Re: can't install skype 4.1 in debian testing ; lost the working 4.0

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Mon, 19 Nov 2012 10:35:37 +,
Claudius Hubig wrote:
> Don’t use dpkg --force-architecture, but rather enable multi-arch as
> detailed in the various how tos online. To get Skype 4.1 working via
> multi-arch, you will need some packages from unstable, install them.
> If dpkg complains about a missing package foo (such as libqtwebkit4),
> do
> 
> # apt-get install libqtwebkit4:i386
> 
> to install the i386 variant of said package (the amd64 variant won’t
> work with Skype i386).

The problem is that that (installing `libqtwebkit4:i386') probably won't work:
.  The workaround
suggested by John Paul Adrian Glaubitz solves the problem.

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Fri, 16 Nov 2012 20:54:33 +0200,
Adrian Fita wrote:
> I don't have freq_step in that path either. Instead, I have it in
> /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpufreq/conservative/freq_step . That document is
> kinda' old and some info from there might be outdated or things might have
> been moved around ("find /sys -iname 'file_name'" is very useful to detect
> where things are), but it does a very good job explaining what the different
> knobs do and which way you should tweak them.

Doh, you're very right, thanks.  I set it to 20 for the time being, but I'd
still like to resolve my issue with `ondemand'.

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:50:05 +,
Francesco Mazzoli wrote:
> 
> At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:40:07 -0200,
> Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, Francesco Mazzoli wrote:
> > > At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:17:18 -0200,
> > > Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > > That said, Linux coordinates with the platform through ACPI.  If the 
> > > > BIOS is
> > > > tuned for maximum battery life, it will interfere with Linux cpufreq.
> > > 
> > > This is a good hint - there is something in the BIOS as I mentioned.  So 
> > > you are
> > > saying that I should disable any power saving mechanism from the bios, 
> > > and let
> > > the kernel/userland cpufreq software do their thing?  Are there any links 
> > > with
> > > more information regarding this?
> > 
> > You should test.  Typically, when I want the OS to be in full control, I set
> > everything to maximum performance.
> 
> Thanks, I will (I CCed back to the list, I used the gmane newsgroup to post 
> the
> message and it wasn't in the CC list).

OK, I have tried turning off the BIOS power saving settings and I still have the
same problem.

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Well, I have looked at your config and read this
 and I don't
seem to have `/sys/devices/system/cpu/*/cpufreq/conservative/freq_step', even if
the conservative governor is loaded.  Any ideas on what might cause this?

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Fri, 16 Nov 2012 00:16:22 +0200,
Adrian Fita wrote:
> Actually I use 'conservative' over the 'ondemand' governor. It can be
> tweaked to react more quickly, close to the speed of 'ondemand', but it
> has the nice feature of providing a "cool-down" period during which if
> some task comes along and storms the CPU, the CPU is already at maximum
> speed, so no need to scale up; this helps with minuscule (but
> noticeable) interruptions in multimedia apps (with video is most
> noticeable).
> 
> Give 'conservative' a try, you might like it.
> 
> Here are the values that I use (install 'sysfsutils' and put them in
> /etc/sysfs.conf):

Thanks!  I saved this message and I'll go through your links at some point.

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 19:40:07 -0200,
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, Francesco Mazzoli wrote:
> > At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:17:18 -0200,
> > Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> > > That said, Linux coordinates with the platform through ACPI.  If the BIOS 
> > > is
> > > tuned for maximum battery life, it will interfere with Linux cpufreq.
> > 
> > This is a good hint - there is something in the BIOS as I mentioned.  So 
> > you are
> > saying that I should disable any power saving mechanism from the bios, and 
> > let
> > the kernel/userland cpufreq software do their thing?  Are there any links 
> > with
> > more information regarding this?
> 
> You should test.  Typically, when I want the OS to be in full control, I set
> everything to maximum performance.

Thanks, I will (I CCed back to the list, I used the gmane newsgroup to post the
message and it wasn't in the CC list).

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:29:18 +0100,
Klistvud wrote:
> Just an idea. Have you tried explicitly running 'cpufreq-set -g ondemand' and
> then checking your currently active governor with 'cpufreq-info'?

