Re: no sound on Debian 12

[Andreas Rönnquist]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 14:54:26 -0700,
Bruce Byfield wrote:

>Last week, I installed Debian 12. Since then I've had no sound. I've consulted 
>various pages on the Debian wiki, and found no solution, either with 
>pulseaudio or pipewire. Built-in speakers,  and external features (including 
>bluetooth ones, which are definitely connected) don't work. Any suggestions?

Are you sure you have no sound at all, and not just have really really
low volume?

I have a similar problem where I need to raise the volume in alsamixer
between each boot (or switch between different users) - I have posted
about it here on debian-user, but no replies yet. 

-- Andreas Rönnquist
mailingli...@gusnan.se
andr...@ronnquist.net

no sound on Debian 12

[Bruce Byfield]

Last week, I installed Debian 12. Since then I've had no sound. I've consulted 
various pages on the Debian wiki, and found no solution, either with 
pulseaudio or pipewire. Built-in speakers,  and external features (including 
bluetooth ones, which are definitely connected) don't work. Any suggestions?
-- 
o
Bruce Byfield (on Pacific Time) 604-421-7177
Free Downloads:
https://designingwithlibreoffice.com/download-buy/
https://www.designingebooks.com/
https://prenticepieces.com/downloads/ (Raven Ballads)

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Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[Michael Kjörling]

On 23 Jul 2023 20:32 +, from 2695bd53d...@ewoof.net (Michael Kjörling):
> I upgraded from current Debian 11 to 12.1 today. Almost everything
> worked great, but during early boot I'm now getting the following
> message:
> 
> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
> syntax error in map file
> key bindings not changed
> 
> This is printed before the root file system fsck.

Okay, I was able to pinpoint this to a somewhat more specific point in
the boot sequence by booting without the "quiet" kernel parameter. The
below is what I was able to piece out from video around when the error
message is displayed.

> [1.500128] x86/mm: Checked W+X mappings: passed, ...
> [1.500183] Run /init as init process
> Loading, please wait...
> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
> syntax error in map file
> key bindings not changed
> Starting systemd-udevd version 252.12-1~deb12u1

After the above the USB detection starts scrolling past way too fast
for the camera.

This is well past "Trying to unpack rootfs image as init"... at
0.586242 but before the storage device scan beginning at about 1.8,
let alone final storage device attachment and name assignment which
happens at around 10.9 seconds into the boot. All times during that
particular boot, of course.

Another way of putting it is that whatever tries to load the kmap file
and being unhappy about it happens VERY early after systemd is first
started by the kernel.

Not sure if this is a clue or not to what's going wrong, but it seems
like relevant data.

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[Michael Kjörling]

On 25 Jul 2023 17:09 +0100, from robbied...@gmail.com (Robbie Dinn):
> I used dpkg-query to check what package the file
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap might belong to.
> 
>   freon@debian:~$ dpkg-query -S 
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz 
>   dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern 
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz
>   freon@debian:~$
> 
> If it is just a cached file, could you move it out of the way to see if
> it gets recreated the same?

I tried this in a VM (it's nice to be able to spin up brand new,
up-to-date VMs in a few minutes of hands-off time to test things; that
time I spent writing a preseed configuration has certainly paid itself
back since...), deleting /etc/console-setup/cached* and running
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup. As far as I can tell the files were
put back in /etc/console-setup, with the same contents (same cksum as
the main system).

Since a freshly installed system boots without printing this error
message, and I imagine an error like this would have been caught
during the testing and stabilization phase, I figure it's likely
_something_ about my configuration which is tripping _something_ up. I
just can't figure out what that might be.


> The other idea was, if you have a working kmap setup in your virtual machine
> install, could you "suck" the keymap settings out of that machine using the
> xmodmap utility, then copy them to the broken machine and inject them into
> the Xserver overriding the configured keymap (using xmodmap again?).

I don't think that'd do anything particularly useful. Maybe I could,
but I don't seem to have any problem with the keyboard layout in X,
including at the login screen username entry; only at the text console
(getty and friends).

It also occured to me that since the error is printed very early
during boot, maybe it was caused by something in the initrd somehow
having got out of sync with the normal root file system that I'm
looking at. Alas, `update-initramfs -u -k all` did regenerate initrds
for all three currently installed kernels without reporting any
problems, but I still got the same error on the subsequent reboot. So
not _that_ simple.

