[00:37] <bob3> tHE TRANSFER IS BLOCKED AT 25%
[00:37] <bob3> still plenty room in the usb
[00:40] <bob3> arraybolt3 what's the method to verify and copy anything missing?
[00:41] <arraybolt3> Agh, sounds like a bad USB drive. Or there's a LOT of data missing.
[00:41] <bob3> no error message, just no progress for 30min
[00:41] <arraybolt3> Er, a lot of data still being copied.
[00:41] <arraybolt3> Crud. The USB drive is probably bad. Do you have any other pendrives?
[00:42] <bob3> I do but even worse reputation ones
[00:43] <arraybolt3> It's not the reputation of the drives that matters necessarily, it's how much they've been used. If you've been using this one drive a lot because its the "good drive", you may have burnt it out. That's just what flash drives do after long enough.
[00:43] <bob3> wow it's frozen I cant even create a folder
[00:43] <bob3> this one was brand new
[00:43] <arraybolt3> Yeah, that's a bad drive.
[00:43] <arraybolt3> What brand was it? Sometimes brand new drives are bad.
[00:44] <bob3> I killed the process as it said not responding
[00:44] <bob3> kingston
[00:44] <arraybolt3> What a drag. What brands are the other drives?
[00:44] <bob3> Adata
[00:44] <bob3> is kingston bad?
[00:45] <bob3> damn when I open the backup folder it takes forever to load
[00:45] <arraybolt3> Kingston is among the lowest-quality of the reputable drives. I'm not sure how adata compares, but I think they're good. I've have an Adata SSD that works great.
[00:46] <bob3> yeah I ahve an adata ssd too and the usb drives have 50%+ failure rates
[00:46] <bob3> error mounting usb can't read superblock
[00:46] <arraybolt3> Ah, crud.
[00:47] <arraybolt3> Personally, if the backup is really important, I would back up to an external HDD or SSD.
[00:47] <arraybolt3> I'll find a link to a good one.
[00:47] <arraybolt3> They're pretty cheap.
[00:48] <bob3> man these things are scams
[00:49] <arraybolt3> This is the cheapest one I could find, and it's a brand I know is good: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-1tb-external-usb-3-0-portable-hard-drive-black/6406515.p?skuId=6406515
[00:50] <arraybolt3> Yeah, flash drives have surprisingly high failure rates, even from the best brands.
[00:50] <bob3> I'll just transplant an SSD
[00:50] <arraybolt3> Sometimes even when they don't fail, they can corrupt your data.
[00:50] <arraybolt3> That'll work well, also.
[00:50] <arraybolt3> Hey, wait, you have a spare SSD? That might make this whole process easier.
[00:52] <arraybolt3> I'll be right back, I've got something I have to do, shouldn't take longer than five minutes, ten at the outside.
[00:53] <bob3> well it's not spare but it can be borrowed
[00:59] <bob3> I'm going to burn through usbs
[01:07] <arraybolt3> OK. Well, your "burn through usbs" idea is good, and the borrowable ssd idea is good. Just make sure to get the hidden files and folders in your backup, and do the backup in a root instance of the file explorer.
[01:07] <bob3> Hey what do I run after lsblk and before sudo umount?
[01:07] <arraybolt3> sudo mount <path to USB partition here> /mnt
[01:07] <arraybolt3> sudo chmod 0777 /mnt
[01:07] <arraybolt3> Obviously, the USB needs formatted to EXT4 first.
[01:09] <bob3> says mnnt special device does not exist
[01:10] <arraybolt3> Probably forgot the /dev in front of the partition name. If the partition is "sdb1", then replace <path to USB partition here> with "/dev/sdb1"
[01:11] <bob3> wow mnt: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock or other error
[01:12] <arraybolt3> Probably forgot the number at the end. Not "/dev/sdb", but "/dev/sdb1". (Again, this assumes your USB partition is sdb1.)
[01:13] <bob3> it's clearly listed with the label I gave it and it's sdd/sdd1
[01:14] <bob3> tried both and it does not exit now
[01:14] <arraybolt3> Reformat the drive and try again. If that doesn't work, try a new drive.
