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Linux Annoyances For Geeks
Taran Rampersad writes "Every now and then, someone comes up with a fun title. 'Linux Annoyances for Geeks' is a definitely fun - and accurate - title for this book. While some people have been fiddling with Linux since it first came out, the majority of Linux users haven't been. I started using Linux in the late 90s, and my work schedule didn't allow me to go to meetings, or track down people who knew things. And the first time you do an install on a machine, you may be disconnected from the very information that gets you connected. Been there, done that. So this book attracted me because despite being an advocate of Free Software and Open Source, there are times when I still type very naughty things on the command line. Read the rest of Taran's review.
Linux Annoyances For Geeks
author
Michael Jang
pages
484
publisher
O'Reilly
rating
8/10
reviewer
Taran Rampersad
ISBN
0-596-00801-5
summary
Answers to intermediate questions for Linux users.
Most of the time, I had fiddled with a previous install and gotten it the way I wanted it to work — when I had to do it again with a different install, I'd forgotten how I did it in the first place. There have been times, honestly, where I didn't even know. Fortunately, life has become better. There are books now. Some even come with Linux distributions, and there's plenty of documentation online that you can print out in advance when you go install things on your only connection to the Internet.
But there aren't that many books that really deal with the things that are annoyances, because the annoyances usually come from the late phone calls or the unanswered emails on a list. That's what this book is supposed to be for.
In reading this book, I caught myself nodding a lot. Not to sleep, mind you, but the, "I've seen that before" nod. The descriptions of the desktop environments, GNOME and KDE, started me nodding. Here's an idea of what the book covers:
Configuring a Desktop Environment: There's a great section on KDE and GNOME in here that starts the book off with a bang. Custom login menus, configuring standard backgrounds, desktop icons, oversized desktops and undersized monitors, Naughty mouse syndrome, Naughty users mess up the desktops, the infamous 'broken CD/DVD' problem, No GUI Syndrome, user downloads causing problems and ... sound. This chapter isn't one that I really had personal use for, but when people start asking questions — this is where they start. Great reference material here for desktop-finicky users.
Configuring User Workstations: Backing up data with rsynch and cron explained (where was this in 1999?), 'lost' files, 'lost' data... this chapter is one of my favorites, because people keep asking me about stuff like this. And dealing with Windows folks who complain that there's no ZIP — well, I wish I heard more of that.
Optimizing Internet Applications: I think that optimizing Internet applications is probably one of the largest problems out there, but I haven't really heard anyone ask about any of this. It's very strange. I think the world would be a better place if people read this chapter — from getting Firefox to work properly, sorting email into folders (yes, you can do that...), this covers a lot of ground in a very short space. My personal favorite was converting data from Outlook, which I have never done. Hidden in there are some tips on dealing with Microsoft Exchange Servers.
Setting Up Local Applications: This chapter focuses a lot on getting that irate I-am-new-to-Linux-and-I-want-my-toys person happy. It's filled with converting goodness, PDF inoculations and points you at the cure. And for those users who want movie players, there's something in here for them as well.
Installation Annoyances: This is probably the part of the book that will see the most use. There's a quote in here that I love: "Any A+ certified technician can list the hardware components on a computer. A Linux geek can cite the compatible components, such as the chipsets associated with a specific wireless card. He can use this information to compile the most efficient kernel for his system." So true. This chapter points you at the right resources and walks you through planning an installation. Which is priceless, even as a reminder for geeks.
Basic Start Configuration: Long boot times, bootloader issues, the ever-present dual-booting problems, the 'boot reboot repeat' problem, and my personal favorites, "I lost the password for Root!" and "My Server is So Secure that I can't log in as root". This chapter is pure gold.
Kernel Itches and Other Configuration Annoyances: Kernel upgrades, recompiles, kernel panic, 'file not found' boot error, NFS and Samba directory walkthroughs, and the infamous 'regular users can't mount the CD/DVD. Let's not forget dealing with Microsoft formatted partitions.
