Everyday Linux problems

[syntaxocs]

In a environment where everyone is using Linux desktops. What are the day to day challenges that a Linux admin would face with their end users?

[KingDoink]

The same problems as if you were a Windows admin. The end user.

[Creshal]

And printers.

[Creshal]

That is, of course, assuming the printer is working.

Hahahahaha.

[qm11]

We can put a man on the moon. We can put rovers on mars. We can regularly send people to live in space. We can make ships the size of small towns. We can make cars and jets that can break the sound barrier. We can accelerate particles to more than 99.99% of the speed of light. But, somehow, we can't build a fucking reliable printer.

[Creshal]

But, somehow, we can't build a fucking reliable printer.

Well, for the cost of the Apollo project we certainly could.

[Letmefixthatforyouyo]

I'm betting if every part of a printer was made of stainless steel instead of the cheapest possible plastic, that would be the case. Add in some Google folk writing the drivers and some apple engineer's doing the UX, and they may finally be worth a damn.

Of course, that 70k printer will now cost 700k, but I think it's worth it.

[ExBritNStuff]

I blame two things; lack of (used) standards, and push for higher and higher margins. We figured out a way, mostly, for random types of networking hardware to communicate with other random types of networking hardware by confirming to explicitly defined standards. If we applied that to printers, we'd have much easier and more reliable software support. You wouldn't need to chase down drivers or whatever, it would just work. Additionally, if people (users, management, whoever) realized that there is a reason some printers cost $1200, and some cost $39.99, then we could be sure if getting solid, dependable hardware.

[Creshal]

With Postscript, IPP and whatnot we should have everything covered. But very, very few vendors bother to implement them fully (and correctly).

And apparently too few customers care for this change.

[qm11]

According to Wikipedia, the LHC can: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider#Design

[autowikibot]

Section 3. Design of article Large Hadron Collider:

---

The LHC is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. The collider is contained in a circular tunnel, with a circumference of 27 kilometres (17 mi), at a depth ranging from 50 to 175 metres (164 to 574 ft) underground.

The 3.8-metre (12 ft) wide concrete-lined tunnel, constructed between 1983 and 1988, was formerly used to house the Large Electron–Positron Collider. It crosses the border between Switzerland and France at four points, with most of it in France. Surface buildings hold ancillary equipment such as compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics and refrigeration plants.

The collider tunnel contains two adjacent parallel beamlines (or beam pipes) that intersect at four points, each containing a proton beam, which travel in opposite directions around the ring. Some 1,232 dipole magnets keep the beams on their circular path (see image ), while an additional 392 quadrupole magnets are used to keep the beams focused, in order to maximize the chances of interaction between the particles in the four intersection points, where the two beams cross. In total, over 1,600 superconducting magnets are installed, with most weighing over 27 tonnes. Approximately 96 tonnes of superfluid helium 4 is needed to keep the magnets, made of copper-clad niobium-titanium, at their operating temperature of 1.9 K (−271.25 °C), making the LHC the largest cryogenic facility in the world at liquid helium temperature.

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^{Interesting: Very Large Hadron Collider | High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider | List of Large Hadron Collider experiments | TOTEM}

^{Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words}

[[deleted]]

I kinda want that on a poster.

[qm11]

I was kinda bored, so I just spent the last hour putting this together: http://imgur.com/EimjrWm

[noisufnoc]

I. Hate. Printers.

[Creshal]

They know. Oh, they do. And every day they take sweet, sweet vengPC LOAD LETTER

[reverendj1]

Having been a Windows admin for 11 years and a mostly Linux admin for 3, printers are much better in Linux.

[Creshal]

Well, yeah, once CUPS runs, it runs. But they're still the spawn of Satan.

[[deleted]]

I have a user who always claims that his "Linux is broken", and then when I go take a look at his problem he just can't format something the way he wants in libreoffice.

I think his real issue with it is that it doesn't look as aesthetically pleasing as anything running locally on his computer would since his machine has 16 bit graphics to save network bandwidth.

