Any fellow Linux users on here?

[Shevek]

The simplest and easiest way to do this is to copy the hidden files to new installations. Not all hidden files, only the pertinent ones or you'll cause problems in your new system. There's 2 hidden files you'll want to copy:
.mozilla (firefox)
.thunderbird

These are found in your home folder. Hidden files have a full stop as the first character in their name. Copying these in to a new system means that all your email accounts are already set up, all your old emails are still there, all your internet bookmarks are retained as well as saved logins and passwords.

The .mozilla file has a trick to catch you out though, it doesn't properly overwrite any existing .mozilla file so you need to delete the newer existing file before copying your old one in.


You can do this too, very handy for people that have poor or expensive internet services. There used to be a wonderful Canadian service called OS Disc but they shut down in 2019. I had a quick look around and found this one:

Linux DVD Shop - UK Linux Shop supplying Linux on CD, DVD and USB delivering to the UK and worldwide with 24hr dispatch.

If you're having trouble getting hardware to run correctly then I recommend you try Fedora Linux. Most distributions only come with a "current" set of hardware drivers. This means no drivers and poor support for both older hardware and for the latest and greatest. Fedora is the only one I've come across that operates everything correctly straight out of the box.

That said, I've been using Ubuntu again for the last 6 months but I'm fed up with it again now and will shortly be going back to Fedora.

Fedora Cinnamon Desktop

spins.fedoraproject.org

Thanks. I've been wrestling with Thunderbird all day. I hope files from 66 will work their magic on the new version, which I hear has far better backup, but so simple that you can't just copy the address book, for instance.

 

[Judge]

you can't just copy the address book, for instance.

True. That's why I save address books as .csv files that Thunderbird can import.

BTW- Thunderbird more often than not can be a pain in the ass.

 

[Outdated]

Thanks. I've been wrestling with Thunderbird all day. I hope files from 66 will work their magic on the new version, which I hear has far better backup, but so simple that you can't just copy the address book, for instance.

I'm glad I was of some help.

For the record, in more than 40 years of computing I have never yet found a backup program that will do the job properly. Such a simple and basic job and not even one of them can get it right.

The only answer is to get to know how your system works and where different files are stored. Do backing up yourself by copying and pasting files and folders. I also have two separate desktop computers so there's a fair bit of file redundancy there, if I delete something I shouldn't then there's a fair chance that it's still on the other machine.

Exactly like the example Judge just gave, a pro-active stance is the only one that works.

 

[Shevek]

OK, I'm down the rabbit hole now. After I'd installed MX Linux, it was going through the getting acquainted questions, and offered to do a memory check. This was taking hours, and about half-way through the second of four passes, with no errors, I accidentally hit the power button. It came back and asked a few questions over again, and off we were, running fairly normally. Except, if I tried to have it "sleep" it woke up back at the intro question list again. I only did that twice. Since then, I've been chasing an elusive "login" word to get my Thunderbird hooked up with my mail service, but that's another story.
Today's drama came when I plugged in a second monitor. It asked me nicely how I'd like the two of them arranged, and when I answered, one screen went to hash, and nothing worked. I hit the power button, and now what I get is :

BusyBox v1.30.1(Debian 1:1e30.1-6+b3) built in shell (ash)

Built In commands:
. : { [[ alias bg break cd chdir command command echo eval
exit export false fg getopts hash help history jobs kill let
local printf pwd read readonly return set shift source test times
trap true type ulimit umask unalias unset wait

(initramfs) exit
rootMX21 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found

EXPECTED INCONSISTENCY: RUN fsck MANUALLY
(i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4
The root filesystem on/dev/sda1 requires a manual fsck

I really don't know what to press next, nor what a fsck might be. Any advice appreciated.

 

[Judge]

I really don't know what to press next, nor what a fsck might be. Any advice appreciated.

fsck is the Linux equivalent of Windows' "Checkdisk". A utility that checks and fixes disk integrity issues.

Check and Repair Filesystem Errors With fsck Command in Linux

Linux systems come with a command line utility fsck to check for file system errors. Learn how to use it.

linuxhandbook.com

A utility I'm still trying figure out myself as I've never run it, though to date I haven't had a need to. I think!

 

[Outdated]

FSCK stands for File System Check, in Windows the equivalent is called ChkDsk.

In Linux this can not be run from the drive that is being checked, you need to boot up from your installation disk or USB and run fsck from there. It's a text only program that you run from in a terminal.

