Re: Automatically installing GRUB on multiple drives

[Nicolas George]

Tim Woodall (12024-01-26):
> Until your UEFI bios writes to the disk before the system has booted.

Hi. Have you ever observed an UEFI firmware doing that? Without explicit
admin instructions?

Regards,

-- 
  Nicolas George

Re: running a snap package on bookworm?

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 7:43 PM D. R. Evans  wrote:
>
> 1. I've never used a snap package before.
>
> 2. I want to run the acrordrdc program, which is available as a snap package.
>
> 3. Following instructions found following a search for help with snap, I ran:
>sudo apt install snapd
>sudo snap install core
>sudo snap install acrordrdc
> There were no obvious errors.
>
> 4. But now how do I actually run the program? I tried just running:
>$ acrordrdc
> but that produced:
>/user.slice/user-1000.slice/session-14.scope is not a snap cgroup
> which I suppose is useful to someone, but tells me nothing other than that
> there seems to be some sort of snap-related problem somewhere.
>
> 5. As far as I can see, no new entry was added to the start menu, so it would
> seem that I'm supposed to run the program -- which I assume has the same name
> as the package; i.e., "acrordrdc" -- from the command line; but how?

You could also try Ubuntu 22.04 or above. Canonical has their arms
wrapped around snap. You get your fill of them.

Jeff

Re: Seeking a Terminal Emulator on Debian for "Passthrough" Printing

[Michael Stone]

On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 10:44:35PM +, phoebus phoebus wrote:

  A filter in between that in response to escape-code-1 starts sending data to 
the serial port instead of the terminal application and switches back to the 
terminal application on receiving of escape-code-2.
  Development of a transparent and responsive intermediate filter to ensure a 
smooth user experience. This filter must handle incoming and outgoing commands 
without disruption.


This is old, old, old tech. The suggestion early on to use screen was 
one reasonable answer, xterm is another. Solutions exist for this, the 
main problem is dusting off documentation old enough to be aware this 
functionality exists. (As seen by so many of the responses here, which 
are apparently unaware that at one time an actual terminal--the hardware 
device with a screen and a keyboard that a "terminal emulater" 
emulates--had a serial connection to a server and could also have a 
second serial connection to a printer, and escape sequences were used to 
switch the server output from screen to printer and back.) This isn't 
functionality that has to be developed, it was written long ago and 
simply isn't used much anymore. You'll have to find old code, because 
newer terminal emulators don't bother implementing this since not many 
people are asking for it (and those that do, can simply use the old code 
and probably aren't as interested in compositor transparency effects).



    Waiting for Returns: The filter remains attentive to returns of information 
coming from the serial printer. These returns may include information about the 
printing status, errors, or other relevant data.


This is where things go off the rails--"other...data". Most of the unix 
terminal emulators use the ANSI escape sequences which, as far as I 
know, had unidirectional printing. The datastream coming from the server 
had escape sequences to change output from screen to printer, but the 
printer had no way to interrupt that and talk back to the server. The 
documentation about "passthrough printing" you've referenced several 
times *does not* describe any capability for doing this. (In fact, the 
capability described involves a pipe and can't possibly be 
bidirectional.) There were escape sequences the server could use to 
query specific things about the printer (like "printer ready"; and, as 
far as I know, that was it). I have no idea whether any of the terminal 
emulators do much or anything with the status sequence, as they mostly 
expect to pipe output and aren't actually written to directly connect to 
a serial printer and check its status lines. (In an actual 
terminal/printer situation the query would report the status of DTR or 
CTS or whatever the specific hardware was using to communicate printer 
status.) In theory it would be a relatively trivial addition to tie the 
"printer status" escape code to something that queries printer status, 
if it's possible to do so and it's not already implemented in a terminal 
emulator that does support printing. But that's still not communication 
of arbitrary data.