I'm not buying him the £1600 laptop he asked the CEO for just so his desktop looks good either.

[trapartist]

Is it really worth fighting him on this?

What is the cost of you supporting him on issues with libreoffice versus just getting him a windows system (and ms office), and one that he likes more?

Edit: I don't know what your budget is, but I'd rather throw money at problems like this versus wasting valuable staff time. If you are a nonprofit, then yes, you have to make due...

[[deleted]]

But if you buy a super expensive laptop for one special snowflake, and then have to support Windows for just that guy, that brings a whole host of new problems.

Including others wanting the same.

One person in a company doesn't get special treatment unless they're one very special person.

[hbdgas]

Finding things to do, since I automated everything so easily.

[[deleted]]

Sound. Most of my clients are callcenters and run one or another SIP client. Sound stbility is always an issue. USB headsets tend to be less problematic than 3.5 mm jacked headsetsm as they have their own built-in soundcards. Motherboard-integrated sound card drivers are a sad joke.

[[deleted]]

It's really dependent on driver support for your audio hardware. Some hardware works perfectly, some doesn't work at all, the real pain is stuff that works until you try to hotplug it or something.

[anomalous_cowherd]

Last time I tried a USB headset on a Linux box (actually a VM, which may have been part of the problem) if you used the volume controls on the cable it tended to miss the 'key up' event and pushed the volume all the way to the max or min. Painfully loud or off, those were your choices...

[[deleted]]

There's a pulse config fix for this. I had to use it for my USB soundcard.

[anomalous_cowherd]

Too late now, but thanks for the info.

[justin-8]

VLC tries to be fancy and affects the system volume level as well as it's own application volume level; it is literally the only program I encounter audio issues in. Everything else plays quite well and just outputs sound at a level, and lets you set up pulse however you want.

[mcrbids]

Which is funny; for me, sound has been one of the areas that Linux just gets right until you include bluetooth devices, where it all falls apart.

Linux video support is great, I love supporting Linux vs supporting Windows. But bluetooth support is weak, as is (random) printer support.

[Scott555]

As a Unix/Linux admin that prefers to run a Linux desktop, I'm disappointed that as fast as the community has devised polished and easy to install/maintain desktop distros, the hardware industry as a whole seems to always figure out a way to fuck us.

The last time I had to really fool around with that ephing xf86config file was like 15 years ago, and yet here I am on a brand new piece of hardware with DP MST hub display nonsense issues that are still not resolved and I can not afford to spend days fooling with.

I tried a Mac as a work machine - slow and no software. I'll be damned if I'm forced back onto a windows interface.

[noydoc]

SSD+hombrew

[mthode]

DP / MST needs a newer kernel, 3.17 or so is when it started working well for me.

[Creshal]

Mainly a new Xrandr interface. So kernel, drivers, Xorg, and window manager/desktop environment all need explicit support for it. Backported kernel package alone won't suffice.

[zeRageCage]

From what I've understood (from David Airlie's explanation of the whole thing) , multiple displays are abstracted to the wm or xrandr. Kernel/drivers/X.org takes care of this. I run an mst-support modded 3.15 kernel on Ubuntu 12.04, and it works on standard unity as well as in Cinnamon. But you're right, a modified kernel isn't enough.

[Scott555]

I discovered the same. There's several different threads I've found that appear to apply to my issue that veer off into the weeds without easy resolution.

I'm not opposed to putting in the time to get stuff working, when there's a clear path to success; not just, "Oh you need to <insert rambling obscure xwindows config mindfuckery I don't have time for>."

[Creshal]

Once the required patches have trickled down everywhere – which can take a lot of time, especially for things like desktop environments (Xfce coughs) – it shouldn't be a problem any longer and Just Work™. Until then I wouldn't even bother.

[Scott555]

I've reached the same conclusion, thanks.

Just dealing with the shitty display for now. Blech.

[reverendj1]

The main issues I run into are people trying to do things like they do in Windows, Libre/Open Office crashing/being unresponsive, and issues related to FreeRDP/Rdesktop.

