[sclug] sclug Digest, Vol 55, Issue 18

Mon Apr 28 13:08:37 UTC 2008

Thanks for all the replies.

Wireless:

I'm using WPA on both router and PC. I've checked. I was using WPA2 (when it
worked) but I notice that the Network-manager tool in Ubuntu now insists on
reverting to WPA, so to be on the safe side I rolled back to that on the
router. Didn't make any difference though. I'm going to try to use the
commandline tools to remove security altogether (the GUI tool won't allow
it), to see if that at least gets it going, but I'm not hopeful. I read
somewhere that the 8.04 kernel has broken wireless for some chipsets, but
I'll give it another go before rolling back to 7.10. Sorting the wireless
side is becoming a priority - my wife is back tonight, so I'll soon be
getting stick over the 'ugly cable' running from PC upstairs to router
downstairs. Personally I think it's a thing of beauty, but hey.... :-)

File systems:

Everything is now working. I take the point over ReiserFS (although I'm not
sure why relations between Herr Reiser, his Frau and the State Penal System
should affect the code he wrote. But anyway, I'll have a look at ext3 or
maybe jfs.) Why did I pick ReiserFS? A little bit of me of just has to be
different, probably the same bit that caused me to choose Linux in the first
place :-)  I should add that ReiserFS has worked reliably for me since way
back, but if the consensus now is that it has flaws I'll migrate. Losing
data is not something I want to entertain.

Thanks for the advice to use mkfs instead of the partitioner to change
filesystem. It hadn't occurred to me to do the obvious.More fool me.

UUID:

I think I'll probably leave my fstab as it is. Thanks for those who
suggested various ways to assign one to my data partition - one day if all
the other niggles have been resolved I may return to this one.

If there is anyone there with experience using wireless specifically with a
WG311v3 adapter and Ubuntu 8.04, I'd welcome a conversation.

TIA

Neil

2008/4/28 <sclug-request at sclug.org.uk>:

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> than "Re: Contents of sclug digest..."
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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont) (Neil Haughton)
>   2. Re: Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont) (Simon Huggins)
>   3. Re: Help! (with a big 'H') (Dickon Hood)
>   4. Re: Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont) (Ed Davies)
>   5. Re: Help! (with a big 'H') (Will Dickson)
>   6. Re: Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont) (Will Dickson)
>   7. Re: Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont) (Keith Edmunds)
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Neil Haughton <haughtonomous at googlemail.com>
> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:03:26 +0100
> Subject: [sclug] Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont)
> Okay, with all the help (thanks Alex, David, Will) I'm making progress.
> I have my data partition back (it was libata after all, and the hd
> devices are now sd devices. Easy to deal with once I had been pointed in
> the right direction - and yes I have also straightened out the mounting
> and symlinks to something more sensible too: /mnt/sda5 mounts /dev/sda5.
> Neat, huh? :-)
>
> BUT: vol_id /dev/sda5 gives:
>
>  sudo vol_id /dev/sda5
> ID_FS_USAGE=filesystem
> ID_FS_TYPE=reiserfs
> ID_FS_VERSION=3.6
> ID_FS_UUID=
> ID_FS_UUID_ENC=
> ID_FS_LABEL=
> ID_FS_LABEL_ENC=
> ID_FS_LABEL_SAFE=
>
> As you can see, no UUID. If I want to 'fit in' by using a UUID to be
> consistent, what do I do to give it one? Is it worth it?
>
>
> My next big task is to get the wireless adapter (Netgear WG311v3)
> working - it was fine in 7.10, but now wireless is well and truly
> broken. I've been through all the Ubuntu docs on this subject with no
> success. The best I got to was 'wlan0 is ready' in the messages log but
> it still didn't work - couldn't even ping my router even though it could
> be found by scanning. I have now done a clean install of 8.04 (that's
> where my data partition came in really useful to avoid having to do
> endless back/restores of my data), but my wireless card hasn't even been
> detected. Should it really still be this hard to get wireless working
> release after release? It hurts and worries me to say this, but this is
> one (perhaps the only one?) area where Window XP is miles ahead in terms
> of the user experience.
>
> I can see that ReiserFS perhaps wasn't the best choice of FS. If I copy
> it to another drive, use the partitioner to change the fs to say jfs,
> then copy everything back, that should be okay, shouldn't it?
>
> TIA
>
> Nei
>
> Neil.
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Simon Huggins <huggie at earth.li>
> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 14:14:14 +0100
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont)
> On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 02:03:26PM +0100, Neil Haughton wrote:
> > BUT: vol_id /dev/sda5 gives:
>
> >  sudo vol_id /dev/sda5
> > ID_FS_TYPE=reiserfs
> > ID_FS_UUID=
>
> > As you can see, no UUID. If I want to 'fit in' by using a UUID to be
> > consistent, what do I do to give it one? Is it worth it?
>
> I was going to say:
>        tune2fs -U random
> but you're using reiserfs.
>
> It seems you want:
> http://www.penguin-soft.com/penguin/man/8/reiserfstune.html
>
> --
> ----------(   "But apart from the aqueduct, the sanitation   )----------
> Simon ----(            and the roads..." - Python            )---- Nomis
>                             Htag.pl 0.0.22
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Dickon Hood <sclug at splurge.fluff.org>
> To: David Given <dg at cowlark.com>
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:42:08 +0100
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! (with a big 'H')
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2008 at 17:53:09 +0100, David Given wrote:
> : Will Dickson wrote:
>
> : [...]
> : > While you're on the subject, you might want to revisit the decision to
> : > use ReiserFS, especially if the verdict goes against Hans Reiser (the
> : > jury is still out, but is expected to reach a verdict soon).
>
> I'd avoid the filesystem on principle.  The way a fsck can total a
> filesystem when it spots another ReiserFS image in an object within it is
> just scary.
>
> : Yes; it's thought that ReiserFS may be an accomplice, and so if Hans
> : Reiser is found guilty the software will be locked away too, which means
> : you won't be able to get at any of your data.
>
> Absolutely.
>
> --
> Dickon Hood
>
> Due to digital rights management, my .sig is temporarily unavailable.
> Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  We apologise for the
> inconvenience in the meantime.
>
> No virus was found in this outgoing message as I didn't bother looking.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Ed Davies <sclug at edavies.nildram.co.uk>
> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 15:21:40 +0000
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont)
> Neil Haughton wrote:
>
> > ...
> > I can see that ReiserFS perhaps wasn't the best choice of FS. If I copy
> > it to another drive, use the partitioner to change the fs to say jfs,
> > then copy everything back, that should be okay, shouldn't it?
> >
>
> Just curious, but why not good old ext3?
>
> Ed.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Will Dickson <wrd at glaurung.demon.co.uk>