[01:14] <bob3> tried unplugging and replugging and it detects it
[01:14] <bob3> Maybe I can just use it as fat32 and backup the partition to it?
[01:15] <arraybolt3> No, that won't work. fat32 doesn't support files bigger than 4GB.
[01:15] <arraybolt3> And it may also mess with file permissions if you do a file copy backup.
[01:16] <arraybolt3> Hey, try "sudo umount /dev/sdd1", then do the "sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt" and all that stuff.
[01:17] <bob3> worked except at last step it said /mnt not mounted
[01:17] <arraybolt3> Ok, do these commands in order:
[01:18] <arraybolt3> sudo umount /dev/sdd1
[01:18] <arraybolt3> sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
[01:18] <arraybolt3> sudo chmod 0777 /mnt
[01:18] <arraybolt3> sudo umount /dev/sdd1
[01:18] <genii> I'm getting deja vu all over again
[01:18] <arraybolt3> Then unplug the drive and plug it back in.
[01:19] <arraybolt3> @genii Right? His system might be acting weird.
[01:19] <genii> If you don't want the write to remain caches, you may want to issue sudo sync to make sure it gets written before you remove it
[01:19] <bob3> works
[01:21] <arraybolt3> OK, good.
[01:21] <arraybolt3> @genii I think umount does that automatically.
[01:21] <arraybolt3> Now do the file copy backup.
[01:21] <arraybolt3> @bob3
[01:23] <bob3> Let's see how it goes 7.6GB/26GB
[01:23] <arraybolt3> 👍
[01:27] <bob3> 9% going to leave timestamps here for the weirdness
[01:28] <arraybolt3> Probably 9% number of files, 7.6GB size of files. That would be my guess, though I'm not totally sure.
[01:28] <bob3> yes that's what I meant
[01:29] <bob3> It's going along at a steady rate 12%
[01:30] <arraybolt3> Good.
[01:30] <bob3> time remaining is going down instead of up compeltely unlike the kingston which had some good flash followed by trash
[01:30] <arraybolt3> Don't be alarmed if you see the time suddenly shoot up, then start going down again - that is likely a result of Linux's disk cache, and I've seen it many times.
[01:34] <bob3> 25%
[01:34] <bob3> atleast 4 times faster
[01:36] <pirota> Hi guys
[01:36] <pirota> I am using lubuntu, I am trying to create a bootable usb. Which program can be used
[01:38] <arraybolt3> @pirota https://www.balena.io/etcher/
[01:40] <bob3> 35%
[01:40] <bob3> watch it die all of a sudden
[01:40] <arraybolt3> @bob3 I hope not!
[01:41] <pirota> I get this error when I try and install it
[01:41] <pirota> .7.9-linux-x64.zip
[01:41] <pirota> Reading package lists... Done
[01:41] <pirota> Building dependency tree... Done
[01:41] <pirota> Reading state information... Done
[01:41] <pirota> E: Unable to locate package balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip
[01:41] <pirota> E: Couldn't find any package by glob 'balena-etcher-electron-1.7.9-linux-x64.zip'
[01:41] <bob3> is there a good reason formatted ext4 thumbdrives aren't writeable to start? really annoying
[01:42] <bob3> I used rufus to create bootable USB. good in my experience
[01:42] <bob3> so you can try rufus too
[01:43] <pirota> will apt-get install etcher work?
[01:43] <arraybolt3> @pirota No, Etcher is an appimage. You download it from the website, set it as executable, and run it. But if you're already using Lubunt, you don't need it. I thought you were making a Lubuntu USB.
[01:43] <arraybolt3> If you're using Lubuntu, do this:
[01:43] <arraybolt3> Open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T.
[01:44] <arraybolt3> Make sure your target USB drive is **not** inserted, and type "lsblk" in the terminal. Then press Enter.
[01:44] <arraybolt3> Now insert your USB, and run "lsblk" again. You will see a new entry in the list - this new entry is your target USB drive.
[01:44] <arraybolt3> Now, go to wherever your ISO image is using file manager.