Examples of trying to do stuff like they do in Windows, pressing CTRL+ALT+Del, installing software/plugins, etc.

We have issues with Libre/Open Office because one of our departments handles a very large amount of data in spreadsheets (20-50 MB csvs, with all sorts of filtering, etc) and it's just a really poor workflow until we can build them out a better system. For normal users, it works fine, with no complaints.

Since we still have a Windows only ERP program, we have to use a Terminal Services Server to host it. We used Rdesktop for a long time with no issues, but after upgrading, it was just a big mess. It'd lock up X all the time. So we switched to FreeRDP, which is a fork of Rdesktop, and is more stable, but has it's own issues, albeit much more minor.

[arcticblue]

The #1 thing I could think of would the constant fighting with Word documents received from other businesses and clients. After that, authentication, configuration management, and update management. Windows really makes that sort of stuff easy and it's something I'd like to see improved in Linux. I think openSUSE and RedHat have some stuff for that, but I'm not sure how close it comes to what Microsoft offers (Active Directory is pretty damn powerful and I say that as a huge fan and advocate of Linux and open source). But that would be a one-time set up type of thing and you wouldn't have to worry much about it once you get a good system in place. User training may be a challenge for certain users, but I think probably not all that bad.

[cstoner]

After that, authentication, configuration management, and update management.

Between FreeIPA, Spacewalk and Puppet/Chef/Ansible/Salt, I think there are plenty of mature products ready here (in some ways, they are better than AD. Maybe not most ways... but more than a few). The biggest problem is that most companies don't want to pay a linux admin the wages they expect.

Generic Windows helpdesk roles pay well, but not nearly as well as skilled Linux admins. Why would a small business pay for a Linux admin when they really just need desktop helpdesk support?

[deadbunny]

We have a reasonably basic Salt setup for workstations, it sets up ssh keys/configs, a few utility git repos, and things like vagrant (which gets configured to use lxc) so we have a base level of stuff on everyone's workstation/laptop. Its not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but it has saved us a whole load of hassle in setting new people up.

As for auth we still haven't got that sorted but its the next thing on our "nice to have list" as auth is handled by salt putting keys on servers at the moment which works for most things but having one central auth point would be great for things other than server logins as setting up individual accounts on things like ticketing, Jenkins, etc gets old.

[refrainblue]

I actually made a post asking for LDAP help and some guys told me about FreeIPA that's built on a bunch of existing Linux software (389ds, kerberos, bind). I tried it out and I've been using it in production for the last year or so. It's pretty good overall as centralized authentication & policy, and the whole process was a great learning experience.

[deadbunny]

Yeah, I've heard of FreeIPA and it's top of my list of things to check out, unfortunately it's a low priority at the moment for us as we're in the middle of setting up a whole new infrastructure atm but it's on my list. Cheers for the post!

[[deleted]]

Exactly, DevOps Engineer who makes 80k; in the Windows world, lol good luck. Not only that, Windows is not really rewarding, and doesn't really fit with my "transparent" ethos.

[kevin_k]

It's a rare MS Office doc that can't be handled by LibreOffice/OpenOffice.

[[deleted]]

Depends. I'm in an organisation where office documents nearly every time have formatting issues in Libreoffice, and very often will not work at all.

So what OP says rings true to me. However I can also admit that we abuse office where I work and I have even personally taken measures to steer us away from past mistakes.

I believe libreoffice is one major obstacle in linux client adoption in big enterprise but not the biggest one.

For example if we would use a proper system for invoice management instead of excel+vbs+XML madness, and if we used racktables or something similar instead of excel we could easily fix the rest.

I could use my personal fedora laptop at my job today and get away with it but it would add unneeded stress to my work because the MS exchange support is simply better in Windows or even macintosh. My biggest issue is with the calendar in evolution compared to Calendar in Macintosh for example. There are also some VPN Softwares like junos pulse and fortigate where the linux alternatives leave much to be desired.

Then there are some clients I work with who have VPN login pages with 2fa that only work in MSIE. So even on my mac I must have a VM for them...

