Clutter Learns Linux

[Bruno]

I have never gotten very good at using ftp clients for uploading. My web host provides a lazy online (http?) method of writing and modifying web pages. I need to dust off my ftp client and try moving the file onto the server that way. Who knows, maybe that could cause an OS-unique problem like I am seeing?

I think you might be on to something there Clutter . . . . and I can tell you that using an FTP client in Linux is really easy, so now would be the time to learn / try !Just for the record: - I used the konqueror filemanager as FTP client- brunolinux.com is hosted on FreeBSD with Apache Bruno

[striker]

I always use gFtp. (gnome based)

[Guest LilBambi]

I always use gFtp. (gnome based)

Me too striker! My favorite is gFtp!

[Cluttermagnet]

Great! When I get back home, gFtp it is.

[Cluttermagnet]

I think you might be on to something there Clutter . . . . and I can tell you that using an FTP client in Linux is really easy, so now would be the time to learn / try !

They have a little ftp tutorial on that web domain for web page users. I'll scope that out to get the appropriate address to ftp to. I'll install gFtp for Linux and that other ftp utility I used to have in Windows- whatever it's called. I forget right now. Edited August 18, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

Uh, OK, I'm running into the same brick wall I used to hit some years back (when trying to use ws-ftp under Windows). It's not real intuitive how to move files to where I want them using gFtp. I pulled one small file from my server to /home/clutter. It transferred fine. So using gFtp under Dapper is pretty easy to set up in that regard. But where I get lost is that I can't see how to make the client put the file where I want it, which is /home/cluttter/data/website. I'm going to resort to "man gftp" in Terminal to see if any clues pop up...Nope, nothing really resembling a user help file is resulting...FWIW the website host gives a pretty easy procedure for doing drag n drop ftp using a browser, so I can probably do what I need to do that way. I'm going further and trying to learn this gFtp client. If I can figure it out, I will ftp my entire site, some 60-70 extended pages, onto my hard drive for safekeeping (it's only about 3MB, not counting the pdf file)...OK, I did a very easy ftp of another small file onto my Linux desktop using Firefox drag n drop (how embarrassing). That works fine. Now I'm going to rename this stupid 'problem file' and then drag a copy from desktop to webhost ftp tab in Firefox (OMG how embarrassing)...

Edited August 18, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Urmas]

Comme Ça?

[Cluttermagnet]

Yep, I got that far. It comes up in that window as /home/clutter. I just can't figure out how to make it save the file into /home/clutter/data/website. I tried typing in the sub directories in that window, but it just ignored me and put the file in /home/clutter. BTW I executed the ftp using the dropdown window: Tranfers/Retrieve Files. I couldn't see how to navigate it to my sub directory.

[Urmas]

http://support.real-time.com/linux/web/gftp.html(See "Download Content)

[Cluttermagnet]

http://support.real-time.com/linux/web/gftp.html(See "Download Content)

Hoo boy...Not real clear, even after reading their simple directions. I'm going to have to fight this thing on my own for a while until I start to 'get it'. I'm still banging shins and elbows painfully when trying to manage files and folders in Ubuntu. It's not a real smooth operation yet. I'm frustrated, as I can whip files around in 98SE like a casino dealer. This here is 'real aggravating'. I'm going to try to stay focused on my main task, take a break while I do a little drag and drop with firefox and the web host site first, to get the job done. Then I'll come back to gFtp and start banging my head again...

[Urmas]

Just remember... practice makes perfect... or something like that (can't help you with this one [either]... this "hosting stuff" is geek to me).

[Cluttermagnet]

I didn't get much done. Totally banging my head with gFtp, not getting it, not making it do what I want. It is not all that intuitive. I know exactly what I want to do (either of 2 simple tests, downloading or uploading, that I can choose from). I can't figure out how to adapt to this client, so far. Packing it in for today, I'm tired. Will try again later. That tutorial you gave me may help, ultimately. Having trouble changing directories, etc.

[Urmas]

No worries... Striker & Bambi will make you see stars the light.

[striker]