Yes.

> AFAIK, the ondemand governor has been deprecated/abandoned/superseded/whatever
> for specific (admittedly older) processors.

I doubt this is the case - my processor is quite modern (Intel i5).

Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:17:18 -0200,
Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> That said, Linux coordinates with the platform through ACPI.  If the BIOS is
> tuned for maximum battery life, it will interfere with Linux cpufreq.

This is a good hint - there is something in the BIOS as I mentioned.  So you are
saying that I should disable any power saving mechanism from the bios, and let
the kernel/userland cpufreq software do their thing?  Are there any links with
more information regarding this?

Thanks,
Francesco


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Re: CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi Mark,

At Thu, 15 Nov 2012 12:36:48 -0600,
Mark Allums wrote:
> Sorry, I should have said, Have you tried *another* monitor tool besides
> 'stress'?

`stress' is not a monitor tool, it just spawns processes doing `sqrt' in a loop
or something like that.  I also tried with `openssl speed' and a simple `while
1'.

With `conservative' or `performance' the CPU scales up correctly (well, with
performance it is always scaled up).  With `ondemand' it doesn't.

This has noticeable consequences: compiling is slow, flash videos are sluggish.
So I do have a problem.  And I want a governor that scales down my CPU,
especially on battery.  I could stick with `conservative' but I'd like to get to
the bottom of this since `ondemand' is usually the best option for modern CPUs.

Francesco.


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CPU scaling problems

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi,

I have installed Debian testing on a X1 Carbon, processor i5-3427U.

My problem is the following: when the `ondemand' governor is active, the
processor clock never scales up, it always stays at 800Mhz.  The situation
changes when using the `conservative' or the `performance' governors.  More
curiously, if I set `conservative'/`performance' as the governor for at least
one core, the CPU will scale.  I am on the 3.6.6-trunk-amd64 kernel from
experimental because the intel video driver 3.2 causes random freezes.  To test
if the scaling occurs I run `stress -c 4'.

Things I have tried:

* Enabling/disabling `cpufreqd', `laptop-mode', and `acpid'.  I currently run
  `laptop-mode'.
* The 3.2 kernel in testing
* Enabling/disabling the `xfce4-power-manager', which I use to manage
  suspends/hibernate.

There are some kind-of relevant BIOS options and I will try with those soon but
I doubt that's the issue.

Does anybody have any idea on how to troubleshoot such a problem?  I suspect
that the problem is either in the kernel or in some other software which is
regulating the scaling.

Thanks,
Francesco.


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Re: Limit directory size

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Andrei Popescu  gmail.com> writes:

> There is probably more than one :)
> 
> I'm thinking either loop mounted files or even separate partitions.
I thought partitions aren't enough flexible, but I hadn't tought of
loop files, I'll try that.

Thanks,
Francesco


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Limit directory size

[Francesco Mazzoli]

I need to limit the size of specific directories.
Quota won't work, since these directories all belong to
the same user, and I need to put different limits on them.

Is there a way to do so?

Thanks,
Francesco


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Re: Bandwidth shaping

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Alex Samad  samad.com.au> writes:

> 
> do a  google for lartc = linux advanced routing ..

thanks - that was what I was searching
http://lartc.org/howto/lartc.cookbook.interactive-prio.html




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Bandwidth shaping

[Francesco Mazzoli]

I run a little server, and I'd like to know if it is possible to give
more bandwidth"priority" to certain process.
With priority I mean that the one with the higher priority won't be
limited in anyway, while the one with the lower will "adapt" to the traffic
of the other.

Thanks a lot.


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Problems with vnc + gnome

[Francesco Mazzoli]

Hi, I'm trying to use vnc with gnome on my debian 5 server, but I've
got some problems with gnome.
I installed everything with apt-get install tightvncserver gnome, and
I uncommented the first two lines:
# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc

I can connect to the server, and gnome is working but I have two problems.
- I can't utilize gnome panels. They are there but if I click on them
nothing happens
- The keyboard layout is totally messed up: the backspace is binded to
the number 5 and stuff like that

I can't figure out what to do to solve this.

Thanks,
Francesco


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