> To: sclug <sclug at sclug.org.uk>
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 20:55:03 +0100
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! (with a big 'H')
> David Given wrote:
>
> > Will Dickson wrote:
> > [...]
> >
> > > WTF? This is an LTS release, and they bundled a FF *beta*? Wieee-erd.
> > > Are you sure there isn't an option to revert to FF 2?
> > >
> >
> > It's so they don't have to do a major-version-number-change later, when
> > FF3 comes out and FF2 is deprecated by the Mozilla Foundation. Switching
> > from 3b5 to 3 will be a much less drastic change than from 2 to 3.
> >
>
> Good point. Presumably they've had enough of being moaned at by end-users
> for shipping out-of-date versions of rapidly-evolving packages. So instead,
> they get moaned at by end-users for shipping betas instead. Oh well...
>
>
> > Yes; it's thought that ReiserFS may be an accomplice, and so if Hans
> > Reiser is found guilty the software will be locked away too, which means
> > you won't be able to get at any of your data.
> >
>
> Well, quite. The fact that ReiserFS is an evolutionary dead-end, with a
> complex codebase, and small pool of available maintenance devs which is now
> likely to shrink further since Namesys is pretty much defunct, is a minor
> detail in comparison.
>
>
> Will.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Will Dickson <wrd at glaurung.demon.co.uk>
> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:20:58 +0100
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont)
> Neil Haughton wrote:
>
> > /mnt/sda5 mounts /dev/sda5.
>
> > Neat, huh? :-)
> >
>
> Better. :-) I'd have gone for something a little more descriptive myself,
> but hey.
>
> >
> > As you can see, no UUID. If I want to 'fit in' by using a UUID to be
> > consistent, what do I do to give it one? Is it worth it?
> >
>
> reiserfstune ought to do it. As to whether it's worth doing - TBH I can't
> see the point for a conventional PC. I suspect it comes into its own with
> higher-end hardware (eg. something with hot-swappable disks).
>
>  My next big task is to get the wireless adapter (Netgear WG311v3)
> > working - it was fine in 7.10, but now wireless is well and truly
> > broken. I've been through all the Ubuntu docs on this subject with no
> > success. The best I got to was 'wlan0 is ready' in the messages log but
> > it still didn't work - couldn't even ping my router even though it could
> > be found by scanning.
> >
>
> I've never tried wireless under Linux, but this sounds like it might be a
> security issue. Have you checked that the card and the router are using the
> same authentication / crypto mechanism? It might be that the older release
> either didn't support the latest and greatest, so failed back to an older
> mechanism which happened to be the one the router is using, or has
> higher-security defaults which cause the same effect. (Eg. if your router is
> using WPA, but your card is using WPA2, it won't work.)
>
>
> > I can see that ReiserFS perhaps wasn't the best choice of FS. If I copy
> > it to another drive, use the partitioner to change the fs to say jfs,
> > then copy everything back, that should be okay, shouldn't it?
> >
>
> Not the partitioner! You need to use mkfs to create the new filesystem.
> Before making the decision, you might like to read
>
> http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Filesystems/reiserfs.html
>
> tl,dr: filesystems are a bit like text editors, but if you agree with Ted
> T'So that "[...]for a filesystem, performance is Job #2. Making sure you
> don't lose data is Job #1." then you might prefer ext3.
>
> FWIW, I changed from ReiserFS to ext3, and it felt slightly *more*
> responsive, in general. Additionally, there was one wierd case, where XMMS
> used to take about 2 seconds to read my music folder under reiser, but took
> negligible time to do the same thing under ext3. I've no idea what caused
> that.
>
> As to the rest of the strategy, yeah, that ought to work. Depending on the
> nature of your data, you might get a slightly smaller backup slug if you tar
> it rather than doing a straight copy; if your data is mostly media, there's
> no point doing tar.gz. However you do it, the key point is to prevent Murphy
> from catching you only having a single copy of the data at any point during
> the process. :-)
>
>
> HTH
>
> Will.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Keith Edmunds <kae at midnighthax.com>
> To: sclug at sclug.org.uk
> Date: Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:34:56 +0100
> Subject: Re: [sclug] Help! with Ubuntu 8.04 (cont)
> On Sun, 27 Apr 2008 21:20:58 +0100, wrd at glaurung.demon.co.uk said:
>
> > but if you agree with
> > Ted T'So that "[...]for a filesystem, performance is Job #2. Making sure
> > you don't lose data is Job #1." then you might prefer ext3.
>
> I 100% agree with the above. ReiserFS is the only filesystem that I have
> lost data with other than through hardware failure. I see that some
> distros are switching away from it (SUSE, for example). Most people, and I
> include the old me in this, assume that file systems problems occur to
> other people right up until the when you realise that that was, indeed,
> true, but is no longer. Bit like off-site backups - helluva lot of hassle
> until you lose data...
>
> Keith
>
> --
> Keith Edmunds
>
>
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