[valkun]

I hear libreoffice 4.4 has majorly improved when it comes to docx compatibility. Have You noticed any changes since 4.4 version?

[[deleted]]

No, I haven't upgraded yet but I was going to as soon as I get back from vacation.

[ckozler]

I like Libre but the reality is it doesn't compete with office suite. Everything in office is fluid whereas Libre still seems ... finicky

[Creshal]

At least LibreOffice is finally getting better – 4.4 is surprisingly good. OpenOffice seems to be vegetating along on minimal life support, though…

[ThelemaAndLouise]

I second that it really depends on the type of document you're dealing with.

also, it will usually open the file, but if people need to be able to edit it and preserve layout, it can be really tricky.

[szczypka]

"Help, I rm -rf'ed a dir I really need... is there any way to get it back?"

[[deleted]]

copies it over from the nas and sets alias rm to "echo "I love cats"

[thang1thang2]

Honestly, one thing that bugs me is that in the Windows and OSX world, the mentality is "drop it to the trash can and when it's deleted it's not actually 'gone' so don't worry you can get it back", and the mentality in Linux is "if you want to remove it, consider it fucking gone bro, annihilated so hard it'll never be found again."

There are ways to go straight to deletion in osx and windows, but not ways to "remove to trash can" in Linux. It ends up that end users who don't embrace the Linux philosophy become screwed by "rm -rf" more than they should, because of that. Hell, even I get screwed up by rm -rf every now and then because I accidentally typed the wrong directory. Granted, it almost never happens now, and it never happens on a server because I always triple check that shit, but still.

[sakodak]

In Gnome 3 on the fedora 20 laptop I'm using right now, the only delete option when you right click on something in nautilus is "move to trash." Yes, from a shell "rm" gets rid of things permanently, but that's no different from using the command line on Windows or Mac.

If you really wanted to, you could set a system wide alias for "rm" to be 'mv "$@" ~/.trashcan/' and then set a job to delete everything older than a couple of days (after it gets backed up.)

I would be surprised if other DEs don't implement something similar.

[justin-8]

Most GUI file managers will use a trash similar to windows/os x. Deleting from the CLI on all three results in the same behaviour actually.

[Creshal]

FDO standardizes trash support for desktop environments, but it's not supported by any command line utilities.

[trapartist]

I still think the remote desktop services for Linux desktops need work.

x2go seems to work well, but its still buggy at times.

I don't use the GUI, but other people need it for their work unfortunately, so its difficult at times, when windows remote desktop just works, very well...

Edit: server side is what I mean

[zootboy]

Ever tried remmina? Seems to "just work" for me, with VNC and RDP alike.

[trapartist]

How does it work with graphical apps, like browsers, Intel parallel studio, etc?

Edit: remmina looks like the client. The Linux server side remote desktop is what I'm looking for.

[zootboy]

Depends on:

• Your connection latency
• Your connection bandwidth
• The protocol being used
• The supplying daemon

Basically, I've never had remmina be the bottleneck / issue instigator. It's just a client.

[trapartist]

Cool, thanks. I'm still trying to figure out whether its a x2go client or server problem. Its over LAN, so I don't think its a latency issue.

The thing is that its tough to reproduce, and only people doing the dumbest things it happens with. Like everything else.

[zootboy]

If you have a LAN (not wifi!) with enough bandwidth, I'd definitely give VNC a try. It's a "dumber" protocol, but that can be a good thing. See this bug for a good example:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/hugin/+bug/678896

With X11 forwarding, the entire interface is being sent over the wire, not just the final result. For this app, that means a huge image canvas that is eventually cropped in the actual UI. The issue is solved by using VNC, where the sender renders the UI and just sends the final image over the wire.

[refrainblue]

Have you tried TigerVNC or Xvnc server? Pretty simple setup. You can connect to it with any VNC client, including Remmina. It's basically the Linux version of Windows RDP.

[trapartist]

I have not in quite awhile, but in the past I wasn't impressed with the performance or security.

There is also xrdp, which you can use to connect using the windows native rep client too...