The naming convention for harddrives is very different in Linux to Windows. All drives come under a subfolder called
/dev
All drives get listed as /dev/<drive name>

You need to know the address of your drive in order to be able to run fsck on it. This is quite easy if your installation medium is of the "Live Desktop" type. Simply open the Disks program under the Accessories section of your program menu. It looks like this:

The number on the end of that address refers to the number of the partition I'm looking at, so the drive name is "nvme0n1p" and in this instance I'm looking at the second partition on that drive.

Different installations set up drives and partitions in different ways so you really need this information before you can proceed.

Once you know the address of your drive it's quite easy to open a terminal and get fsck to check it. The command needs to be run with root priveleges so you need to preface your command with the term "sudo".

For me to run fsck on my drive I would use the following command:

sudo fsck /dev/nvme0n1p1

Then I would repeat that command but changing the last digit to make it check the second partition:

sudo fsck /dev/nvme0n1p2

Do that for each partition on your drive. This is a common problem caused by bad shutdowns.

 

[Judge]

I've used the "Disks" program several times to both check and fix USB sticks. Also to initially partition my SSD.

But frankly I've chickened out at the prospect of unmounting my main SSD partitions to check and if necessary repair them. Still trying to get some kind of comfort level to fully understand that particular process. Same with trying it through use of the terminal.

In Windows it's admittedly easier, as I can use a proprietary application "Samsung Magician" to monitor and repair my SSD. No such equivalent I know of for Linux though. Shame on Samsung....lol.

 

[Outdated]

But frankly I've chickened out at the prospect of unmounting my main SSD partitions to check and if necessary repair them.

They can not be checked if they are not mounted, but fsck must be run from a different physical drive regardless of partitioning.

 

[Judge]

Question. Using the "Disks" program, if I unmount may main partitions in Linux to apply check and possibly repair my drives, what happens? A very different process from Windows' check disk that functions when rebooted.

Would one first unmount those drives and then use fsck from the terminal to check and fix a drive? Does the process involve having to reboot the system? Stuff I've never quite understood.....

 

[Outdated]

Looks like we're both writing simultaneously, we're talking about 2 entirely different operations here.

The Disks program will allow reformatting of drives, drives need to be unmounted in order to do that.

FSCK checks the files on a drive and repairs them, for this the drives need to still be mounted.

 

[Judge]

FSCK checks the files on a drive and repairs them, for this the drives need to still be mounted.

Aha....now that makes more sense. Something that has always confused me compared to what I can do with USB or SD flash drives. But then I don't recall dismounting them either...lol.

So the whole FSCK process can- and should be done from the terminal through SUDO commands? So I'm just using the "Disks" program to identify the proper names of partitions I want to check. That makes sense.

Another case of where I can do the equivalent of Windows in my sleep...but Linux, that's another matter. Where checking and repairing a drive while the OS remains in session....a bit "foreign" to me still.

 

[Outdated]

It's a much more powerful tool than windows's chkdsk but can't run on itself, so it needs to run from another drive.

It can only be run from inside a terminal and there never will be a graphical interface for it, this is due to the way Linux security works. Trying to run these sorts of operations outside of a very specific set of parameters simply won't work. And as such, it also needs root privileges in order to run.

For more information open a terminal and type in man fsck.

Man is short for Manual. Sudo is short for Super User Do.

 

[Judge]

It's a much more powerful tool than windows's chkdsk but can't run on itself, so it needs to run from another drive.

It can only be run from inside a terminal and there never will be a graphical interface for it, this is due to the way Linux security works. Trying to run these sorts of operations outside of a very specific set of parameters simply won't work. And as such, it also needs root privileges in order to run.

For more information open a terminal and type in man fsck.

Man is short for Manual. Sudo is short for Super User Do.

I should probably point out that I use the terminal (with and without root privileges) a lot for many things, but have never tried in pursuing FSCK. One of the very few things I have been reticent to experiment with.

Thanks for explaining though!

 

[Outdated]

Thanks for explaining though!

I'm just glad I actually was helpful instead of ending up feeling useless.

 

[Judge]

I'm just glad I actually was helpful instead of ending up feeling useless.

No you filled in some gaps in what I truly did not understand. Shed a lot of light on the subject. You did good!

Admittedly there are still lots of things that remain in whole or in part a mystery to me where Linux is concerned. But then as they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day!"