Why GNU/Linux Rocks

[devilock76]

One day I want to figure out why Netflix won't work on linux, especially since it works on Droid. I know the web version is supposed to expect DirectX. But I have been able to (did this when setting up Ableton once through Wine) make a direct X install work through wine. It takes a lot of tweaking and the documentation on it is shaky but it can be done. I wonder if the same could get Netflix running.

My other idea is to actually run the android netflix app in an android emulation. A lot of hoops but that should be actually simpler than doing it with the Wine+DirectX+Browser for windows in wine setup. Of course the fail safe is to use say Virtual Box and use a windows emulation for Netflix.

Ken

[shikitohno]

For backups, rsync will work fine, you just need to figure out exactly how you want to go about things. If you have static internal IPs for your LAN, it should be relatively easy to make it work. A simple bash script that has rsync ssh into the relevant machines and back things up could work very well. Rsync is a very nice back up tool, in my opinion. It'll take a while to run the first time, but then each time after will be substantially quicker. Rsync will check the directories you want to back up, and after the initial run, it will only grab files which have been created or modified since the last backup, rather than grabbing every single file again.

If I were in your situation and had static internal IPs as I said, this is what I would do. Set up the machine you want to back up from to use key authentication rather than password authentication. This will allow your other machine to ssh into it and use the key to log in, rather than having your password in plain-text in a bash script somewhere, which would possibly bite you in the ass if the machine running that script was compromised by someone. Bang out a simple bash script that tells rsync to connect to your Fedora machine, and specifies which directories/files to back up. Finally, add a cron job that runs the script at a specified interval. The cron job will let this task run automatically, and you can specify how often you want it to run.

The biggest issue I see with this approach is handling errors. Chief amongst those errors would be how your script would react if you went to bed and left your computer in Windows rather than Fedora, and it couldn't connect. This should be easily resolved by either including some sort of conditional statement to test whether or not it can connect, or by just making sure you always leave the computer in Fedora when the script is going to run.

Also, concerning the set up time with Linux, that is another reason I like the Arch installer. Part of the process is choosing which packages to install, and if you enable the [core], [community] and [extra] repos (the three official repos offered), you can install any packages you want from one of those three. This usually takes me about 5-10 minutes to work through depending on how distracted I am. For those 5-10 minutes of effort though, I have all my codecs, fonts, flash, irssi, tmux, vim and anything else I consider part of my essential base system installed right from the start. There's no dicking around enabling RPM-fusion, livna and adobe repos, and hunting down the various little bits and pieces that you need to have installed if you want your system to be able to handle anything you throw at it. It sacrifices Fedora's stance on not including any packages potentially wrapped up in patent issues, but it also saves you from having to spend four hours installing repos for the one package you want from them so that your computer can handle all basic media on par with a Windows machine.

I don't know if it will be an issue for your mother, but to warn you in case it applies and you haven't heard of this yet, Netflix streaming will not work for her under Linux. As for a music store, I'll throw in a vote for Google Music myself. Pricing seems generally on par with iTunes, and they've got a good catalogue. Anything you buy, you can download as a DRM-free 320kbps mp3 file. She'll also be able to stream her purchased music from any other computer via their site, and can upload any tracks she owns via the Google Music Manager (up to a 20,000 song limit), and be able to stream them as well.

If you haven't already, I'd also make sure to give her a quick crash course on how to keep her system up to date, and how to find answers to any problems she has. In other words, teach her how to google, and get her to sign up on the Fedora forums. If you can get her to learn how to take care of her machine, and teach her how to work with any problems she has, you'll save yourself a lot of headache in the future. If you don't, when things break because she hasn't updated in a year, or did something dumb that she shouldn't have, you are going to be the one who takes the blame. It doesn't matter if she's the one who decided to

sudo rm -rf /usr

, it's going to be your fault because you installed Linux on her computer, so magically you become the source of all its issues. Welcome to family tech support, and have fun.

