OK, I think I need help.

[JediBear]

Okay, I know I need help. I'm having a few problems with Kubuntu. Some are new, some have been going on ever since I installed it.

_________________________________________________
Problem 1:

The one that just cropped up is with the Package installer. Every time I install a package, I get the same error.

Just for fun, we'll install the doxygen package (selected more or less at random) so you can see what I mean:

DEBIAN_FRONTEND=readline; export DEBIAN_FRONTEND; apt-get install --yes 'doxygen' ;echo RESULT=$?
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-2.6.20-15-generic linux-headers-2.6.17-11-generic
linux-headers-2.6.20-15 libssl0.9.7 libpq3 linux-headers-2.6.17-11
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Suggested packages:
doxygen-doc doxygen-gui graphviz
The following NEW packages will be installed:
doxygen
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 1312kB of archives.
After unpacking 3830kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com feisty/main doxygen 1.5.1-1build1 [1312kB]
Fetched 1312kB in 33s (39.4kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package doxygen.
(Reading database ... 140396 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking doxygen (from .../doxygen_1.5.1-1build1_i386.deb) ...
Setting up runit (1.6.0-1) ...
grep: /etc/inittab: No such file or directory
grep: /etc/inittab: No such file or directory
Adding SV inittab entry...
cp: cannot stat `/etc/inittab': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing runit (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up doxygen (1.5.1-1build1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
runit
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
RESULT=100

I don't know exactly what runit is (I looked up the man page but couldn't make sense of it,) why it's throwing an error, what error it's throwing, or how to resolve the situation.
_________________________________________________
Problem 2

Samba stinks. It's difficult to configure (made even worse by the incomplete and often incomprehensible configuration tools in "System Settings," and even when configured, doesn't seem to do what I want.

Which is to share a directory. To every Windows system on my network. For reading and writing.

Right now, windows systems can see the share, but cannot access it.

_________________________________________________
Problem 3
I have been trying to use the Kubuntu media players, Amarok and Kaffeine, but neither works. At best, I get the player claiming to play, and even get video in Kaffeine, but get no sound. Lately Amarok has taken to crashing immediately upon launch.

Other sound-based applications seem to work fine. I can even play YouTube videos in Konqueror or Opera.

_________________________________________________

I'm a fairly tech-literate guy, but I'm new to Linux, Ubuntu, and KDE and I can't seem to figure these ones out. Any help would be appreciated, down to telling me how to figure out what you need to know.

[Dedoimedo]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Hello,

Problem 1:

You need superuser privileges when installing so try:
sudo apt-get install package_name

Problem 2:

Please try this:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux_commands.html

In particular:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/l...etwork_sharing
Furthermore, in general:

1. Install Samba.
2. Create a Samba user (sudo smbpasswd -a 'your_user_name')
3. Restart Samba (sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart).
4. Try to access from Windows using IP.

Please read my article for more details.

Problem 3:
Do you have sound drivers installed?

If you have more questions feel free to ask.

Dedoimedo

[mchuskie]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

On 1: It looks like the problem is exclusively with a package called "runit". I've no idea what this does but Adept tells me "runit is a replacement for SysV-init and other init schemes." I don't have it installed; unless you've installed it yourself deliberately, try removing it.

wrt 3: It sounds obvious but have you checked that levels are up and mutes are off in Kmix?

[kubicle]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

I don't know exactly what runit is (I looked up the man page but couldn't make sense of it,) why it's throwing an error, what error it's throwing, or how to resolve the situation.

To me it looks like a bug in the post-installation script of the runit package (It tries to read/modify /etc/inittab, which has been obsoleted by upstart and is no longer present in newer versions of (k)ubuntu)...If you don't need 'runit', I'd recommend removing it like JamesM suggests.

If you really need runit (you've installed something that depends on it), You could try contacting the packager to see if he/she can fix the issue(s). Or if you know your way around the system you can try to see what the post-installation script is trying to do and see if it can be fixed (the script should be /var/lib/dpkg/info/runit.postinst)

[marshallbanana]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Also on Q3: Have you installed the codecs necessary to play the various non-free media types (eg. mp3, mpeg)? Most codecs cannot be included in the distro for legal issues, but can easily be downloaded with adept. Lack of these shouldn't be enough to crash Amarok but just a thought.

[Ant2ne]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Problem 2
I've never tried this, but it stands to reason, your Windows OS wont be able to access files stored on a drive with the file structure set to anything other than FAT or NTFS. If yous samba share is on ext type fs then Windows may not be able to see anything there. I have a partiion on my linux machine with 10 gig set to FAT32 fs. Linux and Windows can use this partition and I can share files through it. Not sure, it could be your problem.

[Dedoimedo]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Hello,
I share resources between Windows and (K)ubuntu. Never had problems accessing Linux shares from Windows, regardless of the filesystem type.
Dedoimedo

[JediBear]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Also on Q3: Have you installed the codecs necessary to play the various non-free media types (eg. mp3, mpeg)?

Ah, I think the answer to that would be no. Though I'm not thinking this is the cause of my problem (as you mentioned, it shouldn't be enough to kill Amirok,) I'm certainly interested in using the most common a/v formats out there. a search using Kpackage didn't turn up much. Is there somewhere I can find a list of useful packages?

[marshallbanana]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

I have the following installed (on top of those that are default):
flac
flac123
libxine-extracodecs
Although obviously those first two are only relevant if you use flac (which for me is most of what I use). That will cover mp3s, and at least a couple of video formats too.

[JediBear]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

Okay. New information that may help. I don't seem to be getting audio out of Wine either. (edit: and now I am. Interesting...)

Problem 1 appears to have been solved by uninstalling runit. I'm not sure how it got installed in the first place.

[JediBear]

Re: OK, I think I need help.

installling the codecs didn't help with MPEG playback, by the way. Kaffeine claims it's missing a plugin that it needs to play them. I have no idea what that even means.