Still, I very much appreciate the ideas!

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[Robbie Dinn]

Hello Michael

On 25/07/2023 16:17, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> On 25 Jul 2023 09:17 -0500, from deb...@lionunicorn.co.uk (David Wright):
>>> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
>>> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
>>> syntax error in map file
>>> key bindings not changed
>>
>> Anyway, my MO, probably including a bit of cargo-cult, would be to
>> quit X, then run both dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration and
>> dpkg-reconfigure console-setup, check that both /etc/default/keyboard
>> and console-setup look sane, and then reboot.
> 
> Cargo-cult or not, it seemed like a good idea; I didn't actually shut
> down X, but I did log out of my X session and did it from a text
> console, then verified that the configuration files looked reasonable
> before rebooting. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have made any
> appreciable difference.
> 
> What's even more odd is that I spun up a VM based on 12.0 upgraded to
> current, with the following in the preseed file:
> 
> d-i debian-installer/language string en
> d-i debian-installer/country string SE
> d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US.UTF-8
> d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select se
> 
> That one does not display any similar error on boot, and its
> /etc/default/console-setup and /etc/default/keyboard look functionally
> identical to what's on my main system, and
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz (which my main system is
> clearly complaining about) has the same cksum including file size on
> both.
> 

It looks like you are making progress.

A couple of ideas:

I used dpkg-query to check what package the file
/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap might belong to.

freon@debian:~$ dpkg-query -S 
/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz 
dpkg-query: no path found matching pattern 
/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz
freon@debian:~$

If it is just a cached file, could you move it out of the way to see if
it gets recreated the same?

The other idea was, if you have a working kmap setup in your virtual machine
install, could you "suck" the keymap settings out of that machine using the
xmodmap utility, then copy them to the broken machine and inject them into
the Xserver overriding the configured keymap (using xmodmap again?).

This might work as a temporary measure, but I haven't tried it myself so
I could be talking rubbish.

Regards
Robbie Dinn

Re: General Questions

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 08:51:59PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> People, how to solve problem with rfkill without install rfkill?
> 
> Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 20:31, Michel Verdier :
> 
> > On 2023-07-25, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> >
> > >> And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
> > >> supported in future too?
> > >
> > > If people use them, and if the upstream developers of these projects
> > > remain active and responsive, they will likely remain in Debian.
> >
> > And about dwm I would add that it's designed to be modified and compiled
> > by end user. And because you can copy its sources it will be forever
> > supported :)
> >
> >

As others have said - top posting is not helpful because it breaks the
flow of questions and answers.

You have a whole lot of questions all at once: can I suggest that you
take a little time to explain

* What you have done to install Debian - was the install successful,
what is missing (if anything) - questions to do with the main install
and any problems you found.
* What sort of machine you are installing on - old/new, how much memory, 
how much disk?
* What you mean to use this for - is this for learning how to use Linux 
or to act as your main machine? Do you have any specific software or
purpose that you need the Debian software to provide?

If you can give us the background so that we can understand, then maybe
we can help you better with fewer messages backwards and forwards.

We are all just people who read this list. There are several of us in
Europe but some may be elsewhere: maybe your questions will not get 
immediate answers and you will perhaps get different opinions.

With best wishes, as ever,

Andy Cater

Re: General Questions

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 09:18:10PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> I'm sorry, Nicolas George, if I offended you. I didn't want it. I'm new
> here and don't know how to post my questions without disturbing anyone. So
> sorry everyone if my questions have distracted you in any way. I will try
> to figure with my problems out myself in future. Thanks everyone!

I think some misunderstanding happened: your tone comes across as
short-and-tough, and therefore the answers are similar.

No bad intentions, I think.

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: Overzealous polkit

[Charles Curley]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:42:51 +
Michael Kjörling <2695bd53d...@ewoof.net> wrote:

> It doesn't look like you can in any current version. Some web
> searching brought me to [1] which appears to indicate that the
> authentication timeout is currently hardcoded to five minutes for
> temporary authorization.

What I am seeing is definitely not five minutes (which should be more
than adequate).

