Debian Stable beginner's questions

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11-19-2012
Reynard

Debian Stable beginner's questions

It's been two or three years since I used Debian, and now I'm back for the peerless stability (lesson learned). Some simple stuff has me stalled:

1. I thought I was getting Xfce as default DE, but I have Gnome instead. I downloaded Xfce4 (from DVD). Gnome is still stubbornly in place; how do I dump it and get Xfce up and running? SOLVED, but it took some doing. . -- Still need Numbers 2, 3, 4 answered, please!

2. What's the easy way to change the fonts in the virtual terminals? (I don't see any way to put that info into the GRUB menu list these days.)

3. Iceweasel does not perform on a par with my previous browser; what's the best overall browser for the GUI, in your opinion?

4. I have six partitions, but I cannot read the mount points for partitions 3 and 4. (1 is /, 2 is Extended, 5 is swap, 6 is /home. In the install, I specified only / and swap and /home.) No big deal, but this seems odd.

TIA!
11-20-2012
Sector11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reynard

It's been two or three years since I used Debian, and now I'm back for the peerless stability (lesson learned). Some simple stuff has me stalled:

1. I thought I was getting Xfce as default DE, but I have Gnome instead. I downloaded Xfce4 (from DVD). Gnome is still stubbornly in place; how do I dump it and get Xfce up and running? SOLVED, but it took some doing. . -- Still need Numbers 2, 3, 4 answered, please!

2. What's the easy way to change the fonts in the virtual terminals? (I don't see any way to put that info into the GRUB menu list these days.)

3. Iceweasel does not perform on a par with my previous browser; what's the best overall browser for the GUI, in your opinion?

4. I have six partitions, but I cannot read the mount points for partitions 3 and 4. (1 is /, 2 is Extended, 5 is swap, 6 is /home. In the install, I specified only / and swap and /home.) No big deal, but this seems odd.

TIA!

Answer to Q 2:

Code:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

Answer to Q 3:
This is a matter of choice, Iceweasel is FF - maybe you might want to upgrade to FF

Answer to Q4: you may need sudo blkid

Quote:

How do I change permissions from only root to anyone can mount/unmount partitions...

Step #1: Check blkid

13:56:05 ~
$ blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="4b55434a-2e84-4d1c-b532-e9b2c5963a83" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda2: UUID="afe0ae25-e1f3-46bb-b7b3-ea81bca73c05" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda3: UUID="cc2d832a-7744-4f83-b746-91d3da3a91d9" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda5: UUID="79b6e115-d25a-4183-baee-516f60fd474e" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda6: UUID="8c6f04b8-2f1a-47c5-93a2-d46931b443d6" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="3e54c0cd-9e38-479b-a6d9-8feeb463f73d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda8: UUID="a2a09b00-6b5b-41a2-9fa9-53213688d2ed" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"

13:56:17 ~
$

Step #2 call up fstab and save a backup. Make sure the UUID's match what you see in blkid above and save it.

sector11@sector11:~$ sudo geany /etc/fstab
[sudo] password for sector11:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=8c6f04b8-2f1a-47c5-93a2-d46931b443d6 / ext3 errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /home was on /dev/sda7 during installation
UUID=3e54c0cd-9e38-479b-a6d9-8feeb463f73d /home ext3 defaults 0 2
# /media/5 was on /dev/sda5 during installation
UUID=79b6e115-d25a-4183-baee-516f60fd474e /media/5 ext3 defaults 0 2
# /media/8 was on /dev/sda8 during installation
UUID=a2a09b00-6b5b-41a2-9fa9-53213688d2ed /media/8 ext3 defaults 0 2
# swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=955515fd-3c20-41ff-98e3-cc9302589c20 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
-------------------------------------------------

Step #3 : change the permissions to myself:

Code:
sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/sdaX
sudo chmod -R 755 /media/sdaX

sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/5;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/6;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/7;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/8;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/9;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/10;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/5;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/6;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/7;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/8;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/9;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/10

sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/5;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/6;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/7;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/8;sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/9;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/5;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/6;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/7;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/8;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/9

OJO: The line below has problems with /media/cdrom0/.Trash-1000/and_sub-directories!!
sudo chown -R sector11:sector11 /media/cdrom0;sudo chmod -R 755 /media/cdrom0

DONE!!!!
------------------------------------
Info:
------------------------------------
sector11@sector11:~$ df -lh
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 19G 3.6G 14G 21% /
tmpfs 1005M 0 1005M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 1005M 100K 1005M 1% /var/run
varlock 1005M 0 1005M 0% /var/lock
udev 1005M 2.7M 1002M 1% /dev
tmpfs 1005M 0 1005M 0% /dev/shm
lrm 1005M 2.4M 1003M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.27-14-generic/volatile
/dev/sda5 37G 2.9G 32G 9% /home
/dev/sda6 19G 173M 18G 1% /media/sda6
/dev/sda7 37G 177M 35G 1% /media/sda7
/dev/sda9 59G 3.6G 53G 7% /media/sda9
/dev/sda10 59G 180M 56G 1% /media/sda10
sector11@sector11:~$

-----------------------------------------------------
0 sector11@sector11: ~
Sat Sep 19, 18:22 $ blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="09f6e96c-ed8b-4223-b8d1-a8689cee848f" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda2: UUID="9b681f7a-80f7-44a2-9696-2b6932d795a4" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda3: UUID="55746769-6d7e-46e8-be27-a6192a3a075b" TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda5: UUID="16e8b25b-f342-4609-86a5-85573660de5a" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda6: UUID="fa926c13-64cc-4738-9003-cf4c0974061d" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="3dc95e1c-70cc-4ff5-86bf-78f765af5993" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda8: UUID="370f4228-5f86-48a2-8241-6c18a6262e8f" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
0 sector11@sector11: ~
Sat Sep 19, 18:22 $
11-20-2012
devils casper

Quote:

4. I have six partitions, but I cannot read the mount points for partitions 3 and 4. (1 is /, 2 is Extended, 5 is swap, 6 is /home. In the install, I specified only / and swap and /home.) No big deal, but this seems odd.

