Re: hplip and use of the "driver plugin"
On 11/20/2016 02:52 PM, Brian wrote: On Sat 19 Nov 2016 at 16:38:20 -0500, Jape Person wrote: On 11/19/2016 03:09 PM, Brian wrote: Sorry to be awkward, but what does "it's" refer to? Uh, I'm the awkward one here. That's why I'm asking for help. Not at all. I've learned a thing or two from this thread. For example, I hadn't appreciated the extent to which the laserjet multifunction devices were dependent on the plugin, whereas the MFP inkjets are not (for now). Yes, I believe I saw statements on the hp site indicating that they intend to start supporting more and more devices, including new inkjet MFPs, with the driver-plugin model. The plugin contains *.fw files and libraries. A firmware file is uploaded to the printer when it is switched on. Quite what the libraries do I do not know but my assumption is they are involved in this and the host-based management of the printer. Enlightenment would be appreciated. Let's not start with unreasonable expectations. The likelihood that I will enlighten you in such a matter is vanishingly small. Others are reading this thread too. :) I didn't find any information this specific about the driver plugin. If you can steer me toward the relevant information I would appreciate it. I read information at all the links that seemed as though they could be pertinent from the hplipopensource.com location. The plugin can be downloaded from openprinting.org and its contents examined. Or install it with hp-plugin and look at /usr/share/hplip to see what you get. Delete the files by hand afterwards. Firmware appears to be only for a few specific printers and it is the faxing, scanning and printing libraries which are used for the majority (or perhaps all) of multifunctionals. Closed source; we cannot tell. I'll look at that. I had ASSumed that there was a different driver-plugin for each different model, so didn't even look at the direct download option. So, are you saying that nothing within that driver plugin gets invoked by or interacts with the host system? It's just some firmware that gets copied to the printer and some libraries which reside on the host and which interact with the printer. If that's the case, then my concern about the driver plugin is a tempest in a teapot. No, I am not saying that. I think hplip looks for and interacts with the libraries if they are needed for a particular device. Last time I set up a print queue (without having the printer) for a device which needed a plugin, CUPS relayed an error message from the hpcups driver. It is something I need to look into when I have the time. I'd stick with your original concern. Yup. I'm going to just slowly dog this thing until I've learned enough to suit me. Since I'm an old dog, slowly dogging means it'll take some time. I did learn that the "pagewide" MFPs do not (at least so far) require the driver plugin. I found them listed under "other" in the supported devices database, so I didn't notice them at first. I am not at all familiar with this technology. As I understand it, those things use a page-wide stationary printer head with over 40,000 nozzles to put pigment and dye on the paper. I think they said the print engine has no moving parts. Only the paper moves. One presumes they're not counting the parts the user has to REmove and REplace to keep them working. 8-) The pagewide versions of the 477 series cost more than the laser versions, by quite a margin. But, if I can convince myself that the technology will be reliable and not terribly expensive to support, I might give it a shot. It still would seem to beg the question as to why the system would be designed this way. But I'm not a printer hardware designer, and I don't know what requirements are placed on those guys by the production and delivery schedules. Maybe it's just a workaround to help HP get the most up-to-date stuff out the door in the most timely manner possible. Dunno. It could be as simple as HP licensing software from elsewhere for printing and scanning and not having the rights to open source it. From their point of view re-inventing the wheel doesn't make sense. For me, I'd take an HP laser multifunctional because I would want the copying facility. For you. you may have to widen your search to other vendors to get separate printing and scanning devices. It depends, also, on how pragmatic a user is. HP could be seen as a responsive, trustworthy and reliable company. The fact is that most printer manufacturers have some element of non-free software as part of their modern offerings at the inexpensive end of their product line. Yes. I was just a little appalled that my own lack of acumen wrt this driver model was about to have me putting something I didn't really want on my system. At least HP has done a good job of providing a reliable one-stop-shopping process for Linux users who need printing support. Having the hplip package right there in the repository
Re: Stretch System Stops Boot Process Immediately After Grub Screen
