Oh if I remember correctly, rsync needs an argument to keep ownership! You have to run it as root, but
-owill keep owners and-gwill keep groups.-adoes both and also keeps permissions.
Hm, strange. I did rsync -aAxv if I remember correctly. I didn't know what it meant, it's just what I was told to use.
Maybe the problem was that some of the folders/files it copied were locked, so they couldn't be deleted normally?
I use Endeavour, btw. I have yet to hear someone shit on it.
I'm already planning to use kup and vorta for backups.
It seems I can enter sleep mode from my login screen, but I have to be careful not to jiggle my mouse at all while clicking "sleep". So I'm going to make a rule to disable mouse wakeup. And if I want to make it sleep from the lock screen I have to add a rule to polkit, which is kinda lame but whatever.
And I initially changed my username in the settings but I still had to run "sudo usermod -d newname -m newname" to update the /etc/passwd and home directory, which I had to do from an alternative admin account. Then I did a "groupmod" and "chown" to update my group name/ownership.
I almost panicked at first though cause all my folders were empty, but it was just a shell of my old directory. I had to manually edit the shortcut pathways to the new directory and all my files were there!
Then I did a "grep -i /home/oldname" to find any leftover places, but it was mostly present in .local/share/ for app configs, .cache/ for things like "recently used", and my backups folder. Just a few places I need to look at today to make sure everything is fine.
Oh, and if you have any custom scripts, services, cronjobs, or symlinks containing absolute paths, you need to manually edit those too! But my system is still pretty fresh so I don't...
Thanks!
I'm planning on installing some GUIs like Vorta and Kup. At first I was going to avoid the CLI altogether, but after a KDE update broke my system on day 1, I had to use the terminal and now I'm addicted! Learning how to use it is really opening my eyes to how the system works, so now I've decided I'll do everything via CLI at least once before using a GUI.
Logseq looks interesting. How does that compare to Trullium?
Great idea, thank you!
Yeah, I actually spent days 4 and 5 troubleshooting errors in the bootlogs, and some problems with polkit not letting me put my computer to sleep.
Still haven't fixed everything, but I did solve the main issue which was "failed to delete autoinstaller.sh" by adding an -f to the ExecStart line in systemd's cleanup.service
But I also successfully changed my username, /home/directory, group name and ownership without breaking anything! Fortunately I decided to do it while my system was still fresh so I didn't have many custom scripts to edit
Ugh. It took me a couple of weeks to everything I needed working on this pc. If I have to reboot every week or two, not that big a deal.
I did try and restart my desktop, but it failed. I don't think I did it right. I found some instructions specific to Cinnamon. I will try them next time.
I still think it possibly has something to do with either video or memory. It isn't every single time, but no small number of times it freezes, I am doing something on youtube, and then open a new tab in either Firefox or Chromium. It's like moving that video to the background or opening that new tab went over a limit with memory. I was sure it was videos, but then I have done it a few times with no videos going. For sure, it always involves a browser, but that's because I work on web pages all day long and that's what I'm always using. Still, it's never done it when I'm in any other program.
Thanks, this one is buzzy though. I'm way too bothered by audio issues, I might need to make one myself. Eventually.
I'm afraid I'll get less careful as I gain experience and my comfort level increases.
This is exactly what happens! Or maybe one day you’re just extra tired or something. Mistakes happen. That’s a huge reason backups are so important, even in professional settings. Humans make honest mistakes, and that’s ok.
That’s actually why I like the knife analogy, because if you’re using a sharp knife, eventually you might get a cut. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using the sharp knife (oftentimes you have to!), it’s just important to remember that it’s sharp. And to not blame yourself too much if you do get cut.
I tried to do everything I could to delete it normally, but it wouldn't let me. In hindsight I wonder if rsync gave the ownership of the backup to the root or something...
Oh if I remember correctly, rsync needs an argument to keep ownership! You have to run it as root, but -o will keep owners and -g will keep groups. -a does both and also keeps permissions.
As an aside, just to confirm, people talk about trying not to use rm -rf but that was the right thing to use! You don’t want to confirm “yes, delete that file” every time.
Obligatory: Your choice of Linux distro is awful. I don't know which one it is you're running, but someone will rip on you for it either way.
Other than that, great to have you onboard. Some tidbits:
This is an interesting read. Thanks 🙃
BTW, I don't know if you want to do everything via the command line but there are GUIs for some of your tasks. Specifically, TimeShift for backups. And for notes, I can recommend Logseq
If it ain’t broke, I think OP is Linuxing wrong
etckeeper can keep track of changes you make to your config. I've never used it but there have been many times I wish I had.
I actually didn't break anything today!
That you know of!
Thanks! Yeah, I've definitely been swearing a lot these past couple days. Today wasn't too bad, though, even though I didn't get to any of the security stuff
Oh, neat! I'll add tpm to my list of security things to do. Not sure how much of it I'll get to though, cause I'm going to read about everything thoroughly before I do anything. I'm afraid of accidentally wiping my drive by trying to encrypt the swap space or something...