[01:44] <arraybolt3> Click "Tools", and click "Open Terminal".
[01:45] <arraybolt3> Finally, run "sudo dd if=./<insert ISO image name here> of=/dev/<insert USB drive here> bs=4M status=progress".
 Startup-disk-creator is installed already. (re @lubuntu_bot: (irc) <pirota> I am using lubuntu, I am trying to create a bootable usb. Which program can be used)
[01:46] <arraybolt3> @kc2bez I've had startup-disk-creator fail on me in interesting ways in the past, whereas dd never did me wrong.
[01:47] <arraybolt3> @pirota Actually, according to kc2bez, there's a program in Lubuntu called "startup-disk-creator" that should do the trick. Try that first, it's way easier. It should already be installed.
 dd works great too if you are comfortable on the command line.
[01:49] <arraybolt3> @kc2bez Thanks for popping in with that, it's way easier. They've probably fixed whatever problem I was running into back when I tried to use it.
 There have been a bunch of fixes to it. I think it should be pretty solid.
[01:51] <arraybolt3> @kc2bez That makes sense. Last I tried to use it was on Kubuntu 14.04... yikes
 One of our developers did an SRU not too long ago that went that far back.
[01:55] <arraybolt3> Wow. I was using back when I had no internet connection, so it was just whatever was on the ISO.
[01:56] <arraybolt3> s/using/using it
[01:57] <bob3> 68%
[02:11] <bob3> 92%
[02:15] <bob3> weird it's at 7.3/7.6 GB but 100% and time remianing 0
[02:15] <arraybolt3> Probably got one big file left, or cached data.
[02:15] <bob3> ok it ended on its own!
[02:15] <arraybolt3> Yay!
[02:15] <arraybolt3> OK, so you'll want to make sure that none of the files got corrupted during copy. Let me get you the command to do that...
[02:16] <arraybolt3> OK, so, pop open a terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T.
[02:17] <arraybolt3> Now, type "sudo su -", then "cd /media/lubuntu".
[02:18] <arraybolt3> Let me know whenever you've done that.
[02:30] <bob3> what's the procedure after lsblk?
[02:30] <arraybolt3> USB drive is still /dev/sdd?
[02:30] <arraybolt3> If so:
[02:30] <arraybolt3> sudo umount /dev/sdd1
[02:31] <arraybolt3> sudo mount /dev/sdd1 /mnt
[02:31] <arraybolt3> sudo chmor 0777 /mnt
[02:31] <arraybolt3> ACK! No...
[02:31] <arraybolt3> sudo chmod 0777 /mnt
[02:31] <arraybolt3> sudo umount /dev/sdd1
[02:31] <arraybolt3> (Don't do the "chmor" one - that was a typo)
[02:32] <bob3> doe sunmounting it from file explorer do the same as umount?
[02:33] <arraybolt3> I don't think so - I think unmounting from file explorer may fully eject the drive, making it so that it won't be available for the rest of the commands. I could be wrong on that one, but for best results, use the umount commands.
[02:36] <bob3> yeah it ejected it and commands wouldnt work l,ol
[02:36] <arraybolt3> That's how we learn Linux. :)
[02:45] <bob3> says it doesn't exist but it's there!
[02:46] <bob3> I'm lost
[02:46] <arraybolt3> What doesn't exist? The drive? The backup folder?
[02:46] <bob3> the drive with the old backup
[02:46] <bob3> I formatted to ext4. can write to it
[02:47] <bob3> well can't write to it*
[02:47] <arraybolt3> And what command is failing?
[02:47] <bob3> the 2nd one
[02:47] <bob3> nvm
[02:47] <bob3> I added a '/' at the end of sdb1
[02:47] <bob3> which bogged it
[02:47] <arraybolt3> Oh, that would do it.
[02:48] <bob3> could I mess the hdd up if I made one of these commands to it?
[02:49] <arraybolt3> Only the chmod one. The others aren't dangerous.
[02:49] <arraybolt3> Even if you chmod 0777 the hard drive, your data will be intact, but the permissions will be mangled to all get out.
[02:49] <bob3> copying backup
[02:50] <arraybolt3> Nice, and good luck with the flash drive!
