nanofarad's questions

A while ago, I attempted to install flgrx on a machine with an AMD/ATI Radeon 6480g (SUMO) on an APU, which ended poorly and ended up requiring a reinstall because of the config being thoroughly messed up (including losing the radeon open-source driver). This was all on a 64-bit clean install of Trusty.

I would like to try this again, with a newer version of the Catalyst drivers (also on a 64-bit clean install of Trusty). However, seeing as this is my primary machine and has been extensively configured, I would like to avoid the risk of corrupting graphics configuration greatly.

Is there a way that I can install the Catalyst/flgrx drivers, such that I can choose between loading them, and loading the open-source radeon driver that I am currently using? I was thinking about tying them to a specific kernel version that I already have installed (and is known to work). This is based on the (possibly incorrect) assumption that whether the drivers are loaded is controlled by the initrd/initramfs and/or the command line that Grub passes to the kernel.

Could someone clarify whether this is doable, and how I would go about doing it? I am OK manually moving Xorg or other configuration files in by hand if absolutely necessary. However, it is key for me that until I know the driver works stably, I have a radeon configuration that works, and my current kernel (as well as any new kernel versions/revisions installed by updates) still contains and loads radeon.

My kernel is 3.13.0-55-generic, and I have old kernels as far as 3.13.0-24-generic.

Recently, there have been news going around regarding "CVE-2014-6271" (See USN-2362-1), which is a vulnerability in Bash. How do I know if I am affected by this, how can I fix it, and why should I care?

This is designed as a canonical answer for this vulnerability, due to its scope and severity.

My Realtek RTL8187 USB wifi card is having trouble keeping a connection for more than a few seconds, while on the same machine under Windows 7 it has no problem. When I make the connection, I have a few seconds of full-bandwidth communication, followed by the connection completely failing to send or receive packets (the card usually makes a soft sound from the antenna, under both OSs, which cuts out, along with actual networking capabilities on Ubuntu). Network manager and WICD both report the card as still connected, with reasonable signal levels (around -40dBi, which is not a problematic level for this card on Windows). The loss of communication happens replicably and reliably, although occasionally I manage to transmit and receive a few stray packets. The indicator light on the card flickers constantly and abnormally quickly after the connection is lost.

I've tried to connect to both my WPA2 and (with consent) a neighbor's WEP access points (mine being Netgear, and theirs being Belkin), with the same result of losing the link after roughly one second. Ethernet is un-affected. This card is being used with the rtl8187 kernel module. I'm using a clean, fresh installation of Trusty x64. This did not occur on the live CD.

dmesg | tail -n 25 for the WEP network:

hexafraction@ubuntu-lapdesk:~/Downloads$ dmesg | tail -n 25
[16505.923287] wlan1: associated
[16505.923370] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
[16505.943812] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
[16535.278129] atl1c 0000:01:00.0: atl1c: eth0 NIC Link is Down
[16540.067784] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[16543.677051] wlan1: deauthenticating from [PREVIOUS AP MAC] by local choice (reason=3)
[16543.737566] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[16543.747499] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[16543.747510] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[16543.747518] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[16543.747524] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[16543.747529] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[16543.747534] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[16543.747539] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[16546.240014] wlan1: authenticate with [AP MAC]
[16546.298661] wlan1: send auth to [AP MAC] (try 1/3)
[16546.300412] wlan1: authenticated
[16546.300741] rtl8187 1-3:1.0 wlan1: disabling HT/VHT due to WEP/TKIP use
[16546.300747] rtl8187 1-3:1.0 wlan1: disabling HT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP
[16546.300751] rtl8187 1-3:1.0 wlan1: disabling VHT as WMM/QoS is not supported by the AP
[16546.304473] wlan1: associate with [AP MAC] (try 1/3)
[16546.307090] wlan1: RX AssocResp from [AP MAC] (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=2)
[16546.307946] wlan1: associated
[16546.307992] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready
[16546.308625] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan1: link becomes ready

lsmod:

Module                  Size  Used by
rtl8187                64909  0 
mac80211              626489  1 rtl8187
cfg80211              484040  2 mac80211,rtl8187
nls_utf8               12557  0 
isofs                  39835  0 
ctr                    13049  0 
ccm                    17773  0 
rfcomm                 69160  0 
bnep                   19624  2 
bluetooth             395423  10 bnep,rfcomm
hid_generic            12548  0 
joydev                 17381  0 
uvcvideo               80885  0 
videobuf2_vmalloc      13216  1 uvcvideo
videobuf2_memops       13362  1 videobuf2_vmalloc
videobuf2_core         40664  1 uvcvideo
videodev              134688  2 uvcvideo,videobuf2_core
usbhid                 52616  0 
eeprom_93cx6           13344  1 rtl8187
arc4                   12608  2 
hid                   106148  2 hid_generic,usbhid
kvm_amd                59987  0 
kvm                   451511  1 kvm_amd
radeon               1514165  3 
psmouse               102222  0 
k10temp                13126  0 
toshiba_acpi           22901  0 
sparse_keymap          13948  1 toshiba_acpi
serio_raw              13462  0 
wmi                    19177  1 toshiba_acpi
snd_hda_codec_conexant    57441  1 
snd_hda_codec_hdmi     46207  1 
snd_hda_intel          52355  5 
snd_hda_codec         192906  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_hda_intel
ttm                    85115  1 radeon
snd_hwdep              13602  1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm               102099  3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel
snd_page_alloc         18710  2 snd_pcm,snd_hda_intel
snd_seq_midi           13324  0 
snd_seq_midi_event     14899  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_rawmidi            30144  1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq                61560  2 snd_seq_midi_event,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device         14497  3 snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_midi
snd_timer              29482  2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
drm_kms_helper         52758  1 radeon
snd                    69238  21 snd_hwdep,snd_timer,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_conexant,snd_pcm,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi,snd_hda_codec,snd_hda_intel,snd_seq_device,snd_seq_midi
soundcore              12680  1 snd
drm                   302817  5 ttm,drm_kms_helper,radeon
video                  19476  0 
i2c_piix4              22155  0 
i2c_algo_bit           13413  1 radeon
mac_hid                13205  0 
parport_pc             32701  0 
ppdev                  17671  0 
lp                     17759  0 
parport                42348  3 lp,ppdev,parport_pc
ahci                   25819  2 
atl1c                  46086  0 
libahci                32168  1 ahci

I'm at a loss here, as I've tried reboots, wicd, and network-manager. The card itself is fine on Windows 7 (as I still dual-boot and can test it). I've removed network-manager before using wicd, and vice-versa, as well as having both installed. My suspicion is that some service or background program is causing the card to channel-hop, but I am not sure how to check whether that is happening, or which service is causing it. However, the hard-block issues seen on the live CD are not happening.

Due to my not having been able to check this on previous versions due to GPU incompatibility making Ubuntu unusable, I have no evidence that this is a bug introduced in Trusty.

Edit: sudo iwconfig wlan1 when not connected:

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

sudo iwconfig wlan1 when connected to my WPA2 net:

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"XXXXXXXXXX"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.462 GHz  Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX   
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=39/70  Signal level=-71 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:2   Missed beacon:0

sudo iwconfig wlan1 for WEP:

wlan1     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:"XXXXXXXXXX"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.437 GHz  Access Point: XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX   
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:15A4-A159-AF
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=47/70  Signal level=-63 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:27  Invalid misc:33   Missed beacon:0

I know for a fact that Windows experiences higher signal levels, both in terms of the dBm scale, and in terms of reported percentage connection quality.

I'm actually having a bit of an odd problem. I'm running Ubuntu Server 12.04, with a minimal set of packages: The base system, sshd, and an IRC server. I must allow someone else to configure the server to connect to their IRC network. However, they seem to be dropping after two lines of ls or cat.

Odder, this only happens on this server, and I haven't been able to reproduce it at all using PuTTY or an ssh client. Where should I look to diagnose this? auth.log shows a normal connection and authentication and does not give any details about the drop. fail2ban has no violations with the originating IP address.

This is a virtual machine with a forwarded port(it is bridge mode and has normal network connectivity). I can connect locally, across the LAN, and from a remote location with PuTTY without any problems. The other person can connect using ssh on Linux but encounters the connection dropping.

Logs from client.

Server-side logs show nothing out of the ordinary.

I have a server which is monitored by Watchdog, and experiences reboots occasionally due to faulty network hardware I am unable to replace at the moment. As I read, Watchdog sends a SIGTERM to all processes, requesting a safe shutdown, and after a short time, sends a SIGKILL, which will stop the process immediately. However, in this case, it leads to data corruption since the main process of importance is not fully shut down yet and has unwritten data.

How long is this pause Watchdog takes between asking all processes to stop, and forcing them to stop? Is it hardwired within Watchdog, set in watchdog.conf(if it was, it never got documented in the manpage), or the same as another system setting? How may I change this setting?

Edit: I've found the timeout, but I am still looking for instructions on how to rebuild and integrate with the system properly.