System Maintenance: Corrupted Partitions, emergency backups when the hard drive is knocking, small /home directories, slow hard drives, Update Repositories (not to be confused with User Suppositories), Dependency Hell solutions with yum and apt... platinum chapter for the troubleshooters out there.
Servicing Servers: Service Options, enabling downloading of files and , email issues when it is down, 'lost-printer syndrome', the BIND and growing network issue and the 'Windows Computers aren't on the network' issue. All rolled up here in Chapter 9.
User Management: Just about everything you would need to know about administering users, from special groups to keeping former employees from accessing the server, to securing the user (without duct tape).
Administration Tips: A lot of good things here for administrators; my personal favorite being configuring the Linux Gateway. Lots of great stuff in here.
For the life of me, I don't know why Chapter 5, Installation Annoyances, isn't Chapter 1. That seems to be where I've spent the most time helping other people out. The good news is that because it is where it is, the book stays open by itself here. Still, I think that might scare someone walking in while you're troubleshooting an installation. They might wonder what the 173 pages before installation problems was about. In fact, that could be funny... That's about the only thing that I could say I think is a bit off about the book, but perhaps that's by design. It's not a bug, it's a feature!
One of the things I liked most about this book was the fact that the chapters aren't named for the solutions; they are named by the problems. So when you're having a problem, you can find the solution.
Overall, this book meets the criteria for being next to my monitor, for quick reference in helping people out (including the worst one, me!). I haven't had the opportunity to use it's contents yet for Ubuntu, but since the book's solutions include Debian, they should work fine. As the author says in the preface, "The solutions are designed for three of the more prominent Linux distributions: Fedora Core, SUSE, and Debian." It would be interesting to see how it does with the Mandriva distribution.
In the Linux world, there are those that read and there are those that bleed. Those that bleed write what others read. This book was written in blood. It allows the leaders, the bleeders and the readers a means of finding their way around some of the annoyances that crop up. It does so in a well written manner which is well thought out, and amusing when you'll need to be amused.
( Original review on KnowProSE.com.)
You can purchase Linux Annoyances For Geeks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Most of the time, I had fiddled with a previous install and gotten it the way I wanted it to work — when I had to do it again with a different install, I'd forgotten how I did it in the first place. There have been times, honestly, where I didn't even know. Fortunately, life has become better. There are books now. Some even come with Linux distributions, and there's plenty of documentation online that you can print out in advance when you go install things on your only connection to the Internet.
But there aren't that many books that really deal with the things that are annoyances, because the annoyances usually come from the late phone calls or the unanswered emails on a list. That's what this book is supposed to be for.
In reading this book, I caught myself nodding a lot. Not to sleep, mind you, but the, "I've seen that before" nod. The descriptions of the desktop environments, GNOME and KDE, started me nodding. Here's an idea of what the book covers:
Configuring a Desktop Environment: There's a great section on KDE and GNOME in here that starts the book off with a bang. Custom login menus, configuring standard backgrounds, desktop icons, oversized desktops and undersized monitors, Naughty mouse syndrome, Naughty users mess up the desktops, the infamous 'broken CD/DVD' problem, No GUI Syndrome, user downloads causing problems and ... sound. This chapter isn't one that I really had personal use for, but when people start asking questions — this is where they start. Great reference material here for desktop-finicky users.
Configuring User Workstations: Backing up data with rsynch and cron explained (where was this in 1999?), 'lost' files, 'lost' data... this chapter is one of my favorites, because people keep asking me about stuff like this. And dealing with Windows folks who complain that there's no ZIP — well, I wish I heard more of that.
Optimizing Internet Applications: I think that optimizing Internet applications is probably one of the largest problems out there, but I haven't really heard anyone ask about any of this. It's very strange. I think the world would be a better place if people read this chapter — from getting Firefox to work properly, sorting email into folders (yes, you can do that...), this covers a lot of ground in a very short space. My personal favorite was converting data from Outlook, which I have never done. Hidden in there are some tips on dealing with Microsoft Exchange Servers.
