Jacob Schoen's questions

I have two linux boxes, one is Ubuntu 11.10 that I have an nfs share set up with, and the other is Ubuntu 12.04 that I have mounted the nfs share at.

/etc/exports on the 11.10 box looks like:

/share           192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0(rw,all_squash,insecure)

and the 12.04 box /etc/fstab looks like:

192.168.1.10:/share /import nfs rw,hard,intr 0 0

The share mounts fine, and I can see the files. The problem is that I cannot create new files in the mounted share.

$ mkdir /import/test 
mkdir: cannot create directory `/import/test': Read-only file system

I am pretty sure it is something on the 12.04 box that is not set right, since I can mount the nfs mount on my mac and can create folders and files.

So how to allow write access to the NFS share on the 12.04 box?

I am look for a Pandora client that I can install on a headless Ubuntu box I mainly use as a file server. It sits right next to my stereo system, and it would be nice if I could hook them together to listen to Pandora (which we right now with a laptop we plug in temporarily when we want to do it).

Are there any programs out there that could do this for me?

I am running XBMC, which is built around Ubuntu 10.04. It does not come with samba pre-installed, and I need to share some media with a couple other boxes. I followed the Think Geek directions found here. I had it all set up a couple days ago, and thought I was in the clear. I rebooted this evening and when it came back up Samba was not started. I determined this by trying access the samba shares, and it would return there was an connecting to the server. I can ssh into it, so I know it is connected.

In my inifinite wisdom, I figured I just messed something up and would just uninstall and reinstall. So I did: sudo apt-get purge samba and sudo apt-get purge smbfs. Then tried to follow the tutorial above again.

The what I get after running sudo apt-get install samba smbfs is

Reading package lists... Done 
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done 
Suggested packages:   openbsd-inetd inet-superserver smbldap-tools ldb-tools ufw smbclient 
The following NEW packages will be installed: 
samba smbfs 
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded. 
Need to get 0B/8,131kB of archives. 
After this operation, 22.6MB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ... 
Selecting previously deselected package samba.
(Reading database ... 57098 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking samba (from .../samba_2%3a3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3.2_i386.deb)... 
Selecting previously deselected package smbfs. 
Unpacking smbfs (from .../smbfs_2%3a3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3.2_i386.deb) ... 
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Setting up samba (2:3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3.2) ...
Generating /etc/default/samba...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/smbstatus.samba3 to provide /usr/bin/smbstatus (smbstatus) in auto mode. 
smbd start/running, process 2963
**start: Job failed to start**

Setting up smbfs (2:3.4.7~dfsg-1ubuntu3.2) ...

The bold is my own emphasis. So I am not sure what I messed up here, or how to get back to where it was. Though I am pretty sure I made it worse than it is.

I found where the logs are located, /var/logs, and found this line that seems to be the culprit.

Jan 29 11:59:34 XBMCLive smbd[2806]:   error opening config file

So it seems to not create the configuration files. Is there a way to get samba to try to recreate them again?

I have been trying to install MySQL on Ubuntu 10.10 and just can't get it to work. I installed it by running sudo apt-get install mysql-server and once that was done, when I try mysql I get the message:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

I tried mysql start and get the same thing. I am sure I am doing something wrong, any pointers would be great.

I have a gigabit network set up in my house and a few Ubuntu based boxes. Out of complete curiosity I would like to check the speed between the two boxes. I am not having any problems with speed or anything, it really is just the geek in me that is curious. Plus maybe the results will let me know if there is room for improvement, or that I have something configured wrongly.

So how do you properly test the network speed between Ubuntu boxes?

I am setting up a box to be a file server at the house. It will mainly be used to share music, pictures, movies with other linux boxes on the network, and one OS X machine. From what I have read NFS and samba would work in my situation, and as such I am not sure which to choose. What is important to me is the speed transfers between boxes and how difficult it is to setup.

Which would you recommend and why?

I am about to set up box to basically be a file server. I plan on having multiple drives in the box, and would like to set them all up so that they appear to be a single drive. So I could essentially have it mounted at say /media and not really care which drive gets used. I am not sure what the correct terminology for doing this is, so my Google fu is useless in this situation.

So how do I set up multiple hard drives to appear as one single drive?

I noticed that when in terminal the prompt is generally in the format username@users: or I have even seen username@(none):. I get that the first part is the logged in person's user name, but what is the part after the @ symbol?