I am currently trying to sign the Ubuntu CoC, version 2.0, and I have already signed 1.1. When I visit http://launchpad.net/codeofconduct, I am told:

The current version is 2.0, released 2005-04-12

Congratulations, you have already signed the Ubuntu Code of Conduct.

Following the link shows a signature for 1.1, using my PGP keys. In addition, I signed 1.1 long after 2005, and 1.1 was reported as the current version. Did I accidentally sign the wrong version, causing me to lock out of the signing system? I don't want to invalidate my current signature, if at all possible.

Quite simply, is there a GUI to visudo I can recommend to other users, and use for myself? I have to set up a system where over 50 users have different sudo privileges and I need to juggle them all.

Some background information:

As you may know, in a Debian package, there may be alternative dependencies, written in the CONTROL file as Depends: apache2|something-else, for example. How does apt select which dependencies to choose, and how can I override this so I can minimize download size?

I'm on a slow connection on some locations and need it to use the smallest total download size. How can I force it to do so?

Edit: I'm not asking about skipping recommends.

Edit 2: I am not asking about skipping dependencies. I am trying to get all dependencies, just in the smallest total size, especially noting and deeply traversing package1|package2 choices.

Edit 3: A grep or otherwise shell script is acceptable.

Unfortunately, since the current answers do not really answer the question, they can't really get the bounty. It's still out there for someone willing to write a bash script!

Edit 4: Although the bounty has been awarded to a good answer which I encourage you to upvote, I am still seeking a more concrete answer. If it also elegantly handles virtual packages provided by one or more packages, then I'll possibly give another after-the-fact bounty to award that answer.

Unity dash home currently displays results in the following order:

• Application results
• Documents results
• Downloads results
• Music results, etc

What I would like is to have the Documents and Downloads results above the application results in Dash home. Is it possible to reorder the search results?

I have quite a few keys I manage with Seahorse, and the passwords to them are quite complex, and kept in a safe method from which I must paste them(they are 64 characters). When I attempt to use these keys(sign, encrypt, etc), I am prompted with the agent to enter the key password. However, this agent refuses to accept pasted data(the password), and due to my having many keys, entering the passwords painstakingly(even just for the first time to save it to the keyring) is prohibitively difficult. Is there a workaround that will allow pasting into this window?

I am trying to get mysqli set up for php5 but apt tries to substitute php5-mysql for php5-mysqli, which doesn't exist. Does the mysql package also carry the mysqli extension, or do I need to find the source and compile it somewhere?

Is it possible to allow multiple passwords to log on to Ubuntu for the same user? I have also possibly considered having two users share a home folder, but I am not sure if that is safe. If anybody can provide guidance, that would be great.

Is it possible to warm-reboot Linux, directly reloading GRUB without passing through the BIOS? I have a computer whose BIOS is buggy and takes a while due to its hating my disks so if I can reboot directly to Grub it would be great.

To those that are confused: I'm looking for is a kernel module that acts to unload the kernel and execute the boot sector upon a "reboot".

Here are my system specs:

Emachines el1200-06w with an AMD athlon 64

• dmidecode output
• lspci output

I have a GTK program which I would like to run from a console in one of the virtual terminals (over SSH, and locally). Is there a way to get this application(or any other GTK application, for future reference) to display to a dummy monitor instead of erring about this?

Note that I do not want to use a CLI version--not all GTK programs have CLI versions.

I am using Ubuntu 11.10, and wish to simply know whether I can dump all physical memory and swap, as due to some kernel restrictions, I can't dd /dev/mem, even as superuser.

Is there any workaround or option to allow dd'ing /dev/mem or a dedicated tool made to do this correctly?

I currently have an Ubuntu laptop and external hard disk installation. I would like to know if it is possible to use these full installs, after a bit of configuration, to be used as installers to create new installations on others' computers without copying my configuration or passwords, and without affecting my system during the installation. That is, I want to create new installations, without changing my configuration to that of the new system, and having those installations be very similar to those created by the ones created by regular media.

Sorry if unclear or mistagged, and feel free to edit.

Edit: Also, remastersys does not work for me and this is not a duplicate: I need to install from booting my full installation on another system and then installing from there, not making another Live CD, which I am trying to avoid.

Edit: I am doing this to have a better demo system that works fully, and does not suffer the issues of a live CD. I'd preferably install from there...

I have a Ubuntu system running xfce and 2 GB RAM. I have a 1GB swap file which, when multitasking begins to fill up. When I have even a small amount of free swap, I have no issues, but the second the swap fills, the system locks up. Not even the mouse will move, although, I am able to use [Alt]+[SysRq]+[K] to kill xfce, which still necessitates a reboot to get up and running again. I will provide more system details if they are needed. Thanks in advance.