Now VT100 wasn't the only terminal out there. For example, Wyse was a 
big name in terminals, and they used a completely different set of 
escape codes. One of theirs enabled a bidirectional mode, used for 
things like connecting an optical barcode scanner at a library checkout 
desk to the minicomputer in the back. I don't know of many open source 
wyse emulators, and none that implement this. IBM had their own 
proprietary terminals and control mechanisms, like the 3270 or 5250, 
with another set of capabilities. Again, I don't know of many open 
source emulators, and those that I am aware of had limited 
functionality. If this is the sort of thing you're talking about, you'd 
get much further searching for information about wyse terminal emulators 
(or whatever terminal language your software uses--there were far more 
than DEC VT or Wyse or IBM) rather than an open ended question about 
printing. (In reality, the bidirectional peripheral control might have 
been lumped into the printer escape sequences in terminal manuals and 
might have connected via the port labeled "printer", but wasn't ever 
really about printing because printing is unidirectional. This is 
obviously confusing to people not aware of the jargon.) I would not 
expect to find much open source software in this space because it's very 
niche and basically requires expensive proprietary software to test 
against if the goal is to run expensive proprietary software correctly. 

This is literally tech from the 1970s, so without the right keywords 
you're going to mostly find unrelated but newer and higher-ranked stuff 
that's not what you're looking for.

Re: Automatically installing GRUB on multiple drives

[Tim Woodall]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2024, Nicolas George wrote:


It is rather ugly to have the same device be both a RAID with its
superblock in the hole between GPT and first partition and the GPT in
the hole before the RAID superblock, but it serves its purpose: the EFI
partition is kept in sync over all devices.


Until your UEFI bios writes to the disk before the system has booted.

I'll be interested to hear how this goes and whether it's reliable.

I tried it years ago, using a no-superblock raid and custom initrd
(initramfs as I think it was then) to start it, but upgrades, and even
kernel updates, became 'terrifying'. Now I use dd to copy the start of
the disk...

Re: running a snap package on bookworm?

[Ralph Katz]

On 1/25/24 13:33, D. R. Evans wrote:

[snip]

When I try the run command:

$ snap run acrordrdc
unknown command: run
$

I was amazed that I simply couldn't find anything about actually running 
installed packages (plenty of sites tell me how to install a package, 
but none that I looked at then told me how to run the package once it's 
installed). It can't be hard, but obviously I'm misunderstanding 
something fundamental about snap.


On debian bookworm (stable), I can confirm you have the correct syntax 
for the debian snapd package. I use the noson package to manage my sonos 
speaker:

From an XFCE terminal,   $ snap run noson

The acrordrdc is "Adobe Acrobat Reader is a pdf reader & Web services 
developed by Adobe Inc."


Sorry I don't know enough to help you further with snap.  Others here 
may also suggest some alternatives to acrordrdc if you need capabilities 
not provided by atril, evince or the other debian free PDF packages.


Good luck!

Re: (SOLVED) disable trackpad when mouse is connected (GNOME bug?)

[Keith Bainbridgge]

Good afternoon

Another option is to use a keyboard shortcut. My last laptop came with 
this set up using a Fn key combo (eg fn-f5)


So I'm using a key that was set to answer MSteams calls - what?

Check keyboard - shortcuts - touchpad. cinnamon gives options of 
toggle/switch on/ switch-off. I guess gnome will be similar as it was 
the basis of cinnamon


All the best

Keith Bainbridge

keith.bainbridge.3...@gmail.com
+61 (0)447 667 468

UTC + 10:00

On 26/1/24 13:53, Max Nikulin wrote:

On 25/01/2024 21:42, Max Nikulin wrote:

Try

 lsusb --verbose --tree


I have received a private reply. Please, send messages to the mailing 
list in such cases.


I intentionally combined -vt options and I find output more convenient 
than for just "lsusb -t". The "-t" option changes behavior of "-v". If 
you do not like how it is documented, please, discuss it with usbutils 
developers.

Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed

[Max Nikulin]

On 26/01/2024 07:09, Stefan Monnier wrote:

 systemctl --user status pipewire{,-pulse} wireplumber

which shows that `wireplumber` failed to start.


I was assuming that

systemctl --user --failed
journalctl --user --boot

and as root

systemctl --failed
journalctl --boot

were first that you tried facing an issue. After replacing pulseaudio by 
pipewire, I faced some issue with systemd unit, but I have not figured 
out what have happened. Despite what Debian wiki states, no additional 
configuration was required. That is why I can not tell if recipes from 
Arch wiki are helpful.

Re: (SOLVED) disable trackpad when mouse is connected (GNOME bug?)

