I may have posted this before, but…late last year I realized my Debian server with circa 2009 hardware, with 4 gb of RAM and Core 2 Quad processor, was no longer up to the tasks I wanted it to perform; in particular, running a Home Assistant server. Back in 2018 or so, I added a software Linux RAID5 array with 5 active 3 TB drives and one hot spare, along with a “cold spare” that I’ve never actually used.

So, early this year, I bought hardware to upgrade my desktop machine, which was still plenty fast for me, and move the guts to my server. This is how my server usually gets upgraded. Upgrade the desktop machine, give it a few days or weeks to make sure it’s stable, and then upgrade the server.

I installed the hardware without a problem, booted it up, and everything seemed okay, except that I …couldn’t access the RAID. At first it was like, well, I’m sure it’s nothing serious, but then when mdadm could even FIND it, I started to get extremely worried. Fear set in.

Long story short: When I built the RAID, I followed directions that used the entire discs as the RAID, instead of making a partition on the disc and using that partition. The old motherboard didn’t care, but the new one saw the bare discs and was like, “Hey, those are messed up, I’ll fix the partition table for you!” Turns out, building Linux RAIDs by using the full discs like that is a VERY BAD IDEA for exactly this reason - but there are still guides out there showing that method and not mentioning the risks.

I was panicking. I spent days trying to figure out what to do and nothing was working. I was asking for help on the Linux-RAID list (and most of them were as helpful as they could be). Unfortunately my backups were NOT up to par (something I should have checked before starting), and I was at the point where I was like, well, I’ve lost x, y, and z.

I had basically given up and was just recreating the RAID using the “create command” then trying to see if I could mount the drive read-only. With 6 drives, there are quite a few possible combinations that could be the right one. If I remember correctly, I was able to figure out which drive was the spare, so I could limit my searches to the other 5, and knowing all 5 were in use, it was a matter of trying different orders. I think I got close one time and ext4 gave me weird read error, so after that I swapped two drives, and hit the right order.

Eventually … I found it. I found the right combination and could reload it! Everything was there, untouched! As quickly as I could, I copied everything to a 10 TB drive I bought and installed into the desktop system. I saved the command, rebooted, and the same thing happened again - so it was definitely a motherboard problem - but this time I knew how to recreate it, and did so.

Since I now had a backup, I partitioned each drive and rebuilt the array using partitions…and I saved every piece of data I could think of about building the array, outputs of mdadm, outputs of /proc/mdstat, partition IDs, etc. Naturally, having that info likely means I’ll never need it.

I was so relieved when I saw that mount command work without error. I spent close to a week worrying about it, and in that moment it was a huge rush.

New setup handles HA and other duties with aplomb and is very reliable, so in the end it was very worth it.

This is less “silly” and more “horrifying”. Sorry.

I need to do this with my gaming computer yet. I run Linux on my other machines (and have for many years), but this one is Windows. I bought the computer in 2021, but it doesn’t have the trusted computing module, so I can’t upgrade it to Windows 11 even if I wanted to.

Last night I tried to add an SSD that I had from a laptop that died, figuring I’ll put a fresh install of Linux on the second SSD and not touch the original drive. Unfortunately, the computer didn’t want to boot off the original drive any more - even when I changed the boot priority to the original drive, I still got grub from the new drive. I had to disconnect the new SSD to get the computer to boot Windows on the original drive (I wasn’t ready to do the Linux install and might need Windows in the mean time).

I know it’s a temporary issue at worst, as the installer will likely pick up that Windows installation and make it an option in grub. But it was a setback I wasn’t expecting. I figured I’d put in the drive and have it just idling there until I had time to run the Linux installation.

Some subs are very negative. I remember antimlm was, as well, people spent all day mocking people who got involved in MLM schemes. I subbed for a while because my wife was in one, and I was hoping for help, advice, tips, etc., but it was all just mocking them and calling them “hon bots” or whatever the term was. I had to unsub, I don’t need that negativity in my life.

The hobby subs, on the other hand, always seemed extremely supportive, or at least the ones I was in were. For example, the radio control (cars, planes, boats, etc.) sub members were totally into it and totally supportive of whatever it was you were doing. It was inspiring and made me want to get back into the hobby. Those kinds of subs were the best part of reddit, and unfortunately we haven’t recreated that energy for things like that here - just not enough users.

I’m starting to think this really is it, because it again worked while I was away eating lunch - it turned off my monitor that is hooked to the Intel integrated video. The other monitor is currently switched to my work laptop.

