Linux installation help (Ubuntu Linux distribution)

[dodecahedron]

When you install Ubuntu the next time, I suggest disconnecting the power to the Windows drive, so that the installer doesn't see it and doesn't try to write the MBR there.

yeah, but that's only if i run fdisk and use it to reset the MBR, right ?
fdisk /mbr if i'm not wrong.
i haven't done that and don't think i will - don't want start to mess with another thing i'm not familiar with right now.

and if i do that, and then remove the SATA drive (on which Grub had put the MBR) how will the system boot ?

besides, if i do that then the installer/Grub won't know of my Windows isntallation and won't create a dual-boot system, will it? i'll be able to boot into Linux but not into Windows!
i'm sure you can configure Grub afterwords ? /etc/grub.conf or some such, but i wouldn't know how to do it.

anyway, that questions was out of curiosity, thinking of how to remove Linux. right now i was to install Linux!

soon i'm going to try to install Ubuntu over Debian, this time with the router. wish me luck!

[dodecahedron]

right now i'm pissed off.
my regular windows installation consists of 2 HDs: one on which WinXP sits, the other is used for backup. they're master and slave on Primary ATA channel.
when i installed Linux on the SATA HD, it was most convenient for me to remove the power connector from the slave (backup) drive.
i now connected it to a power connector again (used a different one for the SATA) and now again i can't boot!

i get Error 17 from Grub.
i get the same Error 17 if:
a. i disconnect the SATA drive on which Linux is installed.
b. i reconnect the slave drive.

wft? maybe it makes sense to Linux (not boot up if a new hard drive appears) ???
i can only boot with the same configuration i had when i'd installed Linux.

[dodecahedron]

congrats.
just installed Ubuntu again. with the router.
all's well. i now have internet connectivity from Linux without any problem or any tinkering/configuring on my part!

this is my first post on CDRLabs from Linux.

[socheat]

Yay! Does this mean you have a dual-booting system as well?

After doing a bit of research on fdisk /mbr, it turns out you were right to be cautious. Looks like that was the "old school" way, and not very safe. Here's a paragraph from one of the pages I found:

Boot from your Windows XP CD and go into the Recovery Console. You will need the Administrators password for that. Run FixMBR and that will get rid of LILO.

[dodecahedron]

LOL "better safe than sorry" as the saying goes, and in this case "sorry" would mean i've screwed up the MBR and my access to Windows. and while this might have been fixable, to me a non-guru it would've probably been simpler and quicker to re-install Windows. and i don't want to do that now.

anyway, yeah i have a dual-booting system Ubuntu+WinXP. just like the first install it went real smooth. the installer simple formatted the HD (i guess) and the installation was as simple as the first. no problems installing one Linux over the other. also no problem with Grub (i was a bit worried about that). it detected the WinXP, didn't detect the Debian (that's what i was concered about), everything is fine.

now i just have to find again a post in the Ubunto forums on how to change the default to WinXP.

and now i'm switching over to Linux and will start to do all that apt stuff and get my XEmacs and LaTeX, wish me luck.

thanks for the tip about how to get rid of Grub (when i want to remove Linux).

[socheat]

Glad to help another person make the switch.

thanks for the tip about how to get rid of Grub (when i want to remove Linux).

Let's hope that becomes "if I want to remove Linux"

[dodecahedron]

bad choice of words.

i need to work on my thesis, hopefully for a month or so.
after that i want to to a big over-haul of the system, including reinstalling windows on a new SATA hd. but i'll probably keep Linux.
i can still remember the days when i curesd windows a lot - that was soon after i got a PC at home and started using windows. that was 7 years or so ago. before that i only worked on the Unix and Linux stations at the univ.
LOL i'm sure getting used to CLI will be strange a bit at first.
or working in Linux with a Windows-like enviroment - that's strange too!

i still curse M$ every time Word crashes and takes along with it 15-30 minues of my work just because i forgot to keep pressing Ctrl-S.
just happed a week ago or so. prepared a solution sheets for my summer semester course of Linear Algebra, where i calculated the Van-der-Monde determinant of orders 2, 3 and 4. a lot of work on Word's equation editor believe me. halfway through i had to redo it

[dodecahedron]

Socheat, maybe you can help me with something really annoying.

if i try to run something that requires the root's privileges, like: Applications -> System Tools -> Root Terminal, or System -> Administration -> Synaptic, i get a popup requesting a password.
if i type the root's password i get an error message wrong password.
if i type my (current user's) password i get an error message like:

Failed to run /usr/sbin/synaptic: Child terminated with 1 status

if i again try with the root password the second error again (not the first error i mentioned).
i'm sure it's the right password, since if i open a terminal and typs su and the same password gets me in. then i can synaptic & and OK but it's annying to do it this way.
by the way, i had the same problem the first time i installed Ubuntu. then when i had Debian didn't have this error.
something misconfigured ?

[socheat]

I've had this problem before too, and I never remember what I do to fix it. First things to check, as root at the command line:
- check if gksudo is installed: 'which gksudo' If you get /usr/bin/gksudo, it's installed

- See if the loopback interface is up: 'ifconfig' Look for 'lo' and 127.0.0.1
If it's not up, try typing 'ifconfig lo up'. If that doesn't work, do:
'ifconfig lo 127.0.0.1'

- type 'visudo' and look for a line like this:

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# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin  ALL=(ALL) ALL

If the line isn't there, add it. If that line is there, look in /etc/group, and look for this line:

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adm:x:4:socheat  <-- your shell username would be here instead of mine

If your username isn't there, add it and then logout completely (System -> Logout ), and log back in.