Double checked to see if I was right about the video subsystem. It is not ATI, it is Intel integrated. No docs on this thing. It was never officially sold in U.S., where I live currently. Since I can't boot it to usable state, I can't (easily) find out exactly which video it uses. It's probably destine for re-installation anyway. I was just surprised to see such a failure occur after upgrade. On 10/22/2016 06:10 PM, Jape Person wrote: I've got a little Panasonic CF-R3 mini-laptop which has been kept fully up-to-date in testing every day since Etch was released. (I think the original installation is that old.) I've been using the linux-image-686-pae kernel on the system. The updates today included an update to linux-image-4.7.0-1-686-pae (4.7.8-1) and grub-pc (2.02-beta3-1). Upon reboot the system stops with a blinking underline cursor in the upper left corner. I suspect that the boot process stops immediately after grub. I cannot connect via ssh or even ping the system. Using Ctrl-Alt-Del has no effect, but touching the start-stop switch elicits a beep and immediate power-down. The same results are obtained if I use the grub menu to select recovery mode. A much older desktop system running testing and the same kernel was not adversely affected. I'm only reporting this for purposes of corroboration in case anyone else has seen something similar coincident with these updates. I'm in the midst of some business which will prevent me from delving into the failure right now. I'll get into it some time next week, perhaps. I'm planning to make a couple of different live images on USB keys so that I can boot the failed system to examine it and see if there's anything I might just fix on it. There were no error messages during the upgrade. I'm a bit more inclined to suspect the kernel upgrade than the grub-pc upgrade. This little unit has a strange hybrid video subsystem which shares system memory with the video subsystem. Everything on the system is early Intel Centrino era stuff, but with the video being ATI. Maybe it's weird enough that it caught a corner case with the kernel change. But the system has been in the rolling-upgrade mode for years, so something odd may have happened to grub-pc itself. I suppose chroot to the system drive and running update-grub is worth a shot. If anyone has a suggestion, I'm willing to try to learn. As I said, it will be a little while before I have time to actually dig into it. In the off chance I actually learn something, I'll post back to the thread. Thanks, JP
Re: A stop job is running for...
On 12/02/2015 06:06 AM, Martin Read wrote: On 02/12/15 03:07, James P. Wallen wrote: Thanks for your response, Sven. It's nice to know that someone else has seen this type of problem. I was thinking that this could be self-inflicted. Perhaps that's a little less likely now. So, is this behavior controlled by systemd? I'm not trying to start a fracas. I'm really interested. What I'm asking is, do I need to start poring over systemd documentation to see if there might be a way to control this behavior? If a stop job is taking two minutes, that suggests that the service has one or more ExecStop lines defined in its service unit and that one of those commands is taking an unduly long time to complete for some reason. The default and per-service timeout values for stopping a service (after which systemd gives up and sends fatal signals to all of the service's processes) are configurable; see the systemd-system.conf(5) and systemd.service(5) man pages for details. I'm going to look into this right away and do some testing to see if I can fix the problems on my system. Thanks!
Re: A stop job is running for...
On 12/01/2015 09:47 AM, Sven Arvidsson wrote: On Mon, 2015-11-30 at 21:04 -0500, Jape Person wrote: Make remote CUPS printers available locally Network Time Synchronization For several weeks I've been seeing this stop job notification for these two items frequently when rebooting or shutting down two of my four testing systems. The first notification counts all the way up to 1 min 30 sec before the shutdown scroll restarts. The second notification only counts for a few seconds before terminating. I'm a patient guy, but adding almost two minutes to almost every restart or shutdown procedure gets a bit tedious after a while. Yes, I have noticed this too, but with different services. So it's probably not specific to CUPS or NTP. Unfortunately it seems to always happen when I need to shutdown quickly (thunderstorms). Would be great if it was possible to configure the countdown to simply kill the service after a few seconds and proceed with shutdown/reboot. Thanks for your response, Sven. It's nice to know that someone else has seen this type of problem. I was thinking that this could be self-inflicted. Perhaps that's a little less likely now. So, is this behavior controlled by systemd? I'm not trying to start a fracas. I'm really interested. What I'm asking is, do I need to start poring over systemd documentation to see if there might be a way to control this behavior?
