How to investigate a problem in Linux. some starter tips needed, multiple questions?

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Walidoll

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I am a fresh Linux user. After almost two decades in the Windows environment, I switched to Linux a few days ago. I have used Linux in various other systems like LAMP VM or Raspberry Pi Ubuntu Mate, but never had it as software on the main machine.

I am still learning about the users and groups, that is something that I should fully understand, as I want to make a clear system in which some similar functions administers the same account but not my main account. If there is some excellent resource that I can use to gain a deeper understanding, please share the link.

Also, I need a resource for understanding a debugging process in Linux.

I have here some annoying situation. The system freezes up occasionally. I just lose keyboard and mouse and it stays there. In that state Caps lock does not change state, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Alt+F1, Ctrl+Alt+F2, Ctrl+Alt+Del od nothing, but on one such occasion I had a video playing in Totem video app, the video continued without a hiccup. The only thing I could do was a hardware reset.
So, how does one investigate such a problem? I assume some driver made a problem, probably somewhere is some log of activities, maybe even a crash report, something that does the same function as event type warning and critical, minidump, bsod code and task manager in Windows. I can ask to help me investigate, tell me what to type and which results to send here, but I am more interested to understand that whole process while solving this specific issue.

There is also an annoyance connected to the user password. I understand, probably deeper than other windows users, the concept of user and password. I would not want to disable sudo password requests, just some of them. The system is set up to boot into my account without a password, that's cool. but then if it goes into sleep/lock mode, when you touch the mouse it asks for a password. Also, when starting Chrome, which has my account with all its passwords it asks for the Linux users password. These two instances I would like to disable, all the other sudo password requests should stay (we do not want that someone tries out rm -r * without the password request).

Also, I need to understand how all the installation possibilities work. Is there a reason why some applications get installed in one way, and others in other? Is there a way to know how to install something without following the tutorial for that specific app. By now I have encountered at least three methods. There is a snap way that seems simple and elegant. Then there is a dpkg -i file.deb. Then there is unpacking of an archive. A repository installation (apt or apt-get install). And at the end there is a download source, type a ./configuration and make option that seems most archaic.

Most annoying from all is packed archive. I have found a resource telling that, you should unpack and place the folder at an appropriate location (!?) How would I know what is appropriate? Should such a file go to /home, as visible or as .name, should it go in some folder outside /home. Some things ended up in /opt/ some other, who knows. What goes where?

How does one clean after himself? Should I write down how I installed something to uninstall it in the same way? I learned that things installed with apt-get install get removed with apt-get purge, but what happens with all the dependencies? I have also learned that make, cleans after itself if it was unsuccessful in whatever it tried to do. But, what happens with tar.gz, dpkg and snap installed items?

That's all for now, I hope. Sorry for the long post, I just feel a bit overwhelmed at the moment. I remember how much time I needed to understand WinXp administration and bug tracking and I know that one cannot learn all of that in a weekend, but some general directions or articles/clips that could help further would be much appreciated at the moment.
Thank you

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markh

Bronze Level Poster
welcome to Linux lol

That's quite a post - not totally sure where to start and also whether or not I can be especially helpful, but in the absence of other responses I'll try.

What you're going through sounds like the standard Linux learning curve to me - my experience with some if not all of what you mention is that it's part of the 'fun' of getting under the hood. I think patience is key - for example unless you're a programmer you can't possibly hope to fully understand all the installation methods in a short space of time. Some do work more intuitively than others, and also the amount of information you're given varies quite a bit, to the point where some packages on GitHub are off-limits until you're a bit more confident with using terminal. The example you give is quite annoying though, I sympathise - I usually just pick somewhere and hope for the best, haha. It took me a while to twig with appimage files that you have to make them executable first within preferences before trying to running, otherwise nothing happens. Also little things like expecting a desktop icon and not finding one, programs that run exclusively in terminal and so on... again, all part of the 'fun'.

To answer your question about dependencies - sudo apt-get purge removes a program's dependencies as well as the program itself, so you don't need to worry about cleaning up. If there's still a tarball (an unpacked tar.gz file) or a .zip file left over in your downloads folder then just delete them.

It sounds like you're using Ubuntu or similar so there's no shortage of help out there, I think you just need to be patient and try and enjoy the learning curve, despite the frustrations. If you find that your system is getting all buggy then there's always the option of a hard re-install - I had to do this recently with Ubuntu and it was really refreshing. If you don't find you have the patience for it, then there's no shame in reverting to Apple or Windows - I know professional programmers who love the idea of Linux but steer clear because they just don't have the patience or time for messing around under the hood. Personally I haven't decided whether or not to stick with it (especially in relation to entrusting Linux systems with live music performance, which is one of my computing needs) - but I find it enjoyable and rewarding, and I think the ethical dimension and the fact that it empowers people to learn computing are really vital.
 
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carnewebb998

New member
Hi,
My first day on the forum... I have been looking through the posts on running Mint Linux on a 15.6 Ultranote series and came across yours. I currently run dual booted Windows and Mint Linux 18 with Mate (looks very older windows like) on both a laptop and a desktop and have been running Mint all the way back to version 7 on various machines. Apart from some Canon printer/scanner drivers I have never installed from the command line; I mostly use that for running rsync backup scripts or changing ownership and permissions of new partitions that are created with root as the owner. For installation I use the Package manager and occasionally the Software manager; these only allow tested applications for the Mint version(s) that I have. If you use the Package manager to remove installed applications (I believe this is what you mean by clean up) they will also remove any dependancies unless some other application is also using them.

I strongly recommend that you have to enter your password at login (see below) otherwise anyone can use your machine as you but without actions where the administrator password is required; they can certainly delete all your data files... I would also set other users' type as "Custom" so that they cannot install software. Other users have their own Home directories where their data will belong only to them and that is all they can see (like Windows) unless, as the administrator, you go into User and Group maintenance within the Control Centre and allow one or more users access to another user's group. Then the second user (or you as administrator) can right click on each Folder in their Home directory and set the permission to allow all members of that group to have read and/or write access to all the files in that Folder and in a similar manner restrict access to individual files.

I am a Linux user, not an expert and there has been a fair bit of trial and error along the way so hopefully some of the above will prove useful. By the way you can also boot and run Mint Linux (or many others) from a dvd or maybe a usb without installing to get a feel for it, albeit taking longer between applications due to the input drive speed.
 

Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
Locking as a copy paste of topics elsewhere on the internet, and then used as a vehicle for links.
 
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