If I understand org.fedoraproject.FirewallD1.desktop.policy.choice
correctly (highly debatable), there are different policies for
different parts of firewall-config. This does not make sense to me, but
it does explain what I see: multiple requests for authentication
withing five minutes as I move around in firewall-config.

> 
> If there's some specific action you take regularly you might be able
> to define a rule of your own that overrides the default behavior; see
> [2] for an example and polkit(8) (search for "polkit.Result") for the
> possible return values. However, that will probably fully override the
> default behavior, so you likely can't easily implement for example a
> longer authentication timeout.

I would like to avoid learning my way around yet another arcane piece
of software that has infested Linux for no great benefit.

I did try a hack of the specific actions example you pointed to, and it
did not work: I still had to give multiple authorizations.

I may just fall back to what one did before polkit, dbus, etc. came
along, and simply run firewall-config as root. That is what the root
account is for, after all.

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: General Questions

[John Hasler]

Source Code writes:
> So sorry everyone if my questions have distracted you in any way.

Apology accepted.

> I will try to figure with my problems out myself in future.

It's ok to ask for help again.  Just respond politely when people try to
answer your questions.
-- 
John Hasler 
j...@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

Re: General Questions

[Andy Smith]

Hi,

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 09:18:10PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> I'm sorry, Nicolas George, if I offended you. I didn't want it. I'm new
> here and don't know how to post my questions without disturbing anyone.i

If there is a language barrier here. maybe posting questions on
debian-russian will be easier?

https://lists.debian.org/debian-russian/

I only guessed at Russian, so sorry if I misidentified your antive
language.

Thanks,
Andy

-- 
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting

Re: General Questions

[Source Code]

I'm sorry, Nicolas George, if I offended you. I didn't want it. I'm new
here and don't know how to post my questions without disturbing anyone. So
sorry everyone if my questions have distracted you in any way. I will try
to figure with my problems out myself in future. Thanks everyone!

Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 21:05, Nicolas George :

> Source Code (12023-07-25):
> > I have thought I have right to ask any question
>
> Oh, you have the right all right.
>
> And I have a right of not helping you. Which is exactly what I will do
> from now on, since you just spat in my face when I tried to.
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
>

Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[Michael Kjörling]

On 25 Jul 2023 09:17 -0500, from deb...@lionunicorn.co.uk (David Wright):
>> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
>> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
>> syntax error in map file
>> key bindings not changed
> 
> Anyway, my MO, probably including a bit of cargo-cult, would be to
> quit X, then run both dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration and
> dpkg-reconfigure console-setup, check that both /etc/default/keyboard
> and console-setup look sane, and then reboot.

Cargo-cult or not, it seemed like a good idea; I didn't actually shut
down X, but I did log out of my X session and did it from a text
console, then verified that the configuration files looked reasonable
before rebooting. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have made any
appreciable difference.

What's even more odd is that I spun up a VM based on 12.0 upgraded to
current, with the following in the preseed file:

d-i debian-installer/language string en
d-i debian-installer/country string SE
d-i debian-installer/locale string en_US.UTF-8
d-i keyboard-configuration/xkb-keymap select se

That one does not display any similar error on boot, and its
/etc/default/console-setup and /etc/default/keyboard look functionally
identical to what's on my main system, and
/etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz (which my main system is
clearly complaining about) has the same cksum including file size on
both.

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: General Questions

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 09:02:36PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> I have thought I have right to ask any question, for get answers which I
> need :(

Yes, you have. But the answers have the right to not be liked
by you, at least not always :-)

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: General Questions

[Nicolas George]

Source Code (12023-07-25):
> I have thought I have right to ask any question

Oh, you have the right all right.

And I have a right of not helping you. Which is exactly what I will do
from now on, since you just spat in my face when I tried to.

-- 
  Nicolas George


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Re: General Questions

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 05:02:09PM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
[...]

Oh, forgot the ref:

> Or have a read at the rfkill source [1] [...]

Cheers

[1] https://sources.debian.org/src/rfkill/0.5-1/rfkill.c/
-- 
t


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Re: General Questions

[Source Code]

I have thought I have right to ask any question, for get answers which I
need :(

I have another one question: can I use terminal in Debian Installer without
any problem in the future? What hot keys I need to use? And what’s step in
installer where I can use terminal?
I know about shell in the end of installer, but it is now what I need.