[Max Nikulin]

On 25/01/2024 21:42, Max Nikulin wrote:

Try

     lsusb --verbose --tree


I have received a private reply. Please, send messages to the mailing 
list in such cases.


I intentionally combined -vt options and I find output more convenient 
than for just "lsusb -t". The "-t" option changes behavior of "-v". If 
you do not like how it is documented, please, discuss it with usbutils 
developers.

Re: running a snap package on bookworm?

[Max Nikulin]

On 26/01/2024 03:33, D. R. Evans wrote:

$ snap run acrordrdc
unknown command: run
$

I was amazed that I simply couldn't find anything about actually running 
installed packages


Desktop environment GUI launcher or menu.

Have you performed relogin after installing snap? When I tried it on 
Ubuntu it added an extra directory to $PATH. Perhaps some group 
membership is involved as well.


I do not remember if I have ever tried "snap run". Since it is 
documented, you may try to search for release notes or changelog.


I do not like snap because it aggressively upgrades installed 
applications and, unlike apt, does not allow independent mirrors or 
alternative repositories. It encourages stance of developers that their 
application is too complex to build and they refuse any questions if a 
package was built by maintainers of some Linux distribution, everybody 
must use snap/flatpak provided by developers instead.

Re: in an object oriented world

[John Hasler]

Songbird writes:
> every thing running on a computer should be able to say:

> "I am [x version ...], these are my parents [y, z, 1, ...], i was
> compiled by program [...] from source code [...], here are my
> credentials [blah, blah]"

> when sent a signal from GOD.

Why should she believe it?

> any process which does not respond should be thus cast into the outer
> darkness of the bits and never to return (aka a virus or unauthorized
> program).

Malware can lie.  A virus can infect an authorized program and use its
credentials.
-- 
John Hasler 
j...@sugarbit.com
Elmwood, WI USA

in an object oriented world

[songbird]

  every thing running on a computer should be able to say:

"I am [x version ...], these are my parents [y, z, 1, ...], i was compiled by 
program [...] from source code [...], here are my credentials [blah, blah]"

when sent a signal from GOD.  since GOD can kill you you 
should have the right response ready when (s)he calls.  any 
process which does not respond should be thus cast into the
outer darkness of the bits and never to return (aka a virus
or unauthorized program).

  yes, i'm amused by conversations in debian devel at times...


  songbird  (recursively or not cursedly yours 
 parenthetical or knot

Re: Changing The PSI Definition

[Greg Wooledge]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 07:32:38PM -0500, Thomas George wrote:
> The current PSI works perfectly but I don't like the pale green prompt.
> 
> Tried editing .bashrd , /ext/fprofile and /ext/bash.bashrc but no changes to
> the PSI definition had any effect

You appear to be asking about the shell prompt.

In bash, the shell prompt is defined in the PS1 variable, which stands
for "Prompt String One (1)".  The last character is the numeral 1, not
the capital letter I.

Changing The PSI Definition

[Thomas George]

The current PSI works perfectly but I don't like the pale green prompt.

Tried editing .bashrd , /ext/fprofile and /ext/bash.bashrc but no 
changes to the PSI definition had any effect


Searched for PSI and found

/usr/src/linux-headers-6.1.0-16-amd64/include/config/PSI
/usr/src/linux-headers-6.1.0-17-amd64/include/config/PSI

Is the definition of PSI baked in?

If so, I can live with it the way it is.

Tom George

Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed

[Stefan Monnier]

> The problem might be in between of
>
> lspci -vnn

Spews out a lot of stuff, the relevant part being presumably:

00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD 
Audio Controller [8086:284b] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad T61/R61 [17aa:20ac]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 30
Memory at fe02 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: 
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

> and
>
> pactl list
> pactl list sinks

Here the sinks say just:

% pactl list cards
% pactl list sinks
Sink #33
State: SUSPENDED
Name: auto_null
Description: Dummy Output
Driver: PipeWire
Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Owner Module: 4294967295
Mute: no
Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 
100% / 0.00 dB
balance 0.00
Base Volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
Monitor Source: auto_null.monitor
Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
Flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY 
Properties:
node.name = "auto_null"
device.description = "Dummy Output"
audio.rate = "48000"
audio.channels = "2"
audio.position = "FL,FR"
media.class = "Audio/Sink"
factory.name = "support.null-audio-sink"
node.virtual = "true"
monitor.channel-volumes = "true"
factory.id = "17"
clock.quantum-limit = "8192"
client.id = "30"
node.driver = "true"
factory.mode = "merge"
audio.adapt.follower = ""
library.name = "audioconvert/libspa-audioconvert"
object.id = "31"
object.serial = "33"
Formats:
pcm
%

> Perhaps troubleshooting sections in wikis may tell more. There is a chance
> that lsof may find another process holding audio devices.