It's real easy Clutter. Have a look at the below screenshot : it shows gFtp opened. When you open it up it opens itself in your /home directory in the left pane.The third entry from the bottom (in this case in my copy) shows the Deposit directory, which I use on every distro to put stuff in to use later or fallback to. Now If I have something in there which I want to upload to my server (which I don't have but that doesn' t matter now), I just double click on the Deposit entry; the result is shown below.Next stage would be to contact your server: in the menu bar click 'Remote' and then 'Open URL...', which will pop up a little window in where you can type the servers address, like http://www.myserver.net or something, after that it' s possible another little window will pop up asking you for a password. (On some ftp lists like nluug.nl this happens, in which I then type 'anonymous'.) Either way after that hit the Enter button and you will get connected to the server : the progress of this you can see in the lower pane incl. possible error messages, after a while if there's no error message you' ll see the contents of the server in the right pane. However, in the right pane you'll have to navigate to the spot where you want to dump your file to upload, say some folder. This works the same as you did above for the left pane, so double click on an entry if it' s a folder or directory to open it up and have its contents shown in the right pane. Once the proper location to dump your file is opened up in that right pane, leave it:now back to the left pane.See that FlashVideo.png file in there, almost at the bottom ? Say I want that one to put on the server, all I have to do now is click it one time to select it, then (watch it now !) in the middle of the whole screen, just between the two panes, you'll notice two arrows, one pointing to the left and the other one pointing to the right. In this case you want to upload the FlashVideo.png file from your Deposit directory (which resides in the /home directory which is shown left,remember?) to the server in some folder or directory. So hitting the appropriate arrow, the one pointing to the right, will do the job : gFtp will copy (not move !) the FlashVideo.png file to the server.Pulling something back from the server to some directory at your computer works basically the same albeit in reverse. meaning from right pane to the left pane.Some people prefer to reverse the panes contents in these cases (pulling stuff from server to computer), but for a start I wouldn't do that. Just remember, something on your computer is shown in the left pane, the target (the server somewhere out there) is shown in the right pane.Navigating in gFtp is basically done by double clicking entries in either pane until you reach your destination.Opening the menu item 'Ftp > Options' (or hitting CTRL+O) shows you the preferences window; For a start don't change anything in there, but if you do make notes of the situation before and after the changes, or better yet make screenshots of it and save them on a secure place)

[Cluttermagnet]

OK-I stayed with the tutorial a little longer, got gFtp to work finally, ftp'ed a copy of "test.pdf" to my website. In 98SE it is still no go for opening with Acrobat or for downloading.

[striker]

see the post above > tutor gFtp.

[Cluttermagnet]

I had to follow the tutorial Urmas gave me, procedure was to:(1) Open the client, and in top 3 fields enter user data:(2) Ftp address ("Host"), user ID ("User"), password ("Pass")(first 2 were already entered)(3) Hit "Enter" on kbdNow, for the first time, I had all my stuff on my computer in the left window,all my website files and folders in the right windowThen, adapting the tutorial to my situation,(4) In left window, navigate to /desktop/test.pdf(5) Highlight test.pdfIn the right window, the line with the upward curving arrow was already highlighted, this would be the root/top level directory of my web page server files (where I intended to put this file). In another lifetime, maybe I'll organize it better, with a few more directories.(6) Hit the Right arrow in the middle, sit back, 'relaxen und watchen das blinkenlights'.Heh!I'm a slow study. Hard headed.

"I see", said the blind man...

I think I can drive this gFtp thingie now... (Clutter lurches off of road, strikes tree) Edited August 18, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

Next stage would be to contact your server: in the menu bar click 'Remote' and then 'Open URL...', which will pop up a little window in where you can type the servers address, like http://www.myserver.net or something, after that it' s possible another little window will pop up asking you for a password.

Yes, I ran it this way a couple of times before, and that also got me connected to the ftp server. But this client drove me bonkers until I finally figured out how to keep the computer data in the left window and not have it overwritten by the web server files data after the ftp link opened (the listing of files on the computer kept getting replaced in the left window by a listing of all the files on the server- grrrrr!). Edited August 18, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Urmas]

I think I can drive this gFtp thingie now...

This belongs here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Famous_last_words

[Guest LilBambi]

Way to go Cluttermagnet! :thumbsup:I knew you could do it...with a little help from your friends. Glad striker got here already! I was sleeping when all this was going down! LOL!Yes, FileZilla works very similarly in Windows, as does Transmit for the Mac. I guess that's why I have always loved gFtp!And you definitely needed FTP ability.Sounds to me you learned a valuable lesson ... FTP with the right program(s) is very easy! Once one gets the hang of it.

[Bruno]

I think I can drive this gFtp thingie now...

. . . . LOL . . . glad you learned something on this Saturday morning . . . . . . . . Way to go Clutter :hmm: Bruno

[Cluttermagnet]

This belongs here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Famous_last_words

Yep. Clutter is going to be real careful with this thingie at first. Hopefully I won't trash any files if I'm careful. Thanks for the help, guys. Next I'm going to try hosting the 'problem file' elsewhere. If there is still a problem after that, I don't know what to do- maybe go back to the original author and talk a bit about how the file was made? (See edit to post #842 above) Edited August 18, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Cluttermagnet]

Yes, FileZilla works very similarly in Windows, as does Transmit for the Mac. I guess that's why I have always loved gFtp!

Thanks, Fran-I'll look into FileZilla. I had worked with ws-ftp for Windows in the past (but never used it much).

