computer help

[eyeno]

I have some weird shit going on in my computer. Every now and then firefox tells me something I have never seen.

"something is trying to trick firefox into receiving an unsafe connection, please contact your administrator for more details".

What sort of bogus shit is this?

[justdrew]

I have some weird shit going on in my computer. Every now and then firefox tells me something I have never seen.

"something is trying to trick firefox into receiving an unsafe connection, please contact your administrator for more details".

What sort of bogus shit is this?

can you post a screen-shot of that error or quote it verbatim? sounds odd. you on 4.01 and do you have adblock plus (a major benefit is it also blocks tons of malware domains) installed?

you could be seeing that on some particular site if it has a incorrect or unsigned ssl cert. If that's not obvious it could be due to some broken cert in an advertising network. install the adblock plugin and see if that helps.

[82_28]

I assume you're running windows. Thus, it could be anything. If you were running Linux you could just see what it is they're fucking around with you about and have no worries. Look into Ubuntu.

[Stephen Morgan]

It's perfectly possible to get bizarre errors under linux too, especially if the error originates in another machine, such as with a faulty security certificate.

[82_28]

Yeah, but at least with a Linux machine you can be 99% sure nothing sketchy has happened to your machine is what I meant.

[Stephen Morgan]

Yeah, security is much better. Security failures on linux machines are generally down to weak passwords and poor firewall administration or installing things from non-repo sources without checking them, quite rare. Technical problems can normally be tracked down easy enough too, although not always.

[82_28]

I don't know if it's the 64bit OS install I have on my machine, but every once in awhile (more frequent than I would like) firefox or alternately Gnome won't "crash" per se, but only one will work. I can click on tabs and shit in firefox but the taskbar becomes just a block of images with no functionality or vice versa. So I just have to alt-f6 out and reboot.

As an aside, eyeno, is Linux makes it very easy to see what processes are currently running on your machine. And it is very easy to kill the offending program. This is nice. I have an obsession with getting the highest uptime possible for using my computer and having this problem puts a little kink in that obsession as I have to reboot like once a week or so in order to reset this minor problem. I've gone over a year in uptime before on one machine, no issues. Windows could never ever do that.

[Mr. Blissed]

Yeah, security is much better. Security failures on linux machines are generally down to weak passwords and poor firewall administration or installing things from non-repo sources without checking them, quite rare. Technical problems can normally be tracked down easy enough too, although not always.

Totally agree here's Stephen. Linux is a vast step in the right direction when compared to Windows. But if you don't know what you're doing, the very security features, that hardening operating system can get in your way.

When I first started to dabble in Linux I made the mistake of playing with the Fedora distribution security enhancement module. Long story short, every time I started the computer I was hit with a barrage of security warnings and networking problems. As I soon found out Fedora, I though I now prefer it, was not the best choice for a newbie. The solution to the problem at the time was a full format.

Hard Lesson Learned.

[Stephen Morgan]

I don't know if it's the 64bit OS install I have on my machine, but every once in awhile (more frequent than I would like) firefox or alternately Gnome won't "crash" per se, but only one will work. I can click on tabs and shit in firefox but the taskbar becomes just a block of images with no functionality or vice versa. So I just have to alt-f6 out and reboot.

Hmm. You should be able to just kill the X-server, if you can still use the TTYs. Not sure how to do it, though. Wouldn't have to restart the whole machine then. The only time mine has ever frozen, apart from one little problem I had with mythbackend when I first upgraded to Maverick, was when trying to run Supertuxkart and any other graphics heavy programme at the same time, like VLC or flashplayer. Yours sounds like a compiz problem. `sudo killall -9 compiz` might help. If not you can just keep killing things and see if it does anything. nautilus, gnome-session, anything that comes to mind. Taskbar? You mean the window list? I'm using Unity now.

ETA: `sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart`

As an aside, eyeno, is Linux makes it very easy to see what processes are currently running on your machine. And it is very easy to kill the offending program. This is nice. I have an obsession with getting the highest uptime possible for using my computer and having this problem puts a little kink in that obsession as I have to reboot like once a week or so in order to reset this minor problem. I've gone over a year in uptime before on one machine, no issues. Windows could never ever do that.