Thanks.

Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 20:55, Nicolas George :

> Source Code (12023-07-25):
> > People, how to solve problem with rfkill without install rfkill?
>
> Step 1: get rid of stupid constraints.
>
> Step 2: install rfkill.
>
> Step 3: solve problem.
>
> Step 4: learn what top-posting means.
>
> Step 5: stop doing it.
>
> Regards,
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
>

Re: General Questions

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 04:54:54PM +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> Source Code (12023-07-25):
> > People, how to solve problem with rfkill without install rfkill?
> 
> Step 1: get rid of stupid constraints.
> 
> Step 2: install rfkill.

Or have a read at the rfkill source [1] and see what you have to
do to /dev/rfkill to solve "problem with rfkill" (what is the
problem, anyway? And why you don't want to install rfkill?)

> Step 4: learn what top-posting means.
> 
> Step 5: stop doing it.

Yes, please: don't top post: it makes mailing lists very confusing.

Cheers
-- 
t


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Re: General Questions

[Nicolas George]

Source Code (12023-07-25):
> People, how to solve problem with rfkill without install rfkill?

Step 1: get rid of stupid constraints.

Step 2: install rfkill.

Step 3: solve problem.

Step 4: learn what top-posting means.

Step 5: stop doing it.

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George


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Re: General Questions

[Source Code]

People, how to solve problem with rfkill without install rfkill?

Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 20:31, Michel Verdier :

> On 2023-07-25, Greg Wooledge wrote:
>
> >> And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
> >> supported in future too?
> >
> > If people use them, and if the upstream developers of these projects
> > remain active and responsive, they will likely remain in Debian.
>
> And about dwm I would add that it's designed to be modified and compiled
> by end user. And because you can copy its sources it will be forever
> supported :)
>
>

Re: General Questions

[Michel Verdier]

On 2023-07-25, Greg Wooledge wrote:

>> And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
>> supported in future too?
>
> If people use them, and if the upstream developers of these projects
> remain active and responsive, they will likely remain in Debian.

And about dwm I would add that it's designed to be modified and compiled
by end user. And because you can copy its sources it will be forever
supported :)

Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[David Wright]

On Sun 23 Jul 2023 at 20:32:28 (+), Michael Kjörling wrote:
> I upgraded from current Debian 11 to 12.1 today. Almost everything
> worked great, but during early boot I'm now getting the following
> message:
> 
> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
> syntax error in map file
> key bindings not changed
> 
> This is printed before the root file system fsck.
> 
> Uncompressing /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz, line 27 is
> for "keycode 26" and does indeed list "dead_abovering" on that line
> (multiple times). My /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz has
> md5sum fcb9f3d5d1ca4d2d1b97f7794e32f3ed in case that helps identify
> the exact file in use.
> 
> The .gz file is named in /etc/console-setup/cached_setup_keyboard.sh
> and executing the loadkeys command from that script from within an
> Xfce session gets me:
> 
> Loading /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz
> ...(lots of assuming/found)...
> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap.gz:27: syntax error
> syntax error in map file
> key bindings not changed
> 
> I did see several "unknown keysym 'Omega'" (as well as 'omega') in the
> loadkeys output as well, but I don't see those nor the assuming/found
> during boot.
> 
> dpkg -l console-setup reports status "ii" for package version 1.221.
> dpkg-reconfigure console-setup has not helped.
> 
> The file has and had a very recent mtime so it doesn't seem to be a
> stale leftover file from before the upgrade to 12.1.
> 
> Checking on the console, I do seem to have a US keyboard layout as
> opposed to my preferred Swedish layout.

For my limited understanding of non-anglo layouts, that would seem
logical, as I don't understand why Swedish would use a dead abovering
keystroke, rather than having such frequently-used vowels available on
individual, single keystrokes.

Anyway, my MO, probably including a bit of cargo-cult, would be to
quit X, then run both dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration and
dpkg-reconfigure console-setup, check that both /etc/default/keyboard
and console-setup look sane, and then reboot.

Cheers,
David.

Re: General Questions

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 06:26:20PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> I use Debian on my PC not as a server.
> 
> Using Debian for PC OS is not good? Is it recommended only for servers?
> 

I've only been using it on a PC for 26 years - it is too early to be 
certain whether it is good or not.