Post the output of fdisk -l and df -h commands here.

Code:

df -h su -c 'fdisk -l'
11-20-2012
Reynard

No joy

Thanks to those who responded. The time and effort is appreciated!

Posted a Quick Reply, was told I had no permission to do that (yes, I was logged in successfully), so trying again....

Also getting obscured display of this website's front page -- flickering blank areas that include a Microsoft ad (a spoof?). Impossible to log in on site's home page. Really messy. Iceweasel seems hopelessly inadequate, or...? Cracker attack?

Tried to use command # dpkg-reconfigure console-setup (as root, not using sudo -- a mistake?) and did not get good results (fonts not sharp and clear, also too large). As I worked, the text-based displays deteriorated, in spite of frequent reboots. Had huge trouble using tty1.

I wonder whether this is a framebuffer issue (ttp://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/33596/no-framebuffer-device-how-to-enable-it). Oops! Naughty of me, sorry.

This is so unlike Debian! Taking a break, will go over my notes. May reinstall.

Comments, questions solicited.
11-20-2012
Reynard

Regarding those missing mount points, I got these responses for df -h:

Partitions 1,2,5,6. Nothing on 3 and 4.

For su -c 'fdisk -l':

Again, no mention of 3 and 4. Instead "tmpfs" is noted twice, first as home for /lib/init/rw and then as home for /dem/shm. Then /dev is home for udev.

I was just curious. Believe me, I'm getting over it.
11-20-2012
devils casper

Could you post the complete output of fdisk -l so that we can examine it ourselves?

It looks like you haven't created /dev/sda3 and sda4.

/dev/sda1 to 4 are reserved for Primary/Extended Partitions. I think you have created first partition Primary ( /dev/sda1 ) and second Extended (/dev/sda2). Rest are Logical Partitions ( /dev/sda5 and sda6 ). We can't help you unless we check output of fdisk -l command.
11-20-2012
Sector11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reynard

Regarding those missing mount points, I got these responses for df -h:

Partitions 1,2,5,6. Nothing on 3 and 4.

For su -c 'fdisk -l':

Again, no mention of 3 and 4. Instead "tmpfs" is noted twice, first as home for /lib/init/rw and then as home for /dem/shm. Then /dev is home for udev.

I was just curious. Believe me, I'm getting over it.

Try inxi: http··//code.google.com/p/inxi/ NOTE: ·· vs : in url

Code:

Partition: ID: / size: 9.2G used: 4.3G (49%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6 label: N/A uuid: 62874c9e-7f1b-4204-a273-f0699e31c62c ID: /media/5 size: 115G used: 36G (34%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 label: N/A uuid: 6fc763f2-2587-4572-bc51-39726ab34fc6 ID: /media/8 size: 33G used: 176M (1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda8 label: N/A uuid: d7f17db3-1a88-4b11-a528-5cf93ea8195c ID: /media/9 size: 33G used: 176M (1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda9 label: N/A uuid: 02f12c2a-02ae-4f00-bd23-4b1e7155b48b ID: /home size: 14G used: 4.7G (36%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda7 label: N/A uuid: fff46aa2-f36b-4e78-8135-736f1754a2a3 ID: swap-1 size: 4.00GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda3 label: N/A uuid: 0f589adf-726f-4cb3-a96c-e07a63111654 RAID: No RAID data available - /proc/mdstat is missing - is md_mod kernel module loaded? Unmounted: ID: /dev/sr0 size: 1.07G label: N/A uuid: N/A ID: /dev/sda1 size: 10.00G label: N/A uuid: a0853746-e07d-4b9a-b29a-792acd5e5ce4 ID: /dev/sda2 size: 15.00G label: N/A uuid: 89eec94d-ad88-4304-aedc-471c04316927
11-20-2012
yancek

I'd agree with Devils Casper. You said you created an Extended partition on sda2 and logical partitions start numbering at "5", sda5. If you look at your actual fdisk output you should see this. There won't be any sda3 or sda4 although you might be able to create them if you wished and had the space.

Not sure what is causing problems for you at this site but the microsoft ad is not a spoof, don't worry about that.
11-20-2012
Sector11

I'm sitting back and watching now because I agree with Devils Casper as well:

Code:

su -c 'fdisk -l'

I learned a new 'excellent' command.

Code:

20 Nov 12 | 17:31:22 ~ $ su -c 'fdisk -l' Password: Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000349af Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 2048 19531775 9764864 83 Linux /dev/sda2 19531776 48828415 14648320 83 Linux /dev/sda3 48828416 56641535 3906560 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda4 56643582 488396799 215876609 5 Extended /dev/sda5 56643584 300781567 122068992 83 Linux /dev/sda6 300783616 320313343 9764864 83 Linux /dev/sda7 320315392 349609983 14647296 83 Linux /dev/sda8 349612032 419004415 34696192 83 Linux /dev/sda9 419006464 488396799 34695168 83 Linux 20 Nov 12 | 17:31:43 ~ $