Guillaume Coté's questions

I used the script describe in this question to list the kernel installed on the computer :

How do I remove old kernel versions to clean up the boot menu?

In the 3.2.0, I have 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45 and 48. I would expect to be running 3.2.0-48 after a reboot, but I am still running 3.2.0-32. Why the kernels installed by auto update are not used (and not offered in menu.lst)?

[I am running 12.04 LTS]

grep title /boot/grub/menu.lst result in :

title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 3.2.0-32-generic
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 3.2.0-32-generic (recovery mode)
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-45-generic
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-45-generic (recovery mode)
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-44-generic
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-44-generic (recovery mode)
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-43-generic
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-43-generic (recovery mode)
title       Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS, memtest86+

I would have expected the kernel between 3.2.0-33 to 3.2.0-48 to be in this file and the default to be latest. Why the kernel 3.2.0-33 to 48 are not added in this file?

When I ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-3.2.0-48-generic, it found all the other kernels, and regenerated menu.lst, but in contains only the same 9 entries.

I am running xubuntu 12.04 LTS :

cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS \n \l

When I do

uname -a

I have :

Linux tolede 3.2.0-32-generic #51-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 26 21:33:09 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

According to the release notes, it should be 3.5.0.23-35 :

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PrecisePangolin/ReleaseNotes/Xubuntu

I did the automatic update a few days ago.

Why am I not running the lastest version?

I run a process that sometime crash and sometime freeze. I used supervise to have it automatically restart when it crash. However, if it freeze, it stay frozen until I am back in front of the computer. I would like a tool that would restart it when it crash, but can also be configure to do periodic kill and restart, so if it freeze, it won't stay frozen more that a given period of time.

Which tool would who suggest?

Thanks

Is there a package available in the package manager that provide features similar that peer block? If yes, which one is the best?

(please, one product by answer)

I have a 2G home partition, /lib/modules is taking more that 1.5G. I got 12 directory named after version of kernel 2.6.32 each taking 119k. Why do I have all of that? Do I need all of that? If not, what is the clean way to remove what I don't need?

Thanks

I would like ssh, sudo su and umount /home and run diagnostic on it. Is there a runlevel I can used to close X and other process using /home while keeping network access? Or another way?

thanks

I suspect there might be bad sector on a disk. I used ext3 filesystem.

What tool is the best equivalent of the error checking tool of Windows?

I saw the question : Is it possible (aka safe) to resize a partition while the system is running?

Short answer : yes, but they don't explain how. How do I resize my partition while the system is running. Gparted doesn't offer me other option that mouting the partition.

Thanks

I am running Xubuntu. I was running headless fine before using tightVNC on windows and vino on Xubuntu. Now, after entering the password on the remote server, the following dialog pops on the local server (the one that usually don't have a monitor) before open the connection :

Why is that dialog showing?

How do I get ride of it?

A contact sheet is a image containing the name and a the small version of a group of images, like this:

Which is the best program to do it from the command line (preferably something that is already package with Ubuntu)?

How can start the VNC server to make my desktop accessible?

When I do

sudo umount /media/KINGSTON

I got

umount: /media/KINGSTON: device is busy.

By using

fuser -c /media/KINGSTON

And

cat /proc/<pid>/cmdline

I found that the process is thunar--deamon. I closed all file manager windows. When I try to umount it by right cliking on the desktop, it also gave an error :

An application is preventing the volume "KINGSTON" from being unmounted

I am affraid that killing Thunar is going to impact other process running in other terminal. How can I tell it that I don't need this usb key anymore so it stop using it?

When I do an rsync to USB key using -t, it still copy a lot of file. Why?

When I do

sudo umount /media/KINGSTON

I got

umount: /media/KINGSTON: device is busy.

I close all the windows and make sure all shell are pointing to other directories. How can I find which process is preventing the umount?

I would like to backup my mail directory on a USB key. However, my IMAP has a strange naming convention that something include a colon (:) character. Since the USB is in a window format, rsync fail to create those file. Is there a way to replace the colon character by an underscore when running rsync? (Or to do the same synchronization with another tool?)

Just a few point that I clarified in the comments :

• This is a worst case scenario backup, I would like to be able to read it on a windows machine without installing anything.
• I got a lot of data that stay constant. So I save a lot of time if I have a tool that just copy the newer files.
• I am not looking for a rewrite of rsync. I am looking for a existing tool that can be used out of the box.

Thanks

I am using System Monitor 2.28.0. When I look in the Resources tab, I see a nice graph with for memory and swap. Memory is about 60% 2.3 GiB of 3.8. When I type the command free, I got :

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       3994908    3962396      32512          0     100852    1477032
-/+ buffers/cache:    2384512    1610396
Swap:      8000328      28468    7971860

cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemFree give

MemFree:           34536 kB

The situation has remained the save for several minute. I started a lot of process with a script and the script is waiting for the free memory to get lower. According to what I am seeing in the Process tab (or with top), the number in System Monitor seem a lot closed to the total of the memory of the process that the one reported by free.

Thanks

I was running Xubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron". I configure the vnc by adding vino-server to the autostarted app. I accessing the display only via VNC, so I removed the monitor and ir worked fine.

When I upgrade to 10.04 "Lucid Lynx", I was unable to connect. I borrow back the monitor and I plug it. I was seeing nothing so I do a restart by ssh. When it restart, I was able to vnc without an issue. I removed the monitor and worked like that for a few week, but when I installed some update, I needed to restart. After the restart, the vnc is not available. When I to a ps -aux by ssh, the xserver does not seem to be running.

How could I tell xubuntu 10.04 to automatically start the xserver when no monitor is plug, just as 8.04?

Thanks