[devilock76]

Lets talk about backups:

In light of everyones issues with losing data, I really need to set up an automated backup scheme, but don't know what is the best way to go about this.

Does some CLI software exist somewhere that can automatically watch certain folders I tell it to watch, and keep a copy of whatever is in those folders routinely backed up on my server? Is this what rsync does? Is there a way for it to know if a change has been made to the file, or will it just re-upload the whole thing? Can this be automated, so that it backs everything up in said folders maybe once every 5 days or something?

I have two machines which need to be backed up on one server, and I would like it to be as automated as possible. Will rsync do this?

Also, is there a way to compress the backups as a tarball or something so they dont take up as much space on the server, like a way for it to automatically compress the data and upload it after it's been compressed?

I hear is rsnapshot pretty usefull. It uses rsync to generate and store snapshots of the directories that you specify. It hardlinks files that haven't changed, so disk space isn't wasted by copying duplicate files. Is this the best solution for backing things up? And by "snapshot" do they mean like a copy of everything in any given folder? I'm not looking to back up system files, only pictures, documents etc.

rsync is defacto, I don't compress redunant data that I am not snapshotting as part of a time line. You could also just write a script to call as a cron job.

Now if you want uber backup candy solaris with zfs has features like the mac timemachine setup.

Ken

[devilock76]

Hey my mom wants itunes so she can continue buying music, but obviously itunes isn't going to work on Linux because Linux is the antithesis to everything apple stands for. I do not want to set it up in wine either. The question becomes, where do linux users go to download music for $.99? Is there something similar to the iTunes store that can be accessed from linux? Prefereably something that isn't just a webpage frontend, like something that will catagorize, play her music etc, plus load it onto her ipod?


Edit: Has anyone used Ubuntu One Music Store? It looks like the itunes equivalent, but I am wondering if it will run on Fedora. I am sure there is a way. If anyone has used this let me know how you liked it. I know it syncs your purchases with Rhythmbox, but I was hoping to use Amarok. Either way, I guess I could just have her buy stuff off amazon.com, but then it wouldn't automatically sync with her music player. She isn't real great on computers so simplicity is key here.

Itunes will install on linux via wine. Have done it and it works. However I use Amazon for purchasing mp3 files. Between the amazon cloud service and just abou every distro can run the amazon mp3 downloader app, you are set on linux.

Ken

[sgreger1]

Lets talk about backups:

In light of everyones issues with losing data, I really need to set up an automated backup scheme, but don't know what is the best way to go about this.

Does some CLI software exist somewhere that can automatically watch certain folders I tell it to watch, and keep a copy of whatever is in those folders routinely backed up on my server? Is this what rsync does? Is there a way for it to know if a change has been made to the file, or will it just re-upload the whole thing? Can this be automated, so that it backs everything up in said folders maybe once every 5 days or something?

I have two machines which need to be backed up on one server, and I would like it to be as automated as possible. Will rsync do this?

Also, is there a way to compress the backups as a tarball or something so they dont take up as much space on the server, like a way for it to automatically compress the data and upload it after it's been compressed?

I hear is rsnapshot pretty usefull. It uses rsync to generate and store snapshots of the directories that you specify. It hardlinks files that haven't changed, so disk space isn't wasted by copying duplicate files. Is this the best solution for backing things up? And by "snapshot" do they mean like a copy of everything in any given folder? I'm not looking to back up system files, only pictures, documents etc.

[sgreger1]

Hey my mom wants itunes so she can continue buying music, but obviously itunes isn't going to work on Linux because Linux is the antithesis to everything apple stands for. I do not want to set it up in wine either. The question becomes, where do linux users go to download music for $.99? Is there something similar to the iTunes store that can be accessed from linux? Prefereably something that isn't just a webpage frontend, like something that will catagorize, play her music etc, plus load it onto her ipod?