[02:50] <bob3> So the plan is to then backup the partition to the first drive or even a new drive.
[02:50] <bob3> I'll try a new drive to test it too
[02:51] <bob3> and then we try to recover ability to boot?
[02:51] <arraybolt3> OK. And the target drive is way smaller than the source drive, right?
[02:51] <bob3> or if that fails reinstall by wiping whole disk
[02:51] <arraybolt3> (BTW, this is a very good strategy. Making a disk image and then messing with the original disk until you get it to boot is pretty much how its done AFAIK.)
[02:52] <bob3> So I won't be abcking up the whole disk, just the portion of the partition used
[02:53] <arraybolt3> Yes. Basically, what we're going to do is zero out the free space of the hard drive by making a giant file filled with all zeros. Then we'll delete the giant file.
[02:53] <arraybolt3> This will clear any data hanging around in the free space of your drive so that you can copy it onto a smaller drive.
[02:55] <arraybolt3> Then we're going to use a trick called a sparse copy that allows you to copy a giant file to a small drive. Because we've zeroed all the free space on the drive first, this will allow a ~130 GB file to fit on a ~20 GB drive, because most of the disk image will be all zeros, which the sparse copy can basically compress away.
[02:55] <arraybolt3> Since we're using EXT4 on the backup drive, this will work almost certainly work (so long as the flash drive doesn't fail).
[02:56] <arraybolt3> This approach is way, way, way safer than trying to resize a partition.
[03:02] <arraybolt3> Let me know whenever you're back so I can help guide you through that.
[03:02] <arraybolt3> @bob3
[03:05] <bob3> 24% 45min left
[03:06] <arraybolt3> Nice!
[03:12] <bob3> 33% 45 min left. 0.0
[03:13] <arraybolt3> Probably just the disk cache doing its thing.
[03:14] <arraybolt3> I've made live ISO USB drives where the file clone command looked like it was sailing along smoothly, then hit 100%... and stopped for ten or fifteen minutes before the clone finished.
[03:14] <arraybolt3> \0/
[03:14] <bob3> well disk cache theory sounds like ti would be unstable but the tiem remaining is very stable
[03:14] <bob3> only moves slowly
[03:14] <arraybolt3> As in still stuck at 45 min?
[03:15] <bob3> well no it goes up or down <10 seconds
[03:15] <bob3> updates 1/s
[03:15] <arraybolt3> Hmm, odd. Might be a UI bug, I should look into it.
[03:15] <bob3> ur a dev?
[03:16] <bob3> I don't think it's a UI bug. most of the time it changes by 1-2s
[03:16] <arraybolt3> ...Ish... I haven't done any coding for the OS, but I know enough to look at something, know if it's wonky, and tell the real devs what's gone wrong.
[03:16] <bob3> 40% 40min
[03:16] <arraybolt3> kc2bez is a real dev, you might have seen him pop in a bit ago.
[03:17] <bob3> I wish there was a partition manager or apt that can create format ext4 drives and make them writeable without the hassle
[03:17] <bob3> I don't get it it was a terrible experience a few months ago when I didn't know. I jsut gave up on ext4 and used fat32
[03:18] <arraybolt3> Right? I think the problem there is that fat32 drives don't have any such things as file permissions, so when the OS mounts it, it just works (depending on the mount command you use - that's a whole different bag of beans)
[03:18] <bob3> if the file permission can be changed, what's the point of it? to prevent non user access?
[03:19] <arraybolt3> But ext4 supports UNIX file permissions, and by default, the root of an ext4 drive is owned by root and isn't writable by everyone, so you end up with a drive that only root can write to until you chmod 0777 it.
[03:19] <arraybolt3> File permissions exist to keep unauthorized users from messing with stuff. You'll notice the "chmod 0777" command has "sudo" in front of it. Sudo basically means "run as root".
[03:20] <arraybolt3> When you do "sudo chmod 0777 /dev/<whatever>", you're executing the "chmod 0777 /dev/<whatever>" command as root.