Hmm... this time a web search lead me to

systemctl --user status pipewire{,-pulse} wireplumber

which shows that `wireplumber` failed to start.
Thanks.  Haven't found the actual problem nor a fix, but I have
some leads.
Stay tuned, I'll be back with the results :-)


Stefan

Debian/Xen on ARM: How to identify source of an unhandled SMC call during boot?

[Paul Leiber]

Dear Debian user list members,

I am trying to run network related stuff (Samba, Zabbix) on a Raspberry 
Pi 4B in a virtualized environment using Debian Bookworm and Xen. I am 
running into reproducible complete system crashes/reboots due to a Xen 
watchdog triggering under certain, seemingly strange conditions (the 
number of VLANs involved seems to play a role, running tcpdump on 
certain interfaces prevents this issue, ...). If you are interested in 
the long version, you can find it here [1].


Some people on xen-devel pointed out to me two unhandled SMC calls in 
the boot logs which could be the root of the problem. I am now trying to 
find out where these calls come from to get closer to the root cause. 
The suspected calls are the following ones:


(XEN) d0v0 Unhandled SMC/HVC: 0x8450
(XEN) d0v0 Unhandled SMC/HVC: 0x8600ff01

These calls happen during the Dom0 boot process, so it's something from 
inside Linux and nothing Xen related, I've been told. The current 
working hypothesis is that the calls are trying to find some module not 
emulated by Xen and are therefore failing, leading to Linux waiting for 
the reply, and subsequently to the Xen watchdog triggering and rebooting.


From what I could find out in ARM documentation, the unhandled SMC 
calls probably have the following purpose:


0x8450 = TRNG_VERSION, returns the implemented TRNG (True Random 
Number Generator) ABI version [2]
0x8600ff01 = Call UID Query for Vendor Specific Hypervisor Service, 
Returns a unique identifier of the service provider [3]


The more likely cause is the second call to the address 0x8600ff01.

Now I simply have no idea how to find out where in the Linux boot 
process these calls are made. I tried poking into the Linux sources a 
bit, and I couldn't find an exact match for these call addresses, so I 
assume these addresses are assembled from different parts. There are 
some matches for "0x8600" and for "ff01", but I couldn't identify if 
these matches are relevant.


I tried to find out if strace could help, but from what I understand, 
this is related to commands coming from userspace, so I am not sure that 
strace helps during the boot process.


I'd appreciate it if somebody more knowledgeable would point me in the 
right direction. If more information is needed, I can provide it.


Thanks,

Paul

[1] 
https://lists.xenproject.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2023-10/msg00796.html

[2] https://developer.arm.com/documentation/den0098/latest/
[3] 
https://documentation-service.arm.com/static/628b755ce3c4322a76af56de?token=

Re: running a snap package on bookworm?

[D. R. Evans]

Greg Wooledge wrote on 1/24/24 12:24:

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 12:16:21PM -0700, D. R. Evans wrote:

4. But now how do I actually run the program? I tried just running:
   $ acrordrdc


Have you looked at the man page for snap?  It's very long, so I took
a guess and looked for "run".


Thank you; right at the beginning of the man page it says:

 > The snap command lets you install, configure, refresh and remove snaps

so I didn't think it would be relevant to running a package that was already 
installed.




run
Run the given snap command



I read that and think: "but I don't want to run a snap command; I want to run 
an installed snap package".



The run command executes the given snap command with the right confinement
and environment.

Usage: snap [OPTIONS] run [run-OPTIONS] . 
[...]



When I try the run command:

$ snap run acrordrdc
unknown command: run
$

I was amazed that I simply couldn't find anything about actually running 
installed packages (plenty of sites tell me how to install a package, but none 
that I looked at then told me how to run the package once it's installed). It 
can't be hard, but obviously I'm misunderstanding something fundamental about 
snap.