Setting Up Local Applications: This chapter focuses a lot on getting that irate I-am-new-to-Linux-and-I-want-my-toys person happy. It's filled with converting goodness, PDF inoculations and points you at the cure. And for those users who want movie players, there's something in here for them as well.
Installation Annoyances: This is probably the part of the book that will see the most use. There's a quote in here that I love: "Any A+ certified technician can list the hardware components on a computer. A Linux geek can cite the compatible components, such as the chipsets associated with a specific wireless card. He can use this information to compile the most efficient kernel for his system." So true. This chapter points you at the right resources and walks you through planning an installation. Which is priceless, even as a reminder for geeks.
Basic Start Configuration: Long boot times, bootloader issues, the ever-present dual-booting problems, the 'boot reboot repeat' problem, and my personal favorites, "I lost the password for Root!" and "My Server is So Secure that I can't log in as root". This chapter is pure gold.
Kernel Itches and Other Configuration Annoyances: Kernel upgrades, recompiles, kernel panic, 'file not found' boot error, NFS and Samba directory walkthroughs, and the infamous 'regular users can't mount the CD/DVD. Let's not forget dealing with Microsoft formatted partitions.
System Maintenance: Corrupted Partitions, emergency backups when the hard drive is knocking, small /home directories, slow hard drives, Update Repositories (not to be confused with User Suppositories), Dependency Hell solutions with yum and apt... platinum chapter for the troubleshooters out there.
Servicing Servers: Service Options, enabling downloading of files and , email issues when it is down, 'lost-printer syndrome', the BIND and growing network issue and the 'Windows Computers aren't on the network' issue. All rolled up here in Chapter 9.
User Management: Just about everything you would need to know about administering users, from special groups to keeping former employees from accessing the server, to securing the user (without duct tape).
Administration Tips: A lot of good things here for administrators; my personal favorite being configuring the Linux Gateway. Lots of great stuff in here.
For the life of me, I don't know why Chapter 5, Installation Annoyances, isn't Chapter 1. That seems to be where I've spent the most time helping other people out. The good news is that because it is where it is, the book stays open by itself here. Still, I think that might scare someone walking in while you're troubleshooting an installation. They might wonder what the 173 pages before installation problems was about. In fact, that could be funny... That's about the only thing that I could say I think is a bit off about the book, but perhaps that's by design. It's not a bug, it's a feature!
One of the things I liked most about this book was the fact that the chapters aren't named for the solutions; they are named by the problems. So when you're having a problem, you can find the solution.
Overall, this book meets the criteria for being next to my monitor, for quick reference in helping people out (including the worst one, me!). I haven't had the opportunity to use it's contents yet for Ubuntu, but since the book's solutions include Debian, they should work fine. As the author says in the preface, "The solutions are designed for three of the more prominent Linux distributions: Fedora Core, SUSE, and Debian." It would be interesting to see how it does with the Mandriva distribution.
In the Linux world, there are those that read and there are those that bleed. Those that bleed write what others read. This book was written in blood. It allows the leaders, the bleeders and the readers a means of finding their way around some of the annoyances that crop up. It does so in a well written manner which is well thought out, and amusing when you'll need to be amused.
( Original review on KnowProSE.com.)
You can purchase Linux Annoyances For Geeks from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Users
& paste.
This book seems more like a "Desktop Linux Configuration Guide" than annoyances book. My original understanding of the annoyances series was that the books were for making OS's like OSX and Windows more habitable for say people with a UNIX background.
"RTFM n00b" Possibly one of the single biggest reasons that more people don't make an effective full switch to Linux.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
Sounds like something to enhance/replace my personal "cheat sheet" of stuff I do to make a bare Slackware install sing for me. And my birthday's next week...one more thing for the list
there are times when I still type very naughty things on the command line.
root@kungfu:~# history | wc -l
500
root@kungfu:~# history | grep fuck | wc -l
148
root@kungfu:~#
Hmmmm..
Can all fish swim?
For the past decade, my Linux books have been calling me a "Complete Idiot" and a "Dummy" for reading them. Finally, one that only thinks I'm a "Geek!"