Edit: Has anyone used Ubuntu One Music Store? It looks like the itunes equivalent, but I am wondering if it will run on Fedora. I am sure there is a way. If anyone has used this let me know how you liked it. I know it syncs your purchases with Rhythmbox, but I was hoping to use Amarok. Either way, I guess I could just have her buy stuff off amazon.com, but then it wouldn't automatically sync with her music player. She isn't real great on computers so simplicity is key here.

[lxskllr]

I don't have 1tb drives yet. I haved a mix matched collection of old drives, and I'm guessing I could fit verything I needed into 1tb. The other 1tb drive would be for backups, and the other would be to backup the backup if you get where I'm coming from. Drive prices are expensive right now due to flooding, but once prices normalize, having two backups will be quite feasible.

So far my install is ~10gb, but I need to remove a bunch of stuff still. My problem is I like Gnome apps, but don't like the desktop much anymore. They have weird dependencies, where sometimes I'll go to remove something I don't want, and something I want will be attached to it. I'm just taking it slow. I'm a little gun shy at this point :^D I'm also thinking about sticking with testing for that reason, but haven't completely decided.

[sgreger1]

I appreciate it sgreger, but I have a lot of small storage. I could probably use 3 1tb drives. One for my main system cause it's getting old, one to use as backup, and another for redundancy. My problem is this computer didn't start out as being a primary machine, but it slowly morphed into that role. When i set it up, I couldn't have cared less about the data on it. Now it's become more important, but my mindset didn't change. I have enough storage for the imporatant bits and bobs, but I need to get a real solution together, and not let things go for so long. I could have uploaded some stuff to my UbuntuOne account, but neglected to.

Oh well, live and learn. I'm still setting crap up, and I'm a little lost. I've used Xfce before, but not as a primary desktop, so It'll take awhile to get customized. I'm playing with E17 on and off. That's way foreign, so I'm concentrating on Xfce for the time being. I need to upgrade to sid also. I should probably do that first. That way if I break something, there'll be less time lost :^D

You're using 3 1tb drives? Jesus christ man lol.

One thing I love about Linux is how small the programs are. Installed all the necessary stuff on my moms computer and it only ate up 99mb, that's with libreoffice and everything. Absolutely amazing. (Number was obtained via du -h which I assume is correct). (The 99mb was for software, the OS was a few gigs)

[lxskllr]

I appreciate it sgreger, but I have a lot of small storage. I could probably use 3 1tb drives. One for my main system cause it's getting old, one to use as backup, and another for redundancy. My problem is this computer didn't start out as being a primary machine, but it slowly morphed into that role. When i set it up, I couldn't have cared less about the data on it. Now it's become more important, but my mindset didn't change. I have enough storage for the imporatant bits and bobs, but I need to get a real solution together, and not let things go for so long. I could have uploaded some stuff to my UbuntuOne account, but neglected to.

Oh well, live and learn. I'm still setting crap up, and I'm a little lost. I've used Xfce before, but not as a primary desktop, so It'll take awhile to get customized. I'm playing with E17 on and off. That's way foreign, so I'm concentrating on Xfce for the time being. I need to upgrade to sid also. I should probably do that first. That way if I break something, there'll be less time lost :^D

[sgreger1]

Guess who fscked up their installation...

I'm good at giving advice, but not following it. Currently installing Debian testing, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get back some of my stuff with forensic tools. I don't think I lost anything super important. My most important things are pictures of my daughter, and I think I gave them all to my mother on the tablet I got her for Xmas. This is a huge PITA though, and I lost a bunch of stuff that's nice to have. My problem is I don't have anything to back up to. I'm short on money, and short on drive space.

I spent most of yesterday dicking with the system, and made some critical errors. There were a couple points where I could have recovered, but failed to recognize them. Also, I had some issues installing Debian. I used a sid liveCD, and kept getting errors. I guess it was a bad image. I finally got it using a testing ntinstall. I'm currently sitting at a Gnome3 desktop, and installing Xfce, and E17. My confidence is shot :'^(

Sorry to hear about that Lx

The worst part is that with Linux, it takes a while to set up. I spent a few hours just installing all the codecs, programs etc after I got the OS on there.