[Solved] Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/08/2015 09:40 AM, James P. Wallen wrote: On 07/08/2015 03:17 AM, Petter Adsen wrote: On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 13:20:35 -0400 James P. Wallen jpwal...@comcast.net wrote: On 07/07/2015 08:34 AM, Petter Adsen wrote: https://wiki.debian.org/OpenVPN Have you seen this? It doesn't contain anything particular to wicd, but you could use what is there to set up a script. There are a few links at the bottom that might also be of help. Petter Thank you, Petter. I'll try following that document through to a conclusion. I should always remember to look at the debian.org onlin documentation first. However, the explanations seem to lean heavily toward explaining how to set up a server and a client, so I have to try to pick out carefully how to just do what I want to do. I'm currently working on setting up a VPN myself, so I was just reading that when I saw your message. It's perfect for what I want to do, but of course it might not fit your needs. You should be able to pick out enough from the examples given there to set up what you want, but of course it's not a step-by-step guide. The Arch wiki also has some useful information, you can find it at: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Openvpn It also has a few notes on connecting to a third party provider. Yes, I should also remember to look at archlinux.org docs when I have a project or issue like this. They're really good. It's funny that neither the Debian nor the Archlinux docs show up in the search engines I've been using. Either my choices of search terms aren't so hot, or the engines are doing a very superficial job of checking mostly commercial site and message list content. Or both. I think that I may be able to make this work if I just scrape all the data from the Debian and Archlinux docs together and sort through it. I just need to connect a client to a publicly available VPN over which I have no control. It surprises me that I haven't seen a simple howto for that. Surely there are lots of people who use such private VPNs but who don't want to use network-manager. Have you talked to the VPN provider, or looked at their site for hints on configuration? Send their support team an email, maybe they have been in that situation before. The most important of the VPN providers for my purposes is riseup.net. They are a no-charge system that I donate to on a monthly basis because they exist specifically to serve social and political activism. They are switching to a VPN system which uses bitmask. Unfortunately, their specific configuration requires (at least for now) use of a third party repository. I've tried it and had quite a bit of trouble with its functionality. I'll ask them about doing what I want to do with the old system, but they weren't very responsive even when I was trying to get help with the new system that they want everyone to use now. As is usually the case with such entities, they are long on work and short on workers. If you would rather have control over the server, and depending on whom you want to conceal your traffic from, you could consider paying for a VPS, then setting up a VPN between that and your home or mobile devices. One problem with that approach is that most VPS services come with quite a limited amount of bandwidth per month, but depending on what you want to do that may not be a big problem. I pay $10/month, and that is for up to 2TB transfer. The VPS provider would of course be able to snoop on your traffic, but that might be better than having your ISP snoop, if you have a bad ISP and choose the right provider. Just a thought. Good luck! Petter I've considered this alternative, too. I might well fall back on it -- especially if I can find a VPS provider which has established a good reputation with some of the activist communities. The trust factor is a big concern for me. I might have little or nothing to lose by compromised communications, but some of these folks hang on the hairy edge of disaster every day of their lives. So far, the worst safety issues these communities have faced have been the result of careless -- or worse, deliberately compromised -- treatment of communications by some of the third parties involved in the message path. Many, many thanks for your help. JP Between the Debian and Archlinux documentation and a little pondering I was able to use the OpenVPN client manually with wicd as the network manager. However, I'm going to hold what I learned as a fall-back at least for now. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tried the bitmask/LEAP solution again. Over the past few months it has been improved enormously. So, even though it is a very complex system which actually works to strictly (I hope) manage the OpenVPN client, it works very, very well. And it nicely manages establishing the connection to the VPN automatically at the time the user logs onto the system, which was at best an unreliable function with network-manager. Yeah, I didn't really