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Where is "Case Sensitivity" on this list? I mean, have you really ever used CASE to distinguish two different files? (Worse, have you ever had to try to describe cased files over the phone?)
The secret is to spend less time complaining and more time reading.
Of course a different operating system will act differently than the one you're used to. That's kind of the point. Treat it as something unique rather than as an inferior version of your current platform and you'll get farther.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I read the title as 'Linux Avoidance for Geeks'. I was reaching for my flame retardent suit when the flashing red error light went on.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
You missed his point. He isn't saying that being "done" makes something a Product, but that being together and ready to use does. To continue his analogy, when you buy a car, you're handed a key. If that car were some linux distros, you'd be handed a large box of parts and told there's a manual online somewhere to put it all together, and no key.
/* [ Go back later and write comments on documentation - 02/22/01 ] */
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Well folks, i've been meaning to write this down anyway; here seem's like the perfect place.
Now, I am a 100% Win fan. I love it; things just work. But, I have made the switch to Linux (Fedora Core 5) at home, seeing as it does 99% of what I want. After a couple of months of constant, un-interupted use, my biggest issues with Linux are broadly thus:
1. No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. Wtf? Codecs for avi's and DVDs were a simular story; all had to be downloaded via yum (bloody excellent tool!). Seriously; not good, but fixed in the end.
2. Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel? Why? I've never had to on Windows - why is Linux different? Is it so buggy? I installed with a factory version something ending 054. Now I have something ending 122 I believe. I did it ok, but that's not the point I'm making; were there really 68 cock-ups so great in the kernel build from release-time until that now they had to re-release 68 times? I'm guessing probablly not, but still.
3. Point 2 also breaks my nvidia drivers. I don't want to re-compile new drivers everytime there's a new 'patch'. For the love of god, why?!
4. X-Windows. What a mess. Why do I have to tell it my x & y refresh rates for my monitor? Windows just 'knows'. Many more things here I feel that X-Windows should just 'know' - the number of buttons on my USB mouse for-instance. If Windows can do it, there's no reason why Linux can't. Also, X-Windows 'feels' slower than Windows. I'm sure there's good reasons for this, but I don't care; Windows is snappier.
5. Lack of decent file-browser. The best I've come across is Nautilus in a mode that resembles Windows Explorer. It'll do for now, but as far as I'm aware, offers no context-sensitive menus for applications (like the Winamp "Play in Winamp" right-click menu on folders.
Actually, I think that's largely it. In all, Linux has, and is continuing to be great fun to play with. So many cool tools - yum being one of them. I'll stick to Linux @ home; it can only get better, but I'd be interested to know what people think of the above points - any suggestions maybe? I want this to work after all...
-Sr. Samwel.
throw new NoSignatureException();
It would be interesting to see how many Linux complaints and annoyances date back to Unix.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
One of the first things I do on a new debian system is:
apt-get install vim links-ssl curl-ssl wget finger bzip2 tar aptitude ssh
Hopefully you weren't stirring the old Vi/Emacs debate, because though plain ol "vi" is a real pain, "vim" is much nicer than "vi"
(oh, and for those using Debian, the newer versions come with aptitude already installed, which is generally preferable to 'apt-get' and can be used with the same syntaxes, except there is no 'aptitude moo' command)
For others, what are the first apps you install on a fresh linux distro?
For the life of me, I don't know why Chapter 5, Installation Annoyances, isn't Chapter 1.
I think the OP just nailed down the problem with 90% of Linux books, and one of the big problems with Linux adoption by the less-than-ubergeeks. Very few Linux book authors seem to know how to teach someone to use Linux. Either they spend three chapters on the basics of PCs and lose me, they dive straight into stuff that goes way over my head, or they just present the material in as counter-intuitive an order as possible for maximum frustration.
I can't remember how many books I've picked up, started reading, and ended up shelving between chapters three and five. Reasons:
1) They never actually got around to discussing Linux beyond the sales pitch about why I should use it.
2) They skipped a lot of important basics that left me wondering just what they were talking about.