> And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
> supported in future too?
> 
> It turns out you need free firmware to use wifi? But I can use wifi, but
> only with some DE. I just can't use it just from the start without DE.
> 

Install Network Manager packages. Then use nmtui - network manager text
user interface - to set up your Wifi.

nmcli - command line interface also exists but is harder to use.

dwm and awesome: that depends very much on whether the maintainers 
are there to maintain these.

> Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 18:18, Greg Wooledge :
> 
> > On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:53:52AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > > Source Code wrote:
> > > > 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's
> > say up
> > > > to 100-200 mb?
> > >

A text only interface on the command line with  no graphics and no web
browser - *maybe* - it will depend on the kernel and other utilities 
running. 100MB would be very unlikely.





> > > That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
> > > recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
> > > less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
> > > uses.
> >
> > According to <
> > https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ch03s04.en.html>
> > 256 MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm
> > on an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages.
> >
> > However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind,
> > especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an
> > entirely different line of questioning.
> >
> > I'm guessing that's NOT the goal here, because the OP mentioned WiFi.
> > This leaves me somewhat perplexed.
> >
> >

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

Re: Debian as daily driver; WiFi networking and firmware (was: General Questions)

[Michael Kjörling]

On 25 Jul 2023 18:26 +0600, from rifesourcec...@gmail.com (Source Code):
> Using Debian for PC OS is not good? Is it recommended only for servers?

Debian is entirely usable as a daily driver workstation OS. I've been
using it as such for around a decade, possibly longer; I have old
notes and Debian packages dating back to wheezy on my current desktop
system, and I'm quite sure that's not when I started using Debian
specifically.

Debian will, however, _also_ work very well for servers; and many of
the choices one might make to reduce memory footprint (such as not
running a GUI) lend themselves better toward a server installation
than to a workstation setup.


> It turns out you need free firmware to use wifi? But I can use wifi, but
> only with some DE. I just can't use it just from the start without DE.

"Non-free" firmware. Often readily distributable, but does not meet
the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG).

One big change in Debian 12 was to split such firmware out of the
non-free component (where it has been provided since, it appears,
Debian 6/Squeeze) into its own component named non-free-firmware.

Do you have Network Manager installed? Try running "nmcli connection
show" and "iwconfig" when logged in. Do those work?

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: General Questions

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 06:26:20PM +0600, Source Code wrote:
> I use Debian on my PC not as a server.
> 
> Using Debian for PC OS is not good? Is it recommended only for servers?

Both are common.  Debian aims to be good for any purpose.

> And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
> supported in future too?

If people use them, and if the upstream developers of these projects
remain active and responsive, they will likely remain in Debian.

> It turns out you need free firmware to use wifi? But I can use wifi, but
> only with some DE. I just can't use it just from the start without DE.

Totally depends on the device.  There are almost NO wifi devices that
can be used without some non-free firmware.  But some also require a
driver (kernel module) to be built.  Without knowing which device you
have, it's impossible to give exact steps.

Setting up wifi without a GUI is more challenging, but the Debian wiki
has instructions for it.  Of course, those instructions won't work until
the hardware is supported (by installing firmware and/or driver as
needed).

Re: Low-memory Debian (was: General Questions)

[Michael Kjörling]

On 25 Jul 2023 08:18 -0400, from g...@wooledge.org (Greg Wooledge):
>>> 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's say up
>>> to 100-200 mb?
>> 
>> That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
>> recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
>> less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
>> uses.
> 
> According to 
> 256 MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm
> on an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages.
> 
> However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind,
> especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an
> entirely different line of questioning.

Agreed. I did some experimentation earlier with KVM VMs on an amd64
host and amd64 Debian 12.0; and was able to get it to install
successfully down to 480 MiB RAM (below that the installer would fail
to detect the virtio network interface), and the thus-installed system
would boot with RAM reduced to 246 MiB (not a typo), but below that,
it would fail to boot. That was with a bare minimums text-mode
installed system and using the text-mode installer with a preseed
file installing only the "standard" and "ssh-server" tasks.

Definitely below the specified 256 MiB RAM minimum you'd be on your
own. If you're looking to fit a system into less (at least on amd64),
Debian might not be the distribution for you.