I didn't reboot for 42 days until a couple of weeks ago. I've got conky set up on my desktop, so everytime I look at the desktop it tells me how long it's been up.

[Stephen Morgan]

Totally agree here's Stephen. Linux is a vast step in the right direction when compared to Windows. But if you don't know what you're doing, the very security features, that hardening operating system can get in your way.

When I first started to dabble in Linux I made the mistake of playing with the Fedora distribution security enhancement module. Long story short, every time I started the computer I was hit with a barrage of security warnings and networking problems. As I soon found out Fedora, I though I now prefer it, was not the best choice for a newbie. The solution to the problem at the time was a full format.

Hard Lesson Learned.

Ubuntu makes it a bit easier, at least firewall-wise, with ufw. Stopping incoming connections is all most users will need.

The variety of distros can be confusing for new users. I've only used Ubuntu, Slackware and Arch myself. Arch is inherently unstable and, while I like the idea of building my whole OS piece by piece actually doing it is a pain in the arse. I don't want to have to figure out which package I need to install to make my touchpad scroll work. On the other hand working out the command line commands to dim the screen and so on in Slackware I find endearing. Slackware has the best installation programme I've come across, of the three, and runs much lighter than Ubuntu on my system. Also allows me to use the ratpoison window manager. And slackware was the first distro I ever used, about a decade ago on a machine with 32MB of RAM and pretty much hasn't changed since.

[82_28]

Yeah, it's probably compiz. I forgot when I got this new PC I turned on all the bells and whistles. And since I don't notice any taxing of the resources with it, I just kept it on -- honestly to show off to apple peeps and all the hopeless windows rejects. But forgot I did that. I just got used to it. Good call. Thanks, Stephen.

[82_28]

Oh yeah, I remember the days of searching for libraries and shit to get something to run and then run into new dependencies and then new ones and the forcing the install only to break something else. But, that's what I like about Linux etc. I am a full on novice, but compared to a doze user etc, I'm effectively a computer programming genius. I basically use Linux because I like to feel what it is I am using. Ubuntu's automation is nice, but knowing that I can get under the hood is the golden feature. Even though I don't really have to anymore.

[82_28]

Stephen! Drew! Help!

I'll just post what I threw on the Ubuntu forums and see if you can help me quicker.

Highlight cut and paste does not work after 11.04 upgrade
This is driving me nuts! It's one of the features I always talk up to people I try to get to try Linux. I upgraded to Natty today and other than not super appreciating the inclusion of a default boot into Unity, I can't get the simple "highlight + click both touchpad buttons" to copy and paste between any application let alone within the same application. I have searched and searched for info on this. Nothing pops up. I've scanned the compiz settings. I just cannot figure this out.

Very minor issue. But this was one of my most favorite small details that makes Linux so great. Help please!

[justdrew]

Stephen! Drew! Help!

I'll just post what I threw on the Ubuntu forums and see if you can help me quicker.

Highlight cut and paste does not work after 11.04 upgrade
This is driving me nuts! It's one of the features I always talk up to people I try to get to try Linux. I upgraded to Natty today and other than not super appreciating the inclusion of a default boot into Unity, I can't get the simple "highlight + click both touchpad buttons" to copy and paste between any application let alone within the same application. I have searched and searched for info on this. Nothing pops up. I've scanned the compiz settings. I just cannot figure this out.

Very minor issue. But this was one of my most favorite small details that makes Linux so great. Help please!

are you still using Unity shell? if you switch to a gnome desktop do you still have the problem?

probably it's due to the new version using a different X system (or maybe having replaced X entirely, as that copy/paste behavior was a result of Xwindows standards going way back. There should be an option to turn it back on. look around on the mouse control panel maybe?

another thing, trackpad... you're on a laptop then? does it have a wheel? a lot do these days. Try pressing the wheel, it should act as button three (copy/paste) really the using both button thing is an emulation for a third button originally intended for mice without a third button. so that emulation may be turned off.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Config/Input

[Stephen Morgan]

Does middle-click work otherwise? In firefox fox example, middle clicking a link should open in a new tab.