3) They had me configure the desktop, type a few commands in the shell, install Linux, and THEN talked about the file system and various other basics that are relevant to everything you do in Linux.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I can't be the only person who believes that, now that software does all the basic things, much of it is evolving from Product to Project. Even Microsoft, the supplier of boxed software par excellence, has got to come to terms with this; we now know that under the shiny paint there are hidden recesses with rust and loose parts and we expect them to be fixed as they are discovered. We also know that a company of some size can release stuff and label it beta, simply being more honest than labelling it "release 0.8" or whatever.
You can see Open Source as the logical outcome of all the work that was done on quality in the 80s and 90s: everybody involved, continuous improvement, no hiding place for bad work. You can see it as a response to the perception by many people in the standards world that software standards were abysmal. Oh, and I have yet to see the new product that can just be placed in someone's hands and used. It may be "ready for use", but the user will not be. Continuous improvement and user feedback makes the learning curve easier.
Pining for the fjords
My favourite annoyance is the default behaviour of 'cp'. Unless I add additional command line arguments, the file date will be changed into today's date. I don't want that. I cannot imagine why anyone would want that so much that it is the default behaviour.
At least it has been changed in Konqueror now. Two years ago I trashed the dates of some 100s of vacation photos by using Konqueror on a Knoppix CD to copy them from the camera card and clear the card afterwards. Konqueror on my Ubuntu Dapper Drake doesn't seem to do this. Nautilus doesn't either.
It's really hard to seperate Linux from KDE/Gnome and "various programs" on the desktop level. Linux alone isn't exactly viable for much. You need Apache to make it a web server. Samba to make it a file server. XWindows to make it a desktop system. EXPECT people to lump them all as "Linux" because in all reality, Linux isn't anything without them.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
This is good because one thing I've found in my switch to Linux since last November. The community isn't all its cracked up to be. I'm not saying its bad, I'm just saying its less amazing than what you hear before the switch.
When you run into a problem, if its simple hey no problem. People will line up to give you a quick response that will send you on your way. If its anything less than that you could spend days and weeks and longer finding an answer.
You google late into the night hoping to find something and you do.. a 3 year old post on a mailing list for another distro possibly from a parrallel universe. The only problem is the solution is "Hey I fiddled around last night and fixed it, no more problems guys!"
if you're really lucky there is an e-mail address, if you're blessed, the person still uses it. If you had a fresh horse-shoe inserted that morning he actually remembers the incident in question and how he solved it.
I think I've still got half a dozen or more outstanding "annoyances" on mailing lists and message forums for things that no one can seemingly solve. Like why if I change my window theme in gnome the background for all my screensavers changes from black to the color of the window border.
I am a win xp user, and have been using windows ever since my first pc. I program as a living, primarily in PHP and CGI/PERL, and i am a heavy internet user. I have been aware of the apparant advantages of Linux over the past 5 years, and have made numerous attempts to give it a go. However, I have always found it painstaking to get everything working. As a newbie, you have to: * Set up sound to get working * Set up the internet * Set up the ability to play mp3/divx & xvid * become familiar with all the aspects of the operating system and applications * and have to make numerous other changes, just to get it working just the way you want it. * my latest attempt to install Ubunutu has failed, due to my ATI x800GT graphics card not being recognised And all these require extensive googling which can sometimes be painstaking. However, I have managed to fine tune my windows box to work exactly the way i want to, making use of autostart-up applications, installation of PHP/MySQL etc, wireless internet and so on. So basically i can load it up and begin working right away, exactly how I want it, and produce the results that i need. So, for me personally, I see no overwhelming need to jump to Linux, which would require so much more effort to even get to the same stage that i am in WinXP. Having said that however, I have vowed not to move to Vista in the near future either. WinXP does everything i want to do now; i would be very upset to see my 1gb of high performance memory be gobbled up by Vista just to have a fancy interface. And besides, from the screenshots it seems to be a mere Mac OS clone :p
To summarise:
* I can see why for some organisations, with the expertise could find it justifiable to use GNU/Linux, due to the relativly lower cost and customisability, however for me personally, my current needs are met aduaquatly
* Windows Vista is excessivly bloated, laden with DRM and comes with ridiculus hardware requirements...i mean to use Notepad on vista would require 1gb of Ram and a 2Ghz processor at the very least, why?!!!!!
