[00:01] Saludos [00:02] Podría ser este un espacio para que alguien me ayudara con un par de problemas que tengo? [00:03] [telegram] #lubuntu-es es the BEST place for that, this IS the english support [19:04] Hi, I formatted an USB pendrive to EXT4. However when I mount it from the file explorer, I can't write to it, unlike with every other drive. Can someone explain to me the 50 different commands on a terminal to do this or should I just plug my brain into the matrix so I can read my email because of retarded UX design? jk, is there an application I [19:04] can install to do this for me? [19:05] Hey bob5. I know the answer to this one! [19:05] Here's the commands to fix it: [19:05] lsblk [19:05] Find your USB drive in the output (you'll see something like "sdb" that's the same size as your flash drive). [19:05] All base storage devices are owned by root by default [19:06] Yes. [19:06] Once you find your flash drive, you'll see under it something like "sdb1" that's also the same size as your flash drive. This is the EXT4 partition you just made. [19:06] Assuming that your EXT4 partition is "sdb1", here's the commands to run: [19:07] sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt [19:07] sudo chmod 0777 /mnt [19:07] sudo umount /mnt [19:07] Your flash drive should work properly after typing this command sequence. [19:08] Alternately, just a create a folder on the drive as root, then recursively chown it to the username you wish to writs to it as [19:09] Thank you arraybolt3 I am able to write to it now. The final command said no such command found. but I was in root from a previous attempt [19:10] Will I have to do this every time I plug in the drive? [19:10] Nope. The changes made by this command sequence are permanent, and the drive should work on any Linux computer you plug it into. @bob5 [19:11] It is odd that the last command said that it wasn't found. Are you sure you typed "umount" rather than "unmount"? [19:11] Unmount isn't a command, but umount is. [19:13] Oh I typed unmount. I typed umount now in case it was needed to make it permanent [19:13] Good. That last command just makes sure that no data written to the drive gets corrupted when you unplug it. [19:17] I once pressed the power button and could not boot back into any OS. Long story short, I deleted everything but the lubuntu partition. I tried recreating an EFI with Grub2 to boot into lubuntu with boot-repair but it still says no OS found. [19:17] I tried a few variations, ext4 EFI and Fat 32 EFI. Still couldn't make it work [19:18] When I installed a new lubuntu partition from the lubuntu on my USB, I still couldn't boot into that either after it was installed. [19:20] Any idea to save it or should I just give up and reinstall [19:22] Sorry, lost connection. Can you resay anything that you said after it said I left? @bob5 [19:22] I can see the timestamp and I said nothing after [19:23] Oh good. [19:24] Also I found the header of the partition table was corrupt and I restored it from backup. Something bad must of happened. I can backup my files but there's some appdata I'd like to save which I will have to forfeit. [19:24] OK, so this is fixable, but it's complicated. [19:24] First, boot into a live USB so you can access the rest of the system. [19:25] (Don't worry, we're not going to reinstall.) [19:25] Can I safely resize the partition to only the used space without overwriting used space? [19:25] I am booted into lubuntu from the pendrive [19:25] [telegram] ideally the system won't let you resize smaller than used space. [19:25] and I can access my files [19:25] Resizing partitions is always dangerous, even when it looks safe. If you're going to do that, back up. [19:25] [telegram] ^^ that [19:25] I've accidentally nuked drives doing resizing. [19:26] If you're trying to resize so that you can make a disk image that's small, there's a good way to do that without resizing. [19:26] the partition is 121GB. It's too impractical to resize. I wanted to shrink it to its used space fo 20GB and put it on my other 20GB+ pendrive [19:26] OK, so rather than resizing, here's what to do: [19:26] Pop open a terminal, and type "sudo su -". [19:27] done [19:27] OK, so now do "cd /media/lubuntu". [19:27] done [19:28] Once that's done, type "ls" to see what's in there. You should see one entry with a very long, odd-looking name. [19:28] Yes I see [19:28] Double-click that entry, and press Ctrl+Shift+C. Then type "cd " (the space is important), then Ctrl+Shift+V. [19:28] odd looking name is preceded by the label I gave my intended backup drive [19:29] That's fine. Use the odd-looking name, not the label. The odd-looking name is your main drive. [19:29] ok done [19:29] Now type "ls". Do you see folders in