[Cluttermagnet]

Today clutter had a little SCSI adventure on the Cluttermaster 2007. I installed an Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI PCI card. It works under Ubuntu Dapper 6.06. Then I tried an Iomega Jazz 1G drive and media- it worked too. Pretty good for leavings culled out of old computers bound for the recycle place, or hand-me-downs from folks whose computers I have worked on, etc.Then I tried one of two CD drives I inherited which are also SCSI. Both are Nakamichi MJ-4.8s models. The one I tried seems to work, though I didn't finish my testing because I kept having the mouse cursor freeze on screen so I had to do an ungraceful OS restart. More of that in a moment. These drives are really neat becaus they can hold 4 CD's each. A little old, manufactured in 1996, the label says. 8X speed. Anyway, I may end up using both of these drives and the SCSI card in another computer eventually, to play music. So all this led me to several questions:(1) If you are forced to resort to a hard reset or power off from a fully running session of Ubuntu, does that do any permanent damage to the running OS? Not knowing any other way, that's how I recovered from those mouse freezes. Ugh! I hate to do that! BTW nothing much else was open and running when I did that. No apparent damage is in evidence, so far.(2) Is there any more elegant command line way to recover from a frozen mouse, or at least cause a more graceful reboot? BTW the mouse is a new MS unit and is actually a USB optical mouse running through a converter and plugged into a PS2 jack. First non- ball type I've ever owned.(3) Unrelated question- I'm hearing a fair amount of hard drive thrash on the Cluttermaster running Dapper. It comes and goes. Stays on for a good while. What software utilities could I use to look and try to figure out what reads/writes may be going on and what software or part of the OS is causing this activity? BTW this drive thrash was heard the other day, long before my recent mouse cursor freezes. I don't think the SCSI experimentation is connected to the drive thrash. I'm not overly fearful that this might be related in any way to getting 'hacked'. Rather, I'm thinking that the OS might be doing some sort of routine maintenance on the drive? The drive was heard to run for a half hour or so, then some longer periods of inactivity, but it has been running a good part of the time.

Edited August 20, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[striker]

1] and 2] see these:http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.ph...=503&st=155http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.ph...;t=503&st=1http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.ph...;t=503&st=23] Use the command 'top' in a terminal. You can stop this command with CTRL+C. It reveals what is running, comparable to the TaskManager in windows.On my system while using Fedora I often see that what you are seeing and hearing; Most of the time anacron is busy 'log rotating' the log files, that is gathering and compressing the older log files on the system. Other times Prelink is busy, in a way comparable to Prefetch in windows. That's the rattling noise you hear and the activity on the hard disk you notice which stays for about a couple of minutes. It also is possible you have a couple of programs running which do start an internet connection in the background and do their task, for ex. an update mechanism, I remember a thread over here not that long ago where I summed up those possibilities. (the question now is which one thread it was, can't remember it, the name laan comes up but not sure. Will see if I can find it.)

[Urmas]

Is there any more elegant command line way to recover from a frozen mouse, or at least cause a more graceful reboot?

If "restarting X" ( <CTRL> + <ALT> + <BACKSPACE> ) doesn't help... Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring might do the trick.Funny, though... I've never had to hard kill Ubuntu (yet... <knock knock> ).

[Cluttermagnet]

If "restarting X" ( <CTRL> + <ALT> + <BACKSPACE> ) doesn't help... Raising Skinny Elephants Is Utterly Boring might do the trick.Funny, though... I've never had to hard kill Ubuntu (yet... <knock knock> ).

I'll copy these to my 'crib sheet' notebook for reference.Well, this is the first USB mouse I've ever had, also the first optical mouse, plus running it through a stupid PS2 converter. I think the whole idea of a USB mouse is a little shaky. I strongly prefer that function via PS2. Ah, well, I got a good deal on a black keyboard, one to match the Cluttermaster 2007- heh! It's an MS and actually has a pretty good feel to it. The mouse came 'free', bundled with the kbd. Kind of ironic that the MS combo is being used on a Linux-only computer.

3] Use the command 'top' in a terminal. You can stop this command with CTRL+C. It reveals what is running, comparable to the TaskManager in windows.

Thanks, striker-A lot of good reading there.The 'top' command shows a bit of stuff scrolling by. I will have to learn what some of these processes are, such as perl and Xorg- they seem to be consuming just a little CPU time, but not great amounts. Not much else happening when I was watching. I'll leave it running and keep visiting the window, and I'll remember CTRL+C to pause it. BTW most of that drive thrash has quieted down. Whatever it was doing seems to have finished now. Edited August 20, 2007 by Cluttermagnet

[Urmas]

Well, this is the first USB mouse I've ever had, also the first optical mouse, plus running it through a stupid PS2 converter.

That's the setup I have on two computers (Creative & IntelliMoose, both wireless, both "USB thru PS2")... no problems whatsoever. Edited August 20, 2007 by Urmas

[Cluttermagnet]

That's the setup I have on two computers (Creative & IntelliMoose, both wireless, both "USB thru PS2")... no problems whatsoever.

I blame it on whatever was going on with the SCSI CD drive. That's where I first noticed the mouse freeze- and it did it several times. Then I disconnected the drive from the SCSI card and have seen no further freezes.

[ross549]

I remember that drive from a few years ago. It was the only one of its kind, and since it does some weird stuff with the discs, it was likely never well tested and debugged under the linux kernel. I have an old HP ScanJet 4s. Runs off the serial port, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately, it was a very niche device, and there is no linux support for it whatsoever.Lesson learned. The truly obscure, one-off, only-of-its-kind hardware is likely not going to work well, if at all.Adam