[03:20] <arraybolt3> The reason it just works is because you're on a live ISO. On an installed system, the "sudo" command would ask you for your password before doing anything.
[03:21] <arraybolt3> This way, you can't mess with core system files unless you really want to, and some random guy who walks by can't mess with core system files at all (unless he boots your system with a live ISO - that's another whole bag of beans)
[03:21] <bob3> does chmod 0777 just remove permissions or ?
[03:22] <arraybolt3> chmod 0777 allows any user in the world to read, write, and execute files, as well as delete files, list the contents of folders, and add new files.
[03:22] <arraybolt3> It's basically a "let anyone do anything" command.
[03:23] <bob3> if a os partition was chmod 0777'd and booted into, would it be easy to hack?
[03:23] <bob3> by outsiders
[03:23] <arraybolt3> Pretty darn easy.
[03:24] <arraybolt3> With normal file permissions, if you accidentally run malware, you might be able to get away with making a new user account, and be good, since the malware should be confined to the user you ran it as.
[03:24] <arraybolt3> With a drive that was chmod 0777'd, it would be able to do anything it wanted.
[03:25] <arraybolt3> (As an aside, don't rely on user accounts to protect you from malware - it's a good line of defense, and in other uses of Linux, file permissions are essential to security, but as a rule of thumb, don't ever execute malware on your system, and be careful of viruses.)
[03:28] <bob3> are u sure we can't safely shrink a partition or check if it was ok? I have enough space to make 3 more copies of it on the disk
[03:28] <arraybolt3> I am very sure that it's not safe. I have destroyed all the data in a partition doing that.
[03:29] <arraybolt3> And everything looked perfectly safe when I did it. The command failed for no particular reason that I could see, and my data was dead.
[03:30] <bob3> I did move the partition once but it would say "move and shrink" even though the final size was the same down to 0.1GB (would not show in more detail)
[03:30] <arraybolt3> Partitions are fickle things - one misstep when messing with them, and poof, there went your data. That's why the solution I'm suggesting doesn't edit the partitions, it just copies them.
[03:30] <arraybolt3> Did the system stop booting immediately after you did the move?
[03:30] <bob3> No
[03:30] <bob3> The move was after trying to fix it
[03:31] <arraybolt3> Oh. Well, glad it worked that time, don't do that anymore!
[03:31] <bob3> Well how do you know it didn't break something? isn't it all or nothing?
[03:31] <arraybolt3> Because you can still copy files. If you can copy files, your data is intact (unless something went severely wrong that I don't know about).
[03:32] <arraybolt3> As long as the files and their permissions are intact, you can finagle the thing into booting, but it's always a good idea to have backups like you're doing.
[03:33] <arraybolt3> (For the record, I have shrank and moved partitions successfully in the past - it's just that I've also had it go horribly wrong in the past.)
[03:34] <bob3> is it easy to encrypt ext4 thumbdrive with a pass?
[03:34] <arraybolt3> I think so. Depends on the tool you use. I'll see if Lubuntu's partition manager can do that.
[03:34] <bob3> when it went wrong was it user error, poweroutage or just random bug?
[03:36] <arraybolt3> Dunno. I think it was random bug, but it might have been user error. All I know is that everything looked perfectly fine, I told it do go ahead and shrink the partition, and it errored out and killed the partition.
[03:36] <arraybolt3> I'm testing out the encryption thing.
[03:39] <arraybolt3> It looks like it's very easy to encrypt a thumb drive.
[03:39] <arraybolt3> Or at least make a thumb drive that encrypts everything you put on it.
[03:43] <arraybolt3> Alright! I now know how to make an encrypted thumb drive. You do have to reformat the drive in order to make it encrypted, but once that's done, anything you save to the drive will be encrypted when you save it, and you'll need a password to access it.
[03:43] <arraybolt3> I can show you how whenever you'd like.
[03:45] <bob3> is there also a way to use compression on ext4 to speed it up (ofload to cpu)?
[03:46] <arraybolt3> I don't know, I'd imagine so.
[03:55] <bob3> Why is there multiple releases per month. is the dev really changing source code this often?
[03:55] <bob3> is it automated?