Re: [Solved, but not explained] Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/09/2015 11:56 AM, Chris Bannister wrote: On Thu, Jul 09, 2015 at 09:44:40AM -0400, James P. Wallen wrote: Between the Debian and Archlinux documentation and a little pondering I was able to use the OpenVPN client manually with wicd as the network manager. Which you are going to keep a secret? People are going to see the solved in the subject when they do an archive search thinking they're going to find a solution. I did consider posting what I had done. I actually experimented with three ways to accomplish the task at hand. I simply used the CLI to control the client in one instance, and I used a script in the other two instances. In one of those I ran the script manually after getting the network connection, and in the other I ran the script via wicd's ability to run post-connection scripts to execute the script. Easy. And reason enough why there aren't any write-ups specific to my needs. The documentation Petter Adsen pointed me to was sufficient for me with my limited grasp of the subject matter and my unusual circumstance. As he indicated, that document should be enough for anyone to accomplish the task. The riseup.net VPN is different enough from every other publicly available VPN I've seen that documenting my method wouldn't serve much purpose. The folks at riseup.net are doing their best to encourage new users to switch to the new system which uses bitmask/LEAP and is self-configuring. And that's what I wound up doing. I suppose I should have indicated all of this in my previous message as an explanation for lack of inclusion of a how-to. I absent-mindedly used the Solved indicator to indicate to the thread participants that I had succeeded. Not to indicate that I really had any new information to provide. Fuzzy thinking, I guess. (Hey, we let our world leaders get away with it!) In partial atonement for my misstep I provide the following links which were, in turn, provided to me by Petter: https://wiki.debian.org/OpenVPN https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Openvpn The second link contains further links to other resources which might be helpful to those connecting to the more ordinary types of VPNs, but which weren't necessary for my purposes. Sorry for the miscue, Chris. Regards, JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559e9ebf.3020...@comcast.net
Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/08/2015 03:17 AM, Petter Adsen wrote: On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 13:20:35 -0400 James P. Wallen jpwal...@comcast.net wrote: On 07/07/2015 08:34 AM, Petter Adsen wrote: https://wiki.debian.org/OpenVPN Have you seen this? It doesn't contain anything particular to wicd, but you could use what is there to set up a script. There are a few links at the bottom that might also be of help. Petter Thank you, Petter. I'll try following that document through to a conclusion. I should always remember to look at the debian.org onlin documentation first. However, the explanations seem to lean heavily toward explaining how to set up a server and a client, so I have to try to pick out carefully how to just do what I want to do. I'm currently working on setting up a VPN myself, so I was just reading that when I saw your message. It's perfect for what I want to do, but of course it might not fit your needs. You should be able to pick out enough from the examples given there to set up what you want, but of course it's not a step-by-step guide. The Arch wiki also has some useful information, you can find it at: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Openvpn It also has a few notes on connecting to a third party provider. Yes, I should also remember to look at archlinux.org docs when I have a project or issue like this. They're really good. It's funny that neither the Debian nor the Archlinux docs show up in the search engines I've been using. Either my choices of search terms aren't so hot, or the engines are doing a very superficial job of checking mostly commercial site and message list content. Or both. I think that I may be able to make this work if I just scrape all the data from the Debian and Archlinux docs together and sort through it. I just need to connect a client to a publicly available VPN over which I have no control. It surprises me that I haven't seen a simple howto for that. Surely there are lots of people who use such private VPNs but who don't want to use network-manager. Have you talked to the VPN provider, or looked at their site for hints on configuration? Send their support team an email, maybe they have been in that situation before. The most important of the VPN providers for my purposes is riseup.net. They are a no-charge system that I donate to on a monthly basis because they exist specifically to serve social and political activism. They are switching to a VPN system which uses bitmask. Unfortunately, their specific configuration requires (at least for now) use of a third party repository. I've tried it and had quite a bit of trouble with its functionality. I'll ask them about doing what I want to do with the old system, but they weren't very responsive even when I was trying to get help with the new system that they want everyone to use now. As is usually the case with such entities, they are long on work and short on workers. If you would rather have control over the server, and depending on whom you want to conceal your traffic from, you could consider paying for a VPS, then setting up a VPN between that and your home or mobile devices. One problem with that approach is that most VPS services come with quite a limited amount of bandwidth per month, but depending on what you want to do that may not be a big problem. I pay $10/month, and that is for up to 2TB transfer. The VPS provider would of course be able to snoop on your traffic, but that might be better than having your ISP snoop, if you have a bad ISP and choose the right provider. Just a thought. Good luck! Petter I've considered this alternative, too. I might well fall back on it -- especially if I can find a VPS provider which has established a good reputation with some of the activist communities. The trust factor is a big concern for me. I might have little or nothing to lose by compromised communications, but some of these folks hang on the hairy edge of disaster every day of their lives. So far, the worst safety issues these communities have faced have been the result of careless -- or worse, deliberately compromised -- treatment of communications by some of the third parties involved in the message path. Many, many thanks for your help. JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559d2854.5010...@comcast.net
Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/07/2015 08:34 AM, Petter Adsen wrote: On Tue, 07 Jul 2015 07:55:26 -0400 James P. Wallen jpwal...@comcast.net wrote: On 07/07/2015 04:25 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, Jul 06, 2015 at 04:23:28PM -0400, James P. Wallen wrote: [...] If any of you has managed to do this in conjunction with wicd, I'd really appreciate a pointer to information to help me get started. The man pages are kicking me in the boinloins. FWIW -- I set up OpenVPN (don't like it much[1], but had to) without either NetworkManager nor wicd. What's the functionality you expect from those? Automatic route setting? - - - - - - - - - [1] What do I do when I have to pierce the corp firewall? Just use socat on both sides, port 443 (corp firewalls believe in numbers), TLS encapsulated (don't know if they do deep packet inspection and don't want to find out). Yes, some consider me weird. Hi, Tomas! Thanks for your reply. No, my issue has nothing to do with corporate firewalls. I'm retired and go to places like libraries and coffee shops and hospitals where I connect to guest networks. I just use the Internet-located VPN to encrypt my connection through the AP and to prevent tracking by the service provider. At home I also use it for the same reasons. Network-manager, as you're aware, has plugins for various types of VPN software. It's easy to use, but it just seems to be awfully large and, occasionally, a little trouble-prone compared to wicd. I could generally just use /etc/network/interfaces and associated stuff, but was looking for a fiddle-free way to make my connections when I'm moving around while still enabling me to use OpenVPN. As I said, just about every write-up on using OpenVPN I can find tells me how to set up the server. Not what I want. All of the write-ups on OpenVPN client I've found tell me a) how to use OpenVPN with network-manager, or b) how to import a setup. Neither of those is of any use to me. I want to see if I can figure out how to use OpenVPN from the CLI or via script using a certificate and password to connect to my favorite VPN out on the Internet. Again, thank you for your reply. JP https://wiki.debian.org/OpenVPN Have you seen this? It doesn't contain anything particular to wicd, but you could use what is there to set up a script. There are a few links at the bottom that might also be of help. Petter Thank you, Petter. I'll try following that document through to a conclusion. I should always remember to look at the debian.org onlin documentation first. However, the explanations seem to lean heavily toward explaining how to set up a server and a client, so I have to try to pick out carefully how to just do what I want to do. I just need to connect a client to a publicly available VPN over which I have no control. It surprises me that I haven't seen a simple howto for that. Surely there are lots of people who use such private VPNs but who don't want to use network-manager. Still, I may be able to piece together what I need to build scripts from the debian.org page. I remember that wicd has a provision for launching scripts following establishment of a network connection, so I may be able to use that capability to get what I want. Thank you for the pointer! JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559c0a63.9030...@comcast.net
Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/07/2015 09:23 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Tue, Jul 07, 2015 at 07:55:26AM -0400, James P. Wallen wrote: [...] Hi, Tomas! Thanks for your reply. I wish I cold've been more helpful, but hey, you're welcome. No, my issue has nothing to do with corporate firewalls [...] Network-manager, as you're aware, has plugins for various types of VPN software. It's easy to use, but it just seems to be awfully large and, occasionally, a little trouble-prone compared to wicd. This was my impression too. Since I tend for simple, I try to avoid NM altogether. I could generally just use /etc/network/interfaces and associated stuff, but was looking for a fiddle-free way to make my connections when I'm moving around while still enabling me to use OpenVPN. Understood. [...] I want to see if I can figure out how to use OpenVPN from the CLI or via script using a certificate and password to connect to my favorite VPN out on the Internet. I see. Again, that's what I'm doing with socat: on the server there's a socat process running as server (duh ;) -- which unwraps the SSL layer and feeds its thing to the ssh server; on the client, a socat opens a local port and I connect my ssh client (courtesy of .ssh/config magic) to that: the socat wraps it in SSL and connects to the server: voilà -- a VPN. To the outside world it looks like any HTTPS connection. Since I have my own certificates, I (hope!) would notice any attempt at MITM. So -- if I understand -- you have control of a server out there on the Internet, and that's what makes this work for you. I know nothing of socat, but it sounds interesting. I suppose I could set up a server on the home network. That would protect my traffic from prying eyes when I'm a visitor on another network, but it wouldn't really keep my home ISP from snooping on me. Or am I missing something? Maybe I'm paranoid, but I really don't like the way Comcast (and many other ISPs) seem to think that they own their customers. I'm an activist of sorts, and I really do not like how cozy businesses and government are about our communications. Some of the people I communicate with have suffered greatly at the hands of various governments, and I don't want to take any more risk with their rights than is absolutely necessary when we contact each other. What turned me away from OpenVPN was that it wanted to be a service started at boot time, with all that; besides it wants to do magic to the routing tables and so on. A tad too heavyweight for my taste. But of course, it does many things automagically you'd otherwise have to script. Yes, I do prefer light(er) weight, but magic and ease of use are nice, too. Again, thank you. JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559c0d25.7040...@comcast.net
Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/07/2015 03:26 PM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: ... I suppose I could set up a server on the home network. That would protect my traffic from prying eyes when I'm a visitor on another network, but it wouldn't really keep my home ISP from snooping on me. Or am I missing something? There has to be a way to reach your network from outside (something not all providers offer, alas -- they sometimes insert traffic filters without telling you), and then you'd have to find the address (something with can be done with DynDNS). But there's a way to find out. I have a business account with Comcast, so I have a fixed IP and (ostensibly) no filtering. I've used IP forwarding (and even port knocking and other weird stuff like that, just for kicks) on various routers over the years, so I'm acquainted with the process. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I really don't like the way Comcast (and many other ISPs) seem to think that they own their customers. I think this doesn't have anything to do with paranoia, rather with dignity and decency. Yup, that too. ;) Considering how much Comcast charges for its services, it's annoying to find them trying to sell me and my views to every nick-and-dime business partner. Best regards, JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559c3cff.5020...@comcast.net
Re: Using OpenVPN client with wicd
On 07/07/2015 04:25 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Mon, Jul 06, 2015 at 04:23:28PM -0400, James P. Wallen wrote: [...] If any of you has managed to do this in conjunction with wicd, I'd really appreciate a pointer to information to help me get started. The man pages are kicking me in the boinloins. FWIW -- I set up OpenVPN (don't like it much[1], but had to) without either NetworkManager nor wicd. What's the functionality you expect from those? Automatic route setting? - - - - - - - - - [1] What do I do when I have to pierce the corp firewall? Just use socat on both sides, port 443 (corp firewalls believe in numbers), TLS encapsulated (don't know if they do deep packet inspection and don't want to find out). Yes, some consider me weird. Hi, Tomas! Thanks for your reply. No, my issue has nothing to do with corporate firewalls. I'm retired and go to places like libraries and coffee shops and hospitals where I connect to guest networks. I just use the Internet-located VPN to encrypt my connection through the AP and to prevent tracking by the service provider. At home I also use it for the same reasons. Network-manager, as you're aware, has plugins for various types of VPN software. It's easy to use, but it just seems to be awfully large and, occasionally, a little trouble-prone compared to wicd. I could generally just use /etc/network/interfaces and associated stuff, but was looking for a fiddle-free way to make my connections when I'm moving around while still enabling me to use OpenVPN. As I said, just about every write-up on using OpenVPN I can find tells me how to set up the server. Not what I want. All of the write-ups on OpenVPN client I've found tell me a) how to use OpenVPN with network-manager, or b) how to import a setup. Neither of those is of any use to me. I want to see if I can figure out how to use OpenVPN from the CLI or via script using a certificate and password to connect to my favorite VPN out on the Internet. Again, thank you for your reply. JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559bbe2e.5080...@comcast.net
Using OpenVPN client with wicd
I loved wicd and used it for several years but finally gave up and went with network-manager so that I could easily use a private VPN when I'm out-and-about and connecting to access points on the road. I've never really been thrilled with network-manager, though at least it works a lot better for me than it did years ago. Any time following a distribution upgrade or doing a new installation I can still count on some unpleasantness with network-manager, but I always manage to get it straightened out eventually. I've seen a few comments by folks like Bob Proulx concerning their appreciation of wicd, and I'm thinking of dropping the DE I'm currently using and just using a window manager. Under those circumstances, using wicd seems like a good idea. But I've done a lot of searching on getting OpenVPN to work without finding much that was of use to me. For one thing, almost all of the how-to docs I can find are explaining how to set up an OpenVPN server on a network at home. Even the man pages seem to be all about that and not about what I want to do. I want to find a way to use the OpenVPN client to connect to a publicly available OpenVPN server. The servers I use make use of a certificate downloaded to the local machine and a shared secret. I'm already using the servers via network-manager and the OpenVPN client. If any of you has managed to do this in conjunction with wicd, I'd really appreciate a pointer to information to help me get started. The man pages are kicking me in the boinloins. Heh. Thanks