there with names like "bin", "usr", "home", "dev", stuff like that? [19:30] Yes. Btw, I could navigate the drive using the 'file explorer' [19:30] Yeah. There's a reason we're doing it this way, though. [19:30] I'm following you [19:30] So, now type "ls ./blank.img". It should tell you that it could not find the file. [19:31] I confirm [19:31] Good. Now, type this command: "dd if=/dev/zero of=./blank.img bs=4M status=progress". This command will take VERY LONG to execute. [19:33] The "dd" command will make it so that you can back up your whole drive to your 20 GB flash drive without having to resize anything. [19:36] I'm doing another backup of my home folder first. In the meantime, is it possible some files are hidden? for example the "public" folder is empty and the snap folder won't let me access it. I don't remember using these folders either. [19:36] You don't need to worry about that. We're going to do a full disk image backup. If you rea [19:37] really want to peak inside those, you can do that, but it's not needed - any data in there will be saved doing this. [19:38] Can the pendrive I am backing up to keep other existing files on it? [19:38] Yes, but if there's too much data on the pendrive, it might not let the disk image quite fit. Your pendrive is formatted to EXT4, right? [19:38] Yes. Will it warn me if there's not enough free space? [19:39] Unfortunately no, but if it fails, you won't lose any data. [19:39] Will it tell me that it failed if it fails? [19:39] Yes. [19:41] Is it possible to copy files which say permission denied? [19:42] When I copy and I get an error I get two options Ok and ignore. They seem identical, is there a difference? [19:42] Yes. The full disk image backup copies EVERYTHING. [19:42] Hold on, let me find out... [19:43] If you're trying to copy files individually, though, you will need to do it a bit differently to deal with "permission denied". [19:43] I think I found out. After spamming ok at every prompt, I used ignore and now it doesn't prompt me anymore so I think it just ignores the current and all subsequent instances of not having permission. [19:44] You're right. Just verified. [19:44] I wish I had a log of what could not be copied. At least I can copy my html files now without file name problems I had with fat32. [19:45] Actually, if you're trying to do a file copy backup and want to get stuff with permission denied errors, stop the current copy, click on "Tools", and click "Open Tab in Admin Mode". [19:47] Once you do that, you can copy your home folder, click your pendrive, do "Open Tab in Admin Mode" again, then paste, and you should be good to go! [19:48] I just discovered that "Open Tab in Admin Mode" is only a feature of newer version of Lubuntu, so if you're using 20.04, don't do that. [19:50] I used open as root as I did not see admin mode. Do I have to overwrite everything or if I apply ignore to all existing files, will it still add files which are missing from folders which started copying? [19:50] Let me verify so that I don't give you bad info... [19:51] I can always compare the backup size as atleast 75 [19:51] nvm [19:52] Since it might copy folders sequentially it's possible one folder would miss just one file and I won't notice it [19:52] It looks like it works fine if you tell it to overwrite the folder and then ignore all existing files. [19:52] It even gets files that are hiding in other folders. [19:54] 1 folder was incomplete by 75% so it will be easy to verify [19:55] The option to overwrite the folder but ignore existing files doesn't make sense. I chose ignore for all. [19:55] 👍 [19:55] Your way works too. [19:56] Oh, and copying the whole home folder also copies all hidden files. [19:57] I chose to only copy selected folders within home/user/ [19:57] Oh, that's won't grab the hidden files. You might lose some program configuration doing that, unless you specifically cho [19:57] chose to view hidden files. [19:58] I just chose to view hidden files thanks I wasn't aware of it [19:59] Nice. [19:59] There was one app which I want to save the appdata. It's an appimage and I don't know where it stores the userdata [19:59] It's pretty unlikely that it's storing it anywhere outside of your home folder, since most of the folders outside there can't be written to by a normal user, [20:01] This is paradise compared to struggling on my own O:3 [20:01] Good. I like being helpful. [20:04] The transfers will take probably 2 hours before I do the backup you suggested [20:04] I'm going to try copying the hidden folders to my current instance and see if when I run the appimage it loads my accounts [20:05] That's fine. I should still be here. [20:06] oh. Is there a risk my session will malfunction if I overwrite the