See if any of those things help.

[dodecahedron]

typing ifconfig i get:

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eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:18:F1:0D:D1
          inet addr:192.168.0.100  Bcast:192.168.0.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::2e0:18ff:fef1:dd1/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:129925 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:89465 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:185969843 (177.3 MiB)  TX bytes:7134387 (6.8 MiB)
          Interrupt:22 Base address:0xb000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:76847 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:76847 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:5734723 (5.4 MiB)  TX bytes:5734723 (5.4 MiB)

is that OK?
my /etc/sudoers file is:

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# /etc/sudoers
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# Defaults

Defaults        !lecture,tty_tickets,!fqdn

# User privilege specification
root    ALL=(ALL) ALL


added the lines you mentioned and it didn't change.
the /etc/group has the line you mentioned.
logging out, we'll see.

[dodecahedron]

didn't help.
logged out, logged in.
trying to get a root terminal or synaptic give me the "child terminated with 1 status" error.

[socheat]

Did you edit the /etc/sudoers file with the 'visudo' command? It won't make the updates to the sudoers database if you edit it by hand (i.e., using a text editor)

If you did use visudo, type group as your regular user, and make sure 'adm' shows up in the list.

If 'adm' shows up in the list, what does typing (as regular user): 'gtksudo synaptic' do? You should get some output on the console if you get errors while logging in.

[dodecahedron]

yes, i edited it with the visudo command.
the copy of my sudoers file in the previous post is after editing and as you can see i added the line you mentioned.

reading a bit in the forums and found a topic about this very problem. recent too - from yesterday.
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=56659
the solution offered is "sudo passwd root" (also mentioned here:
http://www.ubuntuguide.org/#setchangeenablerootpassword ) but it didn't work for me. what's strange is that according to the forum and also the wiki (below) it should ask for my password first which it didn't.

according to this:
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/RootSudo
when using sudo or some GUI that calls it you need to enter your password. but it doesn't work for me!

now if i try sudo in console i get "xxx is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported."

[socheat]

next thing to do/try is add this line, via visudo to the sudoers file:

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socheat    ALL=(ALL) ALL

Again, change socheat to whatever your username is.

[dodecahedron]

thanks Socheat. that did it.
i don't have the time to check what the problem was, it shouldn't have happend.
the user account (according to what i've been reading on the forum) that was created during the install process has admin previliges (admin group?) and so should be on the sudoers file. oh well.

now i can run synaptic witout going to xterm and su.

i tried adding xemacs (in syanptic) and it tells me that it will also install a few other pakcages (ok i understand) but also:
to be removed: mozilla-firefox-gnome-support and ubuntu-desktop.
that sounds bad, no ?
same happens when i try to add LaTeX (actually tetex) in synaptic.

will that break up my gnome? my Ubuntu system ?

[socheat]

That is definately not right.

Use synaptic to search for ubuntu-desktop and mozilla-gnome-support.

Make sure there's a green box next to it. Otherwise, right click it and mark it for installation. If "Mark for Installation" is grayed out, that means it's installed. You could also try marking it for reinstallation too.

[socheat]

Also, did you add those repositories/make those changes suggested on the ubuntuguide.org site?

[dodecahedron]

hmm..
i already started (including that removal of those) then saw you post hit cancel.

right now ubuntu-desktop has a green box next to it, marked for reinstall anyway.
mozilla-firefox-gnome-support has a green box with a red x on it but in the description it's marked "dummy transitional package"!

[dodecahedron]

Also, did you add those repositories/make those changes suggested on the ubuntuguide.org site?

yeah.
the file on my system was messed up (didn't have all the rem'ed lines in the example) so i just copied the example file.

[dodecahedron]

ubuntu-desktop description:

The Ubuntu desktop system
This package depends on all of the packages in the Ubuntu desktop system

It is safe to remove this package if some of the desktop system
packages are not desired. However, it is recommended that you keep
it installed, because it is used to carry out certain upgrade
transitions (such as adding new packages to the system).

so maybe it's not so terrible if it's removed when i install LaTeX.

[socheat]

NOOO. Do not remove Ubuntu desktop. That would make your gui desktop not as pretty, I believe.

[socheat]

I'd recommend doing this, as root from the terminal:

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apt-get update
apt-get install xemacs21 latex mozilla-firefox mozilla-firefox-gnome-support ubuntu-desktop  <-- all one line, space separated

[dodecahedron]

i selected the ubuntu-desktop for update/fixing (i didn't know if it had been removed in the previous installation that i cancelled).
OK and now it's green and now when i selected xemacs nothing was selected for removal. xemacs installed (through synaptic) just fine.

fix broken packages - nothing selected (at first, before i started anything, after the install, there was one broken. but filtering it couldn't find it).
mark all upgrades - nothing selected.
seems all is well now.
next i'll install tetex (latex).

[wicked1]

I still am saying give mandriva a shot I love it.

[dodecahedron]

what is the meaning of the Ubuntu symbol (only some packages) in the second column in synaptic ? does it mean they're ubuntu packages rather than debian packages ?