How much data do you typically have that would need backing up. Are we talking <16gb? 100GB? 200GB?

If it's only a few gigs, I have some spare SD cards and USB sticks that could give you a few gigs of storage, so that this kind of thing own't be a problem in the future. If you have more than that, you can feel free to rysync it to my dedicated server that has lots of space, assuming the content isn't personal in nature. I imagine there is a way to truecrypt the items you want to back up and then you can FTP it to my server so that it can sit there safely but won't be able to be accessed by anyone but you.

I have the NHS server at my house that I use as a cloud storage device, but I am trying to learn how to set up rsync on my dedicated server so that I can get it to save a copy of all documents on my linux partition. Does anyone know if this is hard to accomplish? When I get my raspberry Pi, this will probably be it's function. Have it backing up the really important stuff on a large SD card or something.

[devilock76]

Guess who fscked up their installation...

I'm good at giving advice, but not following it. Currently installing Debian testing, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get back some of my stuff with forensic tools. I don't think I lost anything super important. My most important things are pictures of my daughter, and I think I gave them all to my mother on the tablet I got her for Xmas. This is a huge PITA though, and I lost a bunch of stuff that's nice to have. My problem is I don't have anything to back up to. I'm short on money, and short on drive space.

I spent most of yesterday dicking with the system, and made some critical errors. There were a couple points where I could have recovered, but failed to recognize them. Also, I had some issues installing Debian. I used a sid liveCD, and kept getting errors. I guess it was a bad image. I finally got it using a testing ntinstall. I'm currently sitting at a Gnome3 desktop, and installing Xfce, and E17. My confidence is shot :'^(

Everything we have like that critical goes to the home server and is replicated to a 2tb external hd. Nothing irreplaceable is ever on workstation only.

Ken

[lxskllr]

Partitioning's dangerous, and valuable data should always be backed up first. It's especially dangerous because it's easy to do, and it /usually/ goes well. That fosters complacency, and stupid mistakes happen. Sometimes you do everything right, and it still goes tits up. When you get everything resolved one way or the other, now's a good time to work out a REGULAR backup routine for you and your family. That server you have would be a great place to do offsite backups, and setting up something local would be useful too. A RaspberryPI would make a fine server for some local storage.

Guess who fscked up their installation...

I'm good at giving advice, but not following it. Currently installing Debian testing, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get back some of my stuff with forensic tools. I don't think I lost anything super important. My most important things are pictures of my daughter, and I think I gave them all to my mother on the tablet I got her for Xmas. This is a huge PITA though, and I lost a bunch of stuff that's nice to have. My problem is I don't have anything to back up to. I'm short on money, and short on drive space.

I spent most of yesterday dicking with the system, and made some critical errors. There were a couple points where I could have recovered, but failed to recognize them. Also, I had some issues installing Debian. I used a sid liveCD, and kept getting errors. I guess it was a bad image. I finally got it using a testing ntinstall. I'm currently sitting at a Gnome3 desktop, and installing Xfce, and E17. My confidence is shot :'^(

[sgreger1]

Got it all up and running, wiped everything and started over. Still can't get streaming WMV's to play in Firefox despite instaling every codec on earth, totem, mplayer, vlc etc. What's odd is that it works on my regular computer, not sure what I did different.

[devilock76]

The first option will take care of all the partitioning for you. Everything on the disk will get wiped as a result. It may offer you options for how large you want partitions to be or which filesystem you want to use. Or it might just take care of it all and give you some decent defaults. I forget which, it's been a while.

This, and on large hard drives most of the extra space will go to /home.

Ken

[shikitohno]

The first option will take care of all the partitioning for you. Everything on the disk will get wiped as a result. It may offer you options for how large you want partitions to be or which filesystem you want to use. Or it might just take care of it all and give you some decent defaults. I forget which, it's been a while.