hidden files in /home/user/ ? [20:07] How are you overwriting them? [20:07] With backup copies? [20:08] If you're copying in a backup, you should be AOK. If not, then yeah, you could break stuff. [20:20] I just did some more testing. So long as you're OK with your new system being configured very similarly to your old system, it should be safe. [20:27] It's not a backup so I decided not to overwrite the temp files in my current session but I did decide to copy while not overwriting (ignoring) [20:27] 👍 [20:28] Really, with what you're trying to acheive, I don't think you'll need to do the fancy "full disk-image backup" at all. I think just copying all of /home/user (along with all hidden files) and then plopping that on the new machine ought to do it. [20:29] oh oh I run out of space [20:29] Nothing appears to be persistent on this usb drive. How do I check if I have persistent storage enabled? [20:30] Also if I cancel the transfer now, will it revert all copying it did? [20:30] I mean I ran out of space for copying to my session's home folder [20:30] Uh, ok hold on... [20:30] Is your session the live USB session? [20:30] Yes [20:30] Oh, that won't work. [20:31] Uh, trying to think of a solution here... [20:32] You've not made any permanent changes to your installed system, right? [20:33] Only just to the backup drive? [20:34] Yes [20:34] well not since we spoke [20:35] OK, so here's what I'd do. Cancel the transfer that you're doing to your session, then use the file manager root instance trick to back up your home folder (including all hidden files) to your backup drive. [20:36] I canceled the transfer to my session. I am currently copying non hidden folders to the backup drive [20:36] I will then also add the hidden folders I see [20:36] OK. [20:38] I also have another fat32 drive with an older backup. When the current transfer is over I plan to format drive 3 to ext4 and backup to it too. All this because I don't want to overwrite my external backup without having an external backup. Irrational. [20:38] At least not in the current situation [20:38] though given how terribly slow it is. I don't mind waiting. [20:40] Not irrational. I've lost data before. It's not fun. [20:41] Can you tell me what the name of the appimage you're using is? That will help us find its config data, and we can test to make sure everything's going to work before doing anything permanent to your system. [20:45] I was going to tell you but for the fact that I don't know how to find the download directory [20:45] https://wiki.bitmessage.org/releases [20:45] OK. [20:45] I'm juggling stuff here, so it'll be a bit before my next reply. [20:51] Found it! OK, so, can you use your file manager to navigate to your system's main drive? [20:52] Yes [20:53] Also how did you find the appimage on the website? [20:54] It's at appimage.bitmessage.org. [20:54] I think I just Googled it. [20:55] The link was hiding in a GitHub page. [20:56] It was the official GitHub page for BitMessage, it had a link to appimage.bitmessage.org for Linux. [20:56] here brave search failed me but google found it [20:57] also one of the releases was a 0 byte file [20:57] which doesn't work [20:57] obviously [20:57] :/ [20:59] OK, so, on your system's main drive, can you tell me if there's anything bitmessage related in home/user/.config? [21:00] Yes! that appears to be it! [21:01] Is appdata usually all in .config? [21:02] Well, it can be stored in several hidden folders in your home folder, but .config is the most likely spot to find configuration stuff. [21:02] Try copying just the bitmessage related stuff out of that folder and onto your live session into the appropriate folder. [21:02] unfortunately I cannot test it now as my session is out of space [21:03] I wish I could undo the copy I did [21:03] Crud. Can you open up the .config file on your live session and tell me what's in there? [21:03] It has the bitmessage folder but that's because I ran the image earlier [21:04] Delete the bitmessage folder **in the live session** (not the one on your machine!) [21:04] Then copy the bitmessage folder from your machine to the live session. [21:04] the hdd copy is bigger than the live session copy. Thus I believe I would need to find something else to delete first [21:05] The backup is 50% transfered [21:05] OK, well, what's in the .cache folder of the live session? [21:05] There's a ton of stuff including gimp and bravesoftware. I can safely delete those [21:05] All we need to do is free enough space in the live session to allow you to copy the bitmessage folder, and any changes made to a live session are temporary anyway, so it's unlikely we'll break anything. [21:06] Yeah, delete those in the live session. [21:06] brave had