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: General Questions

[Source Code]

I use Debian on my PC not as a server.

Using Debian for PC OS is not good? Is it recommended only for servers?

And about third question, I mean: dwm and awesome wm. They will be
supported in future too?

It turns out you need free firmware to use wifi? But I can use wifi, but
only with some DE. I just can't use it just from the start without DE.

Вт, 25 июля 2023 г. в 18:18, Greg Wooledge :

> On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:53:52AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Source Code wrote:
> > > 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's
> say up
> > > to 100-200 mb?
> >
> > That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
> > recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
> > less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
> > uses.
>
> According to <
> https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ch03s04.en.html>
> 256 MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm
> on an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages.
>
> However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind,
> especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an
> entirely different line of questioning.
>
> I'm guessing that's NOT the goal here, because the OP mentioned WiFi.
> This leaves me somewhat perplexed.
>
>

Re: General Questions

[Joe]

On Tue, 25 Jul 2023 08:18:21 -0400
Greg Wooledge  wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:53:52AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> > Source Code wrote:   
> > > 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it?
> > > Let's say up to 100-200 mb?  
> > 
> > That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
> > recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
> > less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
> > uses.  
> 
> According to
>  256
> MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm on
> an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages.
> 
> However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind,
> especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an
> entirely different line of questioning.
> 
> I'm guessing that's NOT the goal here, because the OP mentioned WiFi.
> This leaves me somewhat perplexed.
> 

Old laptop?

-- 
Joe

Re: General Questions

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 07:53:52AM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote:
> Source Code wrote: 
> > 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's say up
> > to 100-200 mb?
> 
> That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
> recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
> less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
> uses.

According to 
256 MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm
on an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages.

However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind,
especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an
entirely different line of questioning.

I'm guessing that's NOT the goal here, because the OP mentioned WiFi.
This leaves me somewhat perplexed.

Re: General Questions

[Dan Ritter]

Source Code wrote: 
> Hello dear Debian team! I really like this distribution. I use it with
> great pleasure! But I would like to know more about this distribution. I
> wanted to ask you:

debian-users is composed of users of Debian, not a "team".

> 1. After installing Debian without a single desktop environment, there is
> only a web server, ssh server and standard utilities. Is it possible to
> establish a Wi-Fi connection on your own without sudo and internet? If so,
> how? If not, why not? :) Most of commands just don't work because their
> packages can't be downloaded from the internet.

If your wifi hardware is supported without non-free firmware, it
should be working. Therefore, your wifi hardware either needs
non-free firmware, or isn't supported at all.

Most likely, you need to get the appropriate firmware. How did
you install Debian?

You might need to download the correct firmware package on an internet
connected machine, then bring it over to this one and install
it.

'sudo' is not required, but either 'su' or logging in as root is
required to install packages, including firmware.


> 2. Working window managers will continue to be supported, such as dwm,
> awesome?

It is awesome.


> 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's say up
> to 100-200 mb?

That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not
recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with
less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common
uses.



> 4. Is subscribing there free:
> https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/?

Yes.


-dsr-

Re: Overzealous polkit

[didier gaumet]

Le 24/07/2023 à 23:55, Charles Curley a écrit :

A fresh install of Debian 12.1 on a Lenovo Yoga 13. I have firewalld
installed, and firewall-config 1.3.0-1 to manage it. Polkit insists on
authentication, which is fine. It then has extremely short timeouts (or
something), so I have to keep re-authenticating. How do I tell it to
not be so zealous?


Hello Charles

Disclaimer: I have never tested what I say, that is just a suppsoition

From what I read, it seems that this delay is 5mn, hard-coded:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/409636/pkexec-how-do-i-set-a-custom-timeout-for-auth-admin-keep-when-writting-a-pkexe
(a look at the source confirms that this is still the case)

After reading the polkit manpage and the firewalld package list of 
files, it could be possible (but I would not advise you to do it) to modify

/usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.fedoraproject.FirewallD1.desktop.policy.choice
to replace all auth_self_keep and auth_admin_keep keys by auth_self and 
auth_admin keys to extend the validity period to the entire session 
duration.

All these settings would be lost at the next firewalld package upgrade.