   Doc

--
Web:  http://enginehousebooks.com/drevans

Re: AW: su su- sudo dont work

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 03:53:10PM +, Schwibinger Michael wrote:
> Good afternoon
> Why do I have to open a group?
> 

This is to *tell* us information about why you're having problems with su
and sudo

Running the 

id

command should give you information like

uid=1000(amacater) gid=1000(amacater) groups=1000(amacater),27(sudo)

which shows you that my user - amacater - is the first user on the 
machine (because Debian starts user id numbers at 1000 for ordinary
users) and that I'm a member of group sudo - so can use sudo instead of su.

/etc/sudoers will show you what privileges the sudo user has.
Here are the last lines of the file on my machine (which has not been
modified from Debian defaults)

# User privilege specification
rootALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo   ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# See sudoers(5) for more information on "@include" directives:

@includedir /etc/sudoers.d
(END)

If you are _not_ a user of group sudo for whatever reason - and want to
use sudo - then you will need root privileges and the root password
(once) to add your user name to the group.

For example: adduser sophie sudo

I hope this helps

> 2 years ago
> sudo was no problem.
> 

As yet, we have *no idea* what you have done in the last two years to 
break your Debian system - or even to know which kernel you boot or 
how you "rescue" your system when you log onto it every day.

Please give us information in order that the readers on this list can
use their knowledge to help you.

With every good wish, as ever,

Andy
(amaca...@debian.org)
> Regards
> 
> Sophie
> 
> Thank You
> 
> Von: Timothy M Butterworth 
> Gesendet: Montag, 22. Januar 2024 00:07
> An: Schwibinger Michael 
> Cc: Greg Wooledge ; debian-user@lists.debian.org 
> 
> Betreff: Re: su su- sudo dont work
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 4:07 PM Schwibinger Michael 
> mailto:h...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
> Thank You
> Example
> I say
> 
> sudo apt-get install firefox
> Reaction LINUX
> This is not allowed we send a message to the admin.
> 
> This error message means that your account is not in the sudo group.
> 
> Run the command "groups" and look for the group sudo.
> groups
> 
> Here is the command to add a user account to the sudo group. You will need to 
> run it as root.
> usermod -a -G sudo 
> 
> I do open root terminal
> there its working.
> Regards
> Sophie
> 
> 
> Von: Greg Wooledge mailto:g...@wooledge.org>>
> Gesendet: Samstag, 20. Januar 2024 14:14
> An: debian-user@lists.debian.org 
> mailto:debian-user@lists.debian.org>>
> Betreff: Re: su su- sudo dont work
> 
> On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 01:26:06PM +, Schwibinger Michael wrote:
> > Good afternoon.
> > Root terminal is fine.
> > What do I do wrong?
> > What did I destroy?
> >
> > PC does have only one user=admin.
> >
> > Regards Sophie
> > Is it the rescue mode?
> 
> Explain, please.
> 
> Your Subject: header says "su su- sudo dont work".  What does this MEAN?
> 
> Please show us your attempts to USE each of these commands, and the
> results that you got.  This means, run the commands in a terminal
> window, and then PASTE the contents of that terminal window into the
> body of your next email.  Show us the shell prompt, the command as you
> typed it, and the full output.
> 
> In other words, show us WHAT IS WRONG, or at least what appears wrong.
> 
> In addition, please give basic background information -- what version
> of Debian you are running, what desktop environment if any, how you
> logged in (*especially* if it isn't just a "standard graphical login
> for your desktop environment"), and anything else you can think of
> that might be relevant.
> 
> How does "rescue mode" factor into the problem?
> 
> When you installed Debian, did you give a root password, or did you
> leave it blank?
> 
> Finally, it would be helpful for you to run the "id" command (with no
> arguments), in the same terminal session as your failed su or sudo
> command(s), and include that command and its output in your paste.
> 
> 
> 
> --
> ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
> ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
> ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/
> ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀

Re: smartctl cannot access my storage, need syntax help

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Thursday 25 January 2024 09:03:36 am Anssi Saari wrote:
> Western Digital at least claims to have solved the leaking
> problem with helium and since they've been making those drives for over
> a decade, I think it's solved.