You must be a gentoo user.
If your text editor is typing out ^H instead of doing backspaces, quit, then on the console type "stty erase ^H"
To make the change permanent, add in the stty erase line into your .bash_profile file in your home directory.
Of course you realize, WYSIWYG text editor is an oxymoron.
><));>
So far I see complaints about: recompiling kernel/drivers and windows... and, then there was Arch.
... hey its working now (not ONCE has this failed me on multiple monitors including laptop LCDs and otherwise.
I introduce you to the 'hwd' package.
Hmm my ethernet card isnt working.
> hwd -ec
(probes lshwd based on tables for usb pcmcia and pci and loads appropriate modules if not already loaded)
Hmm I can't get xorg to work.
> hwd -xa
(probes monitor, writes xorg config)
> startx
Anyone who updates their kernel EVERYTIME a new patch or release comes out is retarded. Typically I wait for a new 2.6. before I even touch it. But in the case of those who like it...
> Pacman -Syu
(syncs db, downloads files and seeks and downloads dependencies, checks for conflicts, installs packages)
All done. One command, and.... done. Upgrades the entire system... gcc/kernel/nvidia (or ati),etc in one command. No rebooting just make sure if you run a kernel update to update lilo/grub conf and for precaution... stop all running services that you don't need for just running updates.
No need to recompile anything... because that's just how life is with Arch.
For everyone who has problems with Linux, whether your using/installing SuSE, FC4, Ubuntu, Slackware, etc. Go to http://www.linuxquestions.org/. You won't get RTFM responses. No I'm not affliated with the web site and have no vested interest.
Slashdot, while being a great forum, is not the place to get Linux help,
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
I disagree: dual monitor support in linux is far, far superior to that under Windows.
Want a taskbar that goes across both monitors? Windows doesn't do it; both gnome and (especially) KDE will give it to you. Gnome lets me have 4 taskbars: one at the top and bottom of each monitor. Under both gnome and kde the taskbar is a much more generalised container than the windows taskbar, which gives much greater flexibility.
Want to run 2 matrox PCI cards with an ATI AGP card for 3 monitors? Windows won't let you do it (It won't initialise the bios of the ATI card) - linux can do this, and has for more than 5 years.
Want to run multiple cards for multiple monitors, all different manufacturers? Linux lets you do this, easily. I don't know whether Windows can do this.
Want to run 4 monitors, in a 2x2 formation? Linux lets you do this easily. I don't know whether Windows can do this.
In short, multi-monitor support in linux is much more flexible, much more configurable and thus much better than under windows. Windows is certainly playing catchup in this area (thanks both to better multi-driver compatibility in linux and better window managers).
That's a very old and dealt with issue.
There are a few old applications around that might be annoying but most work better than anything in the windoze world. Almost all the common methods of cutting and pasting, shift-delete/insert, ctrl-c/v, and alt entered menus with shortcuts. I routinely do things like cut text from Kate (KDE) into gnumeric (GNOME) without a problem. Gnome not only sees the clipboard, it calls up the text import tool and gets it right. Tools like KDE's klipper give you your clipboard history for all applications, not just a few, and it lives on your taskbar. If that's not good enough, most applications also cut and paste through ssh -X forwarding. That's right, you can cut and paste across the network, through multiple machines. Do any of the M$ "Desktop Anywhere" type interfaces do that right?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It suddenly drops drastically when you nuke artsdsp and artsd from orbit.
If you see "artsd" or "esd" in your process list, configure the hell out of the system until you don't see a trace of them. These two were hacks to skirt around limitations of old sound hardware. If you have a modern, full-duplex, hardware-mixing sound card, you simply don't need these things.
Plus I believe they haven't been maintained for some time either.