[03:56] <bob3> https://appimage.bitmessage.org/releases/
[03:56] <bob3> I could try a more up to date version
[03:56] <bob3> 88% 8min
[03:57] <arraybolt3> It might be that he's doing that much work on it. Some programmers really get into their stuff - that's why Linux exists.
[03:57] <arraybolt3> It might be possible that your problem is that you're missing other needed config files. Have you checked home/user/.cache on your main drive?
[03:58] <arraybolt3> Also check home/user/.local/share
[03:58] <arraybolt3> On the main drive
[04:01] <arraybolt3> If bitmessage was working before, once we get your drive to boot again, it should work again.
[04:01] <arraybolt3> And since we're doing all these backups, we should be able to recover from most any mess-up.
[04:06] <bob3> Normally I'd go to sleep now. How long would this take?
[04:07] <arraybolt3> Pretty long. If you need to stop for tonight and pick up in the morning, that's fine. I'm usually on IRC after 1 P.M.
[04:07] <bob3> 1pm EST?
[04:07] <arraybolt3> 1pm CDT.
[04:08] <arraybolt3> (Plus, there's a bunch of other people here who are also very helpful)
[04:08] <arraybolt3> (so even if I'm not on, someone should hopefully be there.)
[04:08] <bob3> There's files missing from the backup idk why
[04:08] <arraybolt3> That's fixable. You did the backup in a root instance of the file explorer, right?
[04:09] <bob3> Yes
[04:09] <arraybolt3> OK, so you have a terminal open still, right?
[04:10] <arraybolt3> Type "sudo su -", press Enter, then type "cd /media/lubuntu" and press Enter again.
[04:10] <bob3> wait a sec the file size is good when I open properties from rooted file explorer
[04:10] <bob3> but not from normal file explorer
[04:10] <arraybolt3> Hmm. Turn off all the file explorers, then open a normal file explorer, set it to show hidden files, and look again.
[04:13] <arraybolt3> Worst case scenario, even if the backup is messed up, it's easy to fix. (And I don't think it's messed up - I think the non-root file explorer probably just isn't quite up to speed.)
[04:14] <bob3> ok it matches but only when in root
[04:14] <bob3> I think it's fine
[04:15] <arraybolt3> You know what, I bet I know why. Probably some of the files or folders aren't read-accessible by a normal user, so it can't see their sizes and just ignores them.
[04:15] <arraybolt3> I think it's fine too.
[04:16] <bob3> Well I'm glad I copied everything as my old backup had neither hidden files, didn't use admin and also was fat32 so lots of html files lost
[04:16] <bob3> Do you want me to do a copy of the partition? It will finish overnight
[04:16] <arraybolt3> Oy. That would be very hard to use to recover...
[04:17] <arraybolt3> Well, sorta. We can prep to do the partition copy, but it will take a bit, and so the prep step might have to take overnight, and then we can do the partition copy tomorrow (unless it finishes quick).
[04:18] <arraybolt3> To do the partition prep, do this command sequence:
[04:18] <arraybolt3> sudo su -
[04:18] <arraybolt3> cd /media/lubuntu
[04:18] <arraybolt3> ls
[04:18] <arraybolt3> cd <put the big long number here>
[04:19] <arraybolt3> dd if=/dev/zero of=./blank.img bs=4M status=progress
[04:19] <arraybolt3> That will get everything ready so you can safely copy the partition.
[04:20] <bob3> How is it not safe with KDE part manager?
[04:20] <bob3> or will it cause it to shrink it by the empty space?
[04:21] <arraybolt3> Making the big zero file makes it so that you can copy the partition WITHOUT shrinking, even though the drive you're copying onto is smaller than the partition.
[04:21] <arraybolt3> Shrinking the partition messes with file system stuff, and if it fails partway through (like it has on me), it's quite possible that all of your data will basically vanish.
[04:21] <bob3> no I'm not ready to backup to thumbdrive
[04:22] <bob3> just meant copying the partition on the hdd
[04:22] <bob3> the hdd has plenty of unallocated space
[04:22] <bob3> I deleted the windows partition and mint partition plus it still had lots of space
[04:22] <bob3> They were obsolete
[04:23] <arraybolt3> Eh, I'd recommend doing the thumb drive backup first just for good measure.