Thanks. That gives me something to look into. Wonder why it didn’t happen under Kubuntu…I kept it up to date, but it still might have been too old in some way (X11 instead of Wayland or something).

Interesting. I’ll try the kscreen2 kill again.

Interesting, but I haven’t changed that either.

And, gah, it just worked normally. WTF. I haven’t changed anything yet this morning.

You’re missing the point. That compromised xz made it into some production distributions. The point here is that shit can happen to Linux, too.

I love how quickly everyone has forgotten about that xz attack.

I use and love Linux and have for over two decades now, but I’m not going to sit here and claim that something similar to the current Windows issue can’t happen to Linux.

Uh shouldn’t it be Earth?

Can I bitch about that redaction for a bit? Someone hit our car while it was parked on federal property. There were cameras, and the security people figured out who did it (and called them, and they denied it). When we finally got the police report, all of the information for identifying the guilty party had been redacted, along with the officer’s name and any other useful information. For a literal fender bender. Shitty driver got away with it. The police report was completely useless. I can only imagine my insurance company was like, “We waited 3 weeks for THIS?” They might as well have sent over a blank page.

I get the idea behind redacting stuff in general, but that one just pissed me off.

I was on the phone with our ISP after our internet service went out. The rep asked me if the box had a green light on it - yes - then asked me to plug a light into the same outlet and confirm the power was on. I said, “Look, I understand you have to follow a script, but you literally just asked me to confirm the power light on the box was on. Clearly the power is working.”

Same ISP sends me an email whenever we have a power outage letting me know that our internet might not work when the power is out. (I’ve joked that this email arrives before the ceiling fans have come to a stop.) But when my internet goes down, they’re completely clueless. “Ohhhh it must be that your power is out even though we monitor that closely and aren’t showing a power outage right now!”

Because I didn’t know it existed until now. :) I’ll have to look into that, thanks.

This is a tough one. The problem with local only backups is, what if there’s a fire?

I use Amazon Glacier to store my pictures. It’s $0.0036 / GB per month, so I pay less than $2/month for ~535 GB of storage that I’m using right now. There is also a cost for downloading, but if I need it, I’m going to be happy to pay it (and the costs aren’t crazy). Uploads are free.

(The other problem with Glacier is that it’s not really an end-user-friendly experience, nor is it something easily automated. I use SimpleAmazonGlacierUploader, a Java program someone wrote, to do it. You can also upload to S3 and have it archive things to Glacier automatically - I’ve never tried this but it should work.)

I considered getting my brother or a friend to build two storage servers (with RAID5 or something) that we’d each keep at home, and just sync to each other. Good if you have a friend or family member willing to do it (or at least host your offsite box). Down sides: Cost to build it, time to build and maintain it, cost to replace things that break, plus cost for electricity. I’ve been using Glacier for many years, so by now maybe I would have spent less on that theoretical backup system, but I also did not have to worry about it.

I started playing with Linux in the late 90s while I was in grad school. Slackware 3.x. I think I might have tried one or two others, but since I was somewhat familiar with Unix, Slackware was the easiest for me to learn.

I got them via CD ROMs; I’m pretty sure they came with a book on Linux (I think it included several distributions on CDs). I don’t think I have that book any more; I likely got rid of it long ago as it was badly out of date. But my memory is that it was published by Que, a publisher that I had good experience with on other topics. (dBase III, for example) I’m pretty sure it was this one…leave it to Amazon to still have it.

I recall recompiling kernel because it was “so much faster” (I cringe at myself now for thinking that - it probably wasn’t even true on my Pentium 133 machines). I also remember spending time trying to get X-windows configured, but I was successful. I think I was using fvwm95 window manager, a Windows-like experience. I started using Linux essentially full time pretty quickly.

A few times I got frustrated with Linux and tried to switch back to Windows, but the headaches of Windows always quickly drove me back to Linux. Linux is not perfect, but Windows is even worse.

With Tasmota on the S31, you can disable the ability to turn it off. I have a few set up that way to prevent them from being turned off.

I wonder what the wifi access in the school is like?

Page 3: Wireless infrastructure at all buildings, in 2015.

I have no idea why I remember mine, 520009. Haven’t used ICQ in many years; I didn’t know it was still up.

Some kind of miracle, I know. Actually I got more messages, but many of them were either spam or never even made it to a date.

Welcome to the Dull Side.