightly (or extremely) more difficult every now and then, but nothing to bite your nails over.

Using Kdenlive on Fedora, between the native vs flatpak edition, I found out the former needed more depedencies for GPU acceleration. The latter just werks.

This is because Flatpak ships all of the dependencies when installing a package and separates them from the rest of the system.

 

[Grub]

Not sure why you would need KXstudio, as I'm pretty sure the software available there is in other repositories. At first glance, most of the stuff on their website is outdated or inactive, so I wouldn't really count on them if I were you.

Because a few years ago that was the best way to get up to date versions of all that software that all worked properly together. Audio recording on Linux can be a bitch to get working properly. I didn't realize kxstudio wasn't being maintained properly any more.

Yep, I don't like Snap either. Though you can probably move the var folder to /home (as it currently is with flatpak) and use it from there, come to think of it, I am pretty sure that was the default at some point, though I think it was specifically on Ubuntu. Either way, switching to Flatpak (or using your default package manager) won't hurt.

That's what I did. I've been using flatpak whenever possible but when I first reinstalled my system I went and installed a bunch of stuff from the repos. A bunch of them were snap packages that didn't have a flatpak or apt equivalent.

It's my own fault I wanted to get everything back up and running quickly so I haven't really been paying much attention as I've been installing shit.

You absolutely can simlink /var/lib, you HAVE to do it as root, and HAVE to ensure that the link remains valid, or your system is screwed.

Yeah I know. It works fine except for snap.