Your source for this?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

AW: su su- sudo dont work

[Schwibinger Michael]

Good afternoon
Why do I have to open a group?

2 years ago
sudo was no problem.

Regards

Sophie

Thank You

Von: Timothy M Butterworth 
Gesendet: Montag, 22. Januar 2024 00:07
An: Schwibinger Michael 
Cc: Greg Wooledge ; debian-user@lists.debian.org 

Betreff: Re: su su- sudo dont work



On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 4:07 PM Schwibinger Michael 
mailto:h...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Thank You
Example
I say

sudo apt-get install firefox
Reaction LINUX
This is not allowed we send a message to the admin.

This error message means that your account is not in the sudo group.

Run the command "groups" and look for the group sudo.
groups

Here is the command to add a user account to the sudo group. You will need to 
run it as root.
usermod -a -G sudo 

I do open root terminal
there its working.
Regards
Sophie


Von: Greg Wooledge mailto:g...@wooledge.org>>
Gesendet: Samstag, 20. Januar 2024 14:14
An: debian-user@lists.debian.org 
mailto:debian-user@lists.debian.org>>
Betreff: Re: su su- sudo dont work

On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 01:26:06PM +, Schwibinger Michael wrote:
> Good afternoon.
> Root terminal is fine.
> What do I do wrong?
> What did I destroy?
>
> PC does have only one user=admin.
>
> Regards Sophie
> Is it the rescue mode?

Explain, please.

Your Subject: header says "su su- sudo dont work".  What does this MEAN?

Please show us your attempts to USE each of these commands, and the
results that you got.  This means, run the commands in a terminal
window, and then PASTE the contents of that terminal window into the
body of your next email.  Show us the shell prompt, the command as you
typed it, and the full output.

In other words, show us WHAT IS WRONG, or at least what appears wrong.

In addition, please give basic background information -- what version
of Debian you are running, what desktop environment if any, how you
logged in (*especially* if it isn't just a "standard graphical login
for your desktop environment"), and anything else you can think of
that might be relevant.

How does "rescue mode" factor into the problem?

When you installed Debian, did you give a root password, or did you
leave it blank?

Finally, it would be helpful for you to run the "id" command (with no
arguments), in the same terminal session as your failed su or sudo
command(s), and include that command and its output in your paste.



--
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀
⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/
⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀

Re: Issue with USB External Keyboard, External Mouse, and Screen Brightness on Dell Laptop

[Max Nikulin]

On 24/01/2024 02:13, Marcelo Laia wrote:


After recently upgrade, my external keyboard and external mouse (both 
USB) stopped working after after the screen brightness automatically 
decreased. This has occurred a few times, and I can only solve it by 
rebooting the laptop.


Were your experimenting with energy saving tools (desktop environment 
GUI, powertop, tlp, etc.)?


jan 23 11:28:43 marcelo dbus-daemon[2019]: [session uid=1000 pid=2019] 
Activating service name='org.gnome.ScreenSaver' requested by ':1.65' 
(uid=1000 pid=2729 comm="/usr/libexec/gsd-usb-protection")
jan 23 11:28:43 marcelo gsd-usb-protect[2729]: Failed to fetch USBGuard 
parameters: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The 
name org.usbguard1 was not provided by any .service files


I have no idea what gsd-usb-protection should do or whether GNOME 
expects installed usbguard, but it might be related.

Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed

[Max Nikulin]

On 24/01/2024 04:28, Stefan Monnier wrote:

But since `pactl` seems to still be useful for Pipewire, I tried
`pavucontrol` and it shows me no device from which to select in the
"Output Devices".

Now, how do I figure out why that is?


The problem might be in between of

lspci -vnn

and

pactl list
pactl list sinks

Perhaps troubleshooting sections in wikis may tell more. There is a 
chance that lsof may find another process holding audio devices.

Re: (SOLVED) disable trackpad when mouse is connected (GNOME bug?)

[Max Nikulin]

On 25/01/2024 20:42, Henning Follmann wrote:

The issue is a usb hub. Somehow GNOME thinks this hub is a mouse.


Try

lsusb --verbose --tree

perhaps somebody plugged in a tiny receiver for a wireless mouse and 
forgot about it.