all my profiles there so deleted 1.1GB [21:06] Then try copying the bitmessage folder from your machine to the live session. [21:06] That ought to do it! [21:06] I will tell you the results [21:11] I have to be super careful not to confuse the location of the folders X) [21:15] True. [21:15] Still told me not enough space. The trash bin doesn't have the recently deleted folders. [21:15] Are you sure you deleted the brave folder out of the live session, not the main machine? [21:17] If you really did remove the folder out of the live session, then I guess the bitmessage folder must be HUGE. [21:17] No it can't be [21:17] oh it's 0.7GB [21:18] That's incredible for just text files. [21:18] Ah, OK. Well, can you clear anything else out of the .cache folder **on the live session**? [21:19] Well I have news. the transfer to the backup finished (non hidden only) [21:19] So I could just restart my session to clear it out [21:19] That's a very good idea. [21:22] and I confirm the 75% incomplete folder is now complete with the exact number of bytes [21:23] So choosing ignore when prompting to copy folders of the same name does check for missing contents. I guess it's safe as long as cancelling a transfer doesn't leave an unfinished file. [21:24] Nice. I doubt that cancelling a transfer would leave an unfinished file, but I can check to make sure. [21:25] Is it normal lubuntu always performs a disk check on startup? [21:25] Yes, it is normal. [21:26] However, canceling a transfer **does** leave a partial file on disk... [21:26] And using the ignore option leaves the wonky file. [21:30] So it is possible that there might be one bad file in the folder. [21:31] @bob3 you're the person who was bob5 just a bit ago, right? [21:34] Yes [21:34] I started backing up the hidden folders [21:35] I also clicked to run bitmessage but nothing happened yet [21:35] working on it [21:35] OK. You already copied the bitmessage folder from your main machine to the live session, right? [21:35] Yes. I'm trying to run the appimage from the hdd [21:36] I don't remember if I copied it last time [21:36] the thumbdrive is really fast already done. so weird [21:36] nvm it's not [21:39] OK, so, I discovered that cancelling a transfer **does** risk leaving a partial file on disk. I also discovered how to find and fix that file automatically without having to recopy everything. [21:42] Is it just by checking where it stopped and compare file sizes? [21:42] I conclude so far that it writes in sequentially in alphanumerical order. [21:43] It's a command that compares the file sizes of everything in the source and the backup, and when it finds a file in the backup that's smaller than the source, it overwrites the backup with the source file. [21:43] I think it might also copy your hidden files at the same time. [21:44] Yep, it copies hidden files too. [21:44] Whenever you've verified whether bitmessage is working or not, let me know, and don't start copying the hidden files into your backup yet. [21:45] I'm letting the hidden files copy while I'm working on bitmessage [21:45] oh OK. [21:45] That's fine, [21:45] don't cancel anything. [21:45] what's the shortcut for rename? [21:46] I don't think Lubuntu has one. I think you have to right-click the file, then click Rename. [21:46] Says failed to execute child process xterm no such file or directory [21:47] Eh? Is this BitMessage saying this? [21:47] Also does this when I change the pybitmessage folder name [21:47] yes [21:47] Hmm. I just opened bitmessage a bit ago and it didn't do that to me. Can you download the newest release from the bitmessage appimage place? [21:48] oh it only does that when "trust executable" is unchecked. but when it's checked nothing happens [21:48] Give it a bit, it might take a while. You're on Lubuntu 20.04 live ISO, right? [21:48] oh it works when I open it from non-root file explorer [21:48] as not trusted [21:49] 👍 [21:49] it's 20. something [21:49] Good. [21:52] It only worked without the copied folder [21:52] left a debud log in it that can't be oppened [21:53] Hmm, crud. Can you pop open a terminal type "cd /home/lubuntu/.config", and then run "chmod 0777 ./", replacing Oh, you'll have to put "sudo" in front of the "chmod" command. [21:59] chmod: missing operand after 0777/PyBitmessage [21:59] hold on [21:59] I think it worked [22:00] sudo chmod 0777 ./PyBitmessage [22:00] ^^^ correct [22:03] Is bitmessage able to work now and still have all your old data? [22:05] no [22:06] OK, so maybe there's more data than just in config. Go back to your main machine's drive, and check home/user/.cache for anything bitmessage related. [22:06] sorry I got to eat. I'll keep doing the backups in the meantime [22:07] OK. I should still be here.