12.04.2 LTS, new install, network broken

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 06 July 2013 16:53:26 Liam Proven did opine:

> On 6 July 2013 16:04, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > Greetings;
> > 
> > I am in a catch-22 here. And very frustrate by what seems to be two of
> > the dumbest actions ever.  They are:
> > 
> > 1. No networking when installing from the cd.  Yes, I have my local
> > network on 192.168.xx.nn, but apparently the installer cannot cope if
> > the xx isn't 00.  Inexcusable.
> 
> It copes fine on my LAN, which is 192.168.1.xx. So it's not a nonzero
> 3rd octet; that works fine.
> 
Who said I was on 192.168.01?  Security by obscurity thoughts do in fact 
cross this old farts mind, occasionally.

> Do you have DHCP?

Yes, for the lappy only, the rest of my local network is hard coded by 
hosts file addresses.
 
> > 2. The gui tools to properly configure it are disabled because they
> > refuse to ask for a sudo password in order to modify the files.  So I
> > am locked ouyt of fixing it via the tools provided.  Also
> > inexcusable.
> 
> GNOME Network Manager (the thing in the panel) is a userspace program.
> It doesn't need root privileges.

Then why does the Apply button stay ghosted and disabled?  Seems like a 
heck of a good question to me.
 
> > I have copied all the networking configs over from a 10.04.4 LTS
> > install, but I still have no dns, only hostnames in the /etc/hosts
> > file work.
> 
> I would not expect that to work. Did you keep backups of any files you
> replaced? Can you revert this change?

No, and I don't intend to, putting in a good resolv.conf and a chattr +i on 
it totally solves the problem.  And nothing bitches either, it Just 
Works(TM).

> > Without a network I cannot update the machine, and without sudo -i
> > access to the gui the network tab on the top right bar can open, I
> > cannot save any changes I make to the network configuration.
> 
> What does `sudo -i` do? I've never needed it.

Look it up Liam.
 
> >  In fact, that little
> > 
> > windshield wiper pattern icon has no way to identify itself so that it
> > can be run as sudo-i from the cli, and I consider it a huge failure
> > that it doesn't ask me for a sudo password if any changes are being
> > made in the files it controls.
> 
> As I said, it's a userspace tool. It doesn't need sudo access, but if
> you have hardwired stuff into place using config files from 4 versions
> back, then you might well have broken it so that it /cannot/ now work.

It never worked, and I spent 2 hours putzing with it after the install 
reboots, plural.
> 
> >  And this bitch goes all the way back to the installer
> > 
> > not properly broadcasting to find out whats out there, so it can use
> > it during the install.
> 
> Does for me. I use it all the time. Are you saying that even the
> LiveDVD could not access the network? This is a key question.

Absolutely I am saying that, for the AMD64 desktop cd image for 12.04.2 
LTS.  LiveDVD?  Couldn't find that image when I went to locate the latest.
If thats what you want folks to use, then it should show up in a google 
search that sends me to the ubuntu site servers.  I surprised me that it 
wasn't since I have an nearly a year older copy in i386 flavor.  But I 
figure by now, its had 3 years to mature, maybe the 64 bit might work now.  
Emphasis on the maybe at this point.

I restarted the install 3 times from a cold boot, it never touched the 
activity leds on the router the last 2 times, I can see them from here.  So 
when I decided to do it how it is supposed to be done, rather than some 
genius coder who does NOT understand networking, I first traced back from 
the /etc/resolv.conf after finding it was a softlink to ../run/resolvconf, 
and finding the resolvconf script there claimed it was generated by some 
program called puppet, a large ascii image in the top of the script, and 
which doesn't even exist on the installed system, and that the file called 
orig-resolvconf or something similar, in that directory contained totally 
bogus data, only valid if you have a straight path to a dns server at 
10.xxx.xxx.xxx, I came to the conclusion that whoever wrote that stuff 
should forever lose his root privileges to any machine tied to the net.  To 
me, the kindest description I can give that is "industrial sabotage".

Ubuntu does not need those sorts of contributions that are patently 
designed to even screw up a former winders luser.  Not now, not in the past 
nor at anytime in the foreseeable future does it need this damage done to a 
perfectly good distro, although I am going to put enough kde on it to run 
kmail.  Haven't yet, but will.

> > However, I am not totally without resources here, I can copy in a good
> > resolv.conf and chmod +i just for S&G.  Then we'll either have a clue
> > as to how to fix it, or nuke the utility that tries to re-write a
> > known good
> 
> You'll only break it further, I think.

See above, fixed, with no thanks to the genius that thought that would be 
an improvement. At this stage, I can't hurt it.  Whatever the window system 
is, I have not found where I can increase the number of workspaces (I 
normally have 10, and workspace switching was and is a single mouse click 
where in 12.04 its a click on the pager to shrink everything down to fit a 
full screen, then double click on the workspace you want so a workspace 
switch that sub 1 second on 10.04 is more like 4 or 5 seconds and lots more 
wear on the mouse. This is NOT progress by any definition), nor have I 
found a shell that will allow me to use 8 or so tabs for stuff I normally 
run, a few tail -f's and such.  The shell provided is totally and 
completely without menu's to adjust even the depth of its history.  
Virtually anything I do has scrolled some fraction of the commands output 
off the end of the history, so if there was an early error, its lost 
forever.

In short but to the point form, ubuntu has expunged 90% of the systems 
daily usability between 10.04.4 LTS and 12.04.2 LTS.  Stop it.  I expect 
the shell I'm used to was kde's konsole, so that, along with mc get 
installed the next time I boot to it.

Then I will have the tools to port my 28+Gb email corpus over to the new 
drive and get kmail working so I can post from it.

One last Q, if kmail's install doesn't fix it, how the heck do I re-enable 
the menu's to run stuff?  All those icons up & down the left edge of the 
screen are pretty eye candy but do NOT get the job done and I am NOT going 
to be looking at a W8 screen with 350 icons scattered over the background 
to get any work done, it just is not going to happen.

Thanks for any helpful comments, they will be and are appreciated.

Cheers, Gene
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