Re: Resizing LVM partitions

[Stefan Monnier]

BTW, instead of rescue mode, you can use the initramfs to do such things
(I like to do that when I don't have a LiveUSB at hand because it lets
you manipulate *all* partitions, including /).

I.e. do something like:

- Reboot
- In Grub, edit your boot script (with `e`) to add `break=mount` to the
  kernel command line.
- Use `F10` to boot with that boot script.
- You should very quickly be dropped into a fairly minimal shell,
  without any password.
- None of your volumes are mounted yet.  Even LVM isn't initialized yet.
- Then type something like (guaranteed 100% untested)

 lvm vgchange -ay   # Activate your LVM volumes.
 mount /dev/mapper/localhost-root /mnt  # Mount /
 mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
 chroot /mnt /bin/bash
 lvreduce --size -50G --resizefs /dev/mapper/localhost-home
 exit
 umount /mnt/dev
 umount /mnt
 exit


--- Stefan

Re: smartctl cannot access my storage, need syntax help

[Anssi Saari]

gene heskett  writes:

> I carefully note, the use of Helium and its problems is very carefully
> ignored.

I suppose helium is not required for SMR drives and could be used in CMR
drives too... Western Digital at least claims to have solved the leaking
problem with helium and since they've been making those drives for over
a decade, I think it's solved.

Really a shame how the whole SMR mess happened. For the last decade or
so I thought I can just double the size of my little "stuff" server
(mirrored 1 TB drives) by bigger 2.5" drives. But no, first they came
out with fat 2 TB drives and then the slim drives all went SMR. There
was a time when suitable drives were available but I wasn't shopping
then. So instead of replacing just the drives, I replaced
everything. The new server is way faster and has a lot more storage but
it's also noisier and slower to wake due to the 3.5" drives.

(SOLVED) disable trackpad when mouse is connected (GNOME bug?)

[Henning Follmann]

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 03:30:23PM -0500, Henning Follmann wrote:
> Hello,
> for a while I am using
> 
> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 
> 'disabled-on-external-mouse'
> 
> which really worked fine.
> 
> But since last week this does not work anymore; in the way that the
> trackpad is always disabled, even when the mouse is not connected.
> 
> I have to issue a 
> gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.peripherals.touchpad send-events 'enabled'
> to get it back. That kind of defeats it's purpose though.
> 
> Any hints what could be causing this?
> 
> 

Hello,
replying to my own post.
The issue is a usb hub. Somehow GNOME thinks this hub is a mouse.

-H



-- 
Henning Follmann   | hfollm...@itcfollmann.com

Re: Looking for archive management system for backups burned to optical discs

[Anders Andersson]

On Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 4:03 PM Thomas Schmitt  wrote:
>
> About timestamps and incremental backup:
>
> If you only go for mtime, them you miss changes of file attributes
> which are indicated by ctime.
> Even more, timestamps alone are not a reliable way to determine which
> files are new at their current location in the directory tree.
> If you move a file from one directory to the other, then the timestamps
> of the file do _not_ get updated. Only the two involved directories get
> new timestamps.
> So when the backup tool encounters directories with young timestamps
> it has to use other means to determine whether their data files were
> moved. scdbackup uses recorded device and inode numbers, and as last
> resort recorded MD5 sums for that purpose.
>
> (Of course, content MD5 comparison is slow and causes high disk load,
> compared to simple directory tree traversal with timestamps and inode
> numbers. So scdbackup tries to avoid this when possible and allowed
> by the -changetest_options in the backup configuration file.)
>
>
> Have a nice day :)
>
> Thomas
>

This is one thing I enjoy with btrfs. It knows exactly every little
thing that changed to your files since last time you backed it up,
without having to scan everything. Even if you manually try to fake
the datestamps etc. Finding that information is more or less instant,
making backups easy.

Re: Powered USB hub [was: Re: smartctl cannot access my storage, need syntax help]

[Anssi Saari]

Max Nikulin  writes:

> Purchasing a powered USB hub, I made a mistake. I have not checked
> compatibility with hubctl in advance.
> https://github.com/mvp/uhubctl/

Wow, that's very cool. I wonder if there's anything similar for USB
switches? I have one that's software controllable but it's not great for
my purpose, which is doing the K and M parts of a poor man's KVM switch.