[04:23] <bob3> sure cya tomorrow
[04:23] <arraybolt3> OK. Glad to be of service, and I'll see you tomorrow!
[10:23] <alif> hi
 hi
[17:23] <bob90> is it safe to extent a os ext4 partition?
[17:23] <bob90> extend*
[17:31] <tomreyn> ext4 is a file system. it's usually safe to extend an unmounted, clean, ext4 file system. but you should always ensure you have proper backups before applying such changes.
[17:32] <bob90> If something bad happens will I get an error? I'm actually looking to shrink a partition
[17:32] <tomreyn> partitions you don't extend, but you rewrite them (or a software does it for you, pretending that you can resize them).
[17:33] <bob90> I think if I can make a copy of it first and then shrink it and if there's no error and I can open the files just as before, I assume it's fine
[17:33] <bob90> then it will be small enough to fit as a partition backup on a USB
[17:33] <bob90> then I can tinker and try to make my OS bootable again
[17:34] <bob90> or rewrite it and use my user file backup to restore most things. but I'm afraid to lose something
[17:34] <bob90> I'd rather just make it bootable again.
[17:34] <tomreyn> you should expect to see an error message and / or a non-zero exit code when a command fails to do the requested operation.
[17:34] <bob90> Is the change that KDE partition manager gives no message indicating an error but an error occured nevertheless? I presume the chance is virtually zero
[17:35] <bob90> It shows what % of the partition is being used so it should be designed to shrink it by the unused part right?
[17:35] <tomreyn> resize2fs -M    is probably what you're looking for. the above note on backups still applies.
[17:36] <tomreyn> i'm not familiar with kde partition manager, can't comment
 at lxqt 1.1 where can i increase number of virtual desktops ?
 i should make an obvious statement - LXQt 1.1 is not yet in LUbuntu and if you install it yourself it's for 'testing purposes' - the goal is to get it in this cycle but there will be testing, etc. that has to be done
 just an obvious FYI to everyone
 This is usually a function of the window manager configuration. (re @tbs61: at lxqt 1.1 where can i increase number of virtual desktops ?)
 i see, thanks.
 when i increase number of virtual desktops to 4, at panel's "desktop swicher" widget it doesnt show 4 box for each virtual desktop. but it changes desktops with moving up and down mouse whell. is that a bug or normal ? (re @kc2bez: This is usually a function of the window manager configuration.)
 or is it also about window manager ?
 As @teward001 pointed out we do not have LXQt 1.1 in Lubuntu so I have no idea what window manager or distribution you are using. This is an offtopic discussion. (re @tbs61: or is it also about window manager ?)
 okay, thanks ^^ (re @kc2bez: As @teward001 pointed out we do not have LXQt 1.1 in Lubuntu so I have no idea what window manager or distribution you are using. This is an offtopic discussion.)
[20:57] <bob22> I wonder if my resize will take longer than copy
[20:57] <bob22> There's no progress bar
[20:58] <bob22> arraybolt3 was it you that helped me yesterday?
[22:24] <micha_> !de
[23:35] <bob5> I'm back
[23:35] <bob5> backed up the partition
[23:37] <arraybolt3> @bob5 Hey, sorry I wasn't there at first!
[23:38] <arraybolt3> Alright! So your next goal is to get the existing partition to boot, right?
[23:45] <bob5> Yes
[23:45] <bob5> Glad to see you
[23:45] <bob5> I'm currently restoring the backup partition into unallocated space to test it.
[23:46] <arraybolt3> OK. So, quick question, can you pop open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), and tell me what this command does: "ls /sys/firmware/efi"
[23:49] <arraybolt3> This will tell me part of how your system works internally so that I can get a better idea of how to get it to boot.
[23:53] <arraybolt3> It would also help to know the results of "sudo parted -l" (the last two characters are a dash followed by a lowercase L). Just glance through the output and tell me if your main drive says "Partition Table: gpt" or "Partition Table: mbr" in it.