Linux

I came across Mint Mate before Ubuntu Mate. I've not been using linux that long, starting with machines that would only run Lubuntu or Xfce. When I found Mint Mate I liked its familiar windows style and more user friendly support forum. I now run standard Mint on my main machine.

Makes sense.

edit: I may have fixed it by opening gparted in terminal, switching between Fat32 and something else, then back. Then miraculously Startup Disc Creator has now found the distro I'd saved. Very confused

I'm really struggling with my USB.

I tried to turn it into a multi boot drive. But [? Program] just wouldn't install properly.

So now I'm trying to wipe it of Ubuntu. But again it's not working.

When I try to unmount it in terminal it says "not mounted".

If I then unmount it in file manager and then try
sudo mkfs.vfat -I /dev/sdc
Which is what was suggested on one of the Linux q&as it says; unable to open... No Such file or directory

Any ideas?

I don't have any other usbs I can use.

Buy more USBs https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/USB-Flash-Drives/Kingston-DT100G3-16GB-DataTraveler-Flash/B00C5K8D5W

I've installed a new SSD. I'm trying to do a fresh install of mint mate.

When I restart it says OS not found.

In the live version before install the laptop is showing the SSD, so that is not the issue.

When trying to install again in the live version it shows that there is already an installed version.

Online guides aren't much help. There are references to making sure the machine is UEFI enabled. Tbh I don't really understand what this means. There is no UEFI / EFI partition option.

Also all of the guides seem to assume that there should be a UEFI / EFI partition option, which then means I'm not sure how to partition... which then means I can make sure that incorrect partioning is the cause of the OS not being found. I tried disableing Legacy OS, but that didn't really seem to help.

I've been going round in circles and I'm not really sure what to do. Is there something in the boot order I'm missing?

Any ideas?

Cheers.

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Tried with Ubuntu MATE and the same thing has happened.

It might sound like a really basic question, but can I partition drives after installation?

I went for the default settings / auto fresh install for ubuntu mate in part to
Wipe the previous installs thinking I could add the various partions afterwards with Gparted.

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Does anyone have or know of a good guide for cloning an HDD to SSD in Ubuntu (Lubuntu 17.10)?

They are different sizes, but the contents of the HDD are less than the SDD. Just.

Cheers.

@hugo7 maybe shrink the partition before imaging it?

https://www.backup-utility.com/articles/clonezilla-clone-larger-disk-to-smaller-disk-4348.html

Parted or GParted can shrink partitions, you could make them quite bit smaller so you dont run into any issues and when migrated increase to the max again.

Did you resolve the issue with installing Ubuntu and not being able to boot.
It sounds like you didn't wipe the entire disk prior to installing?

Any ideas?

Read up on MBRs and grub, I rekon

can I partition drives after installation

Yes. Gparted makes it very easy.

Cheers.

@TheShipwright -

Did you resolve the issue with installing Ubuntu and not being able to boot.
It sounds like you didn't wipe the entire disk prior to installing?

No. I've gone round in circles not really getting anywhere.

The Lubuntu install on the original HDD was a Legacy install. The SDD was brand new. I've used gpart to wipe it a few time now.

A couple of things I've noticed are;

1. In bios the SDD doesn't show as an SDD - just a HD. Although on the summary info screen when loading it does show the correct make/model of SSD.
   
2. When I looked at the flags in gpart after trying yet another default install as well as a "boot" flag there was an "esp" flag. However removing it didn't seem to make a difference.
   
   

@hugo7,
this I think covers it.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/682147/can-i-erase-all-partitions-including-efi-and-install-only-ubuntu

Thanks. That's a helpful explanation.

I just need to get my motivation back.

I tried to start the cloning process, but just don't have the energy.

I'm trying to get Tautulli to start automatically when I restart my plex server (running Ubuntu).

I followed the instructions here to install https://github.com/Tautulli/Tautulli-Wiki/wiki/Installation#linux including the optional section and then the script to get it to start up automatically.

I can get it to run with the command

sudo python Tautulli.py

It won't start without sudo, I get various errors.

 systemctl start tautulli.service

Also works, although it asks me for my account password.

Given the above, I assume it's some kind of permissions issue which is stopping it autostarting. I tried editing the sudoers file but that went badly.

Any suggestions on what I need to be doing here? Cheers

Does this help:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/159007/how-do-i-run-specific-sudo-commands-without-a-password

I'm managed to get my SSD to work!

Not 100% sure how - I think using boot-repair properly, then setting my BIOS to EFI afterwards (the install was in Legacy).

It's not totally ideal as I've ended up with Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS rather than 18.04.1 LTS and the default install with whatever partitions (I was trying another fix which didn't work).

Is there any real risk of having my partitions set up like this?

As I understand it I don't need swap with an SSD, and if I did it should be double my RAM (now 8GB).
Cheers.

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Cheers but I think it was attempting to follow that that ended up with me corrupting my sudoers file and having to boot into recovery to repair it.

I have a drive which has what I think is a partition table issue:
Can't find grub or get past grub command prompt.

I'm in a live usb, having a poke around (have cloned the drive and am poking around the clone).
fdisk -l is showing a partition as AIX bootable. Is that really weird? I can't find much info about the type anywhere. Its end sector is also outside of the physical limitations of the disk.

When my machine is booting up there's a whole string of commands that go past including some which appear to be failing which I think is linked to the service not starting. Is this startup logged somewhere so I can review it afterwards?

/var/log/syslog?

That was it cheers.

After a few weeks of faffing I've finally got tautulli running on boot. Not entirely sure which bit of my pissing about got it working, it's times like this which remind me why I normally use Windows.

remind me why I normally use Windows.

I definitely felt that too recently. That and Word and Excel - or at least their cross compatability.

But then on the upside, for the princely sum of £45 in upgrades I now have a 10yo laptop running really well. And if I'd left it all alone, it would have been a perfectly good 10yo laptop running a budget looking OS with a rubbish search function for £0.

All of which is less than I spend a year on Mrs H's 365 subscription - which she refuses to use any of the 1TB storage thereby wasting one of the main benefits.

On the Excel thing, if you had a borrowed version of Excel would it be possible to use Wine to run it on Ubuntu?

Not entirely sure which bit of my pissing about got it working

Linux in a nutshell for me

Depends on the version.

Running a borrowed version of windows on a VM might be more successful.