Re: After upgrade 11 -> 12.1, "unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'" during early boot, console keymap remains US

[Michael Kjörling]

On 23 Jul 2023 20:32 +, from 2695bd53d...@ewoof.net (Michael Kjörling):
> unknown keysym 'dead_abovering'
> /etc/console-setup/cached_UTF-8_del.kmap:27: syntax error
> syntax error in map file
> key bindings not changed

No suggestions from anyone for anything to check, let alone a
solution? I'm a bit stumped at this one and I'd really like to get it
working.

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: Overzealous polkit

[Michael Kjörling]

On 24 Jul 2023 15:55 -0600, from charlescur...@charlescurley.com (Charles 
Curley):
> A fresh install of Debian 12.1 on a Lenovo Yoga 13. I have firewalld
> installed, and firewall-config 1.3.0-1 to manage it. Polkit insists on
> authentication, which is fine. It then has extremely short timeouts (or
> something), so I have to keep re-authenticating. How do I tell it to
> not be so zealous?

It doesn't look like you can in any current version. Some web
searching brought me to [1] which appears to indicate that the
authentication timeout is currently hardcoded to five minutes for
temporary authorization.

If there's some specific action you take regularly you might be able
to define a rule of your own that overrides the default behavior; see
[2] for an example and polkit(8) (search for "polkit.Result") for the
possible return values. However, that will probably fully override the
default behavior, so you likely can't easily implement for example a
longer authentication timeout.

[1] 
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/polkit/tree/src/polkitbackend/polkitbackendinteractiveauthority.c#n3276

[2] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Polkit#For_specific_actions

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

Re: Overzealous polkit

[Michael Kjörling]

On 25 Jul 2023 12:49 +0200, from to...@tuxteam.de:
>> I misread the subject line of this thread as “overzealous polecat” — and
>> thought “What’s this, a new release of Ubuntu or something?” :)
> 
> That would be Overzealous Ocelot, no?

Or Pedantic Polecat. :-)

-- 
Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

General Questions

[Source Code]

Hello dear Debian team! I really like this distribution. I use it with
great pleasure! But I would like to know more about this distribution. I
wanted to ask you:

1. After installing Debian without a single desktop environment, there is
only a web server, ssh server and standard utilities. Is it possible to
establish a Wi-Fi connection on your own without sudo and internet? If so,
how? If not, why not? :) Most of commands just don't work because their
packages can't be downloaded from the internet.

2. Working window managers will continue to be supported, such as dwm,
awesome?

3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's say up
to 100-200 mb?

4. Is subscribing there free:
https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/?

Re: Overzealous polkit

[tomas]

On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 11:37:29AM +0100, Mark Fletcher wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 22:55 Charles Curley <
> charlescur...@charlescurley.com> wrote:
> 
> > A fresh install of Debian 12.1 on a Lenovo Yoga 13. I have firewalld
> > installed, and firewall-config 1.3.0-1 to manage it. Polkit insists on
> > authentication, which is fine. It then has extremely short timeouts (or
> > something), so I have to keep re-authenticating. How do I tell it to
> > not be so zealous?
> >
> > --
> > Does anybody read signatures any more?
> >
> > https://charlescurley.com
> > https://charlescurley.com/blog/
> >
> > I misread the subject line of this thread as “overzealous polecat” — and
> thought “What’s this, a new release of Ubuntu or something?” :)

That would be Overzealous Ocelot, no?

Cheers
-- 
t


signature.asc
Description: PGP signature

Re: Overzealous polkit

[Mark Fletcher]

On Mon, Jul 24, 2023 at 22:55 Charles Curley <
charlescur...@charlescurley.com> wrote:

> A fresh install of Debian 12.1 on a Lenovo Yoga 13. I have firewalld
> installed, and firewall-config 1.3.0-1 to manage it. Polkit insists on
> authentication, which is fine. It then has extremely short timeouts (or
> something), so I have to keep re-authenticating. How do I tell it to
> not be so zealous?
>
> --
> Does anybody read signatures any more?
>
> https://charlescurley.com
> https://charlescurley.com/blog/
>
> I misread the subject line of this thread as “overzealous polecat” — and
thought “What’s this, a new release of Ubuntu or something?” :)

Mark