Oh god, that sounds like it must have sucked. Good thing you caught it early!
I'm really paranoid about syntax errors, so I read everything like three times before hitting enter. I'm afraid I'll get less careful as I gain experience and my comfort level increases.
I've always had OCD though, even about things like passwords and email addresses. Even when I know I typed it in right, I'm still afraid of there being some mistake that escaped my notice...
That knife analogy sounds like a good one. I tried to do everything I could to delete it normally, but it wouldn't let me. In hindsight I wonder if rsync gave the ownership of the backup to the root or something...
Your rm -rf reminded me of one of my mistakes.
I know everyone’s probably already heard about stories like this, but one terrifying mistake I made in college was a fat-fingered rm -rf / home/whatever.
I didn’t notice the space before hitting enter, so it started happily deleting system files from /.
I killed it pretty quickly, and then was able to re-download the files I accidentally deleted by hand, one by one, while the computer was running. It felt like I was changing a tire of a car while it was driving.
So I try to think of that kind of thing as a sharp knife. Cut carefully.
Doesn’t mean I didn’t also delete an entire customer database a few years later but at least that one was backed up! Horrible feeling. lol
My sound is a free airplane liner crew communication chime
I just need a cleaner sound because the chime I found is kinda noisy.
I got you fam
https://www.myinstants.com/en/instant/intercom-chime-1-31642/
Oh I went for 20 minutes because it feels like it's not chasing me down and still useful. I often have to get going on the hour or at half hour so it's a good reminder for me without being annoying (yet).
My sound is a free airplane liner crew communication chime. For some reason it's tickling my brain right even though I really dislike flying (mostly the crowd, the noise and the uncomfortable space).
I'll look into th link, thanks.
Ahh, recursive backup, fun, at least you caught it early, might not have if you weren't paying attention.
I like reading your adventures. Reminds me of all the times I cried out "FUCK, what now?"... And I still do on occasion.
Security tomorrow. Maybe I should finally setup secure boot and look into tpm. Been putting that off for a good while now.
Glad your rolling with the punches!
It won't be long before I'm wearing thigh-highs and cat ears 😎
Yeah, no, you have to go out of your way to choose something to work with Wallpaper Engine which is a paid Steam app and you have to choose the Steam app folder it exists in and such, so I doubt it had anything to do with that specifically.
You're probably right that it was some other desktop setting that borked it, who knows what, honestly. Could have been any number of things. It definitely wouldn't have been from just standard wallpapers, especially if you hadn't actually changed the wallpaper.
Anyway, yeah, if you ever get a hankering to use Wallpaper Engine, be careful which wallpapers you choose in KDE or you'll end up going through the same process all over again.
Not that I'm aware of. Only if it was enabled by default, I mean. Or if I enabled it accidentally. I still have the default wallpaper, which is a high-res image of Ganymede.
Now that you mention it though, I did click on something that said "download more EndeavourOS wallpapers" in the welcome window after updating everything and before rebooting (when the problem started).
It ran a script, looked like it was downloading something, but I couldn't find whatever it was after it finished. There certainly aren't more wallpapers in any folder I can find. I don't think the official OS would show me an option to download malware right on their welcome screen, but maybe there was a corrupted file or something...
I see. That makes sense. It really has felt a lot like having no guard rails, now that you mention it.
It's no minor feat you brought your computer back from the brink.
Aw, well now I'm just flattered! Don't let this go to my head. Now I see why Arch users are known for their hubris 😅
You gave yourself a good crash course and learned a lot more about how your OS works in the process. This experience gave you a foundation you'll take with you to whatever comes next
even if it's another distro.
I can't wait to spin up a few VMs and try more distros and desktop environments! Play around with different inits and file systems, maybe try a distro with musl and busybox for c lib and coreutils, even something with the linux-libre kernel. I won't truly understand what each component of the operating system does until I've isolated variables and tried multiple kinds of each.
I'm really enjoying it so far. There's so much to learn, but instead of feeling overwhelmed I'm excited about all the possibilities ahead.
I've found myself saying "I should've chosen LMDE" multiple times these past couple days, but ultimately there's no replacement for the learning I was forced into by breaking my system.
I wonder if I would have learned anything at all if I chose LMDE or Zorin, or if I would've never had to fix my system and just done everything through the GUI. Ahh, the bliss of ignorance, once lost can never be regained...
Yeah, I'm liking it so far! Although I still don't know enough to know what's Endeavor and what's KDE, but the two seem to work well together. You know... except for when they don't...
I did check the forum when I had my issue and I found some posts from as recently as a month ago saying it was the KDE update that did it. So people suggested some tweaks to the kernel options, which I didn't know how to do yet (which was how I ended up breaking my system further before fixing it).
But it turns out that wasn't the issue for me, because when I finally found the place where I was supposed to add the parameter, it was already there!
I ended up just rolling back to a previous version of KDE from my cache, and then backing up my config files and moving them to a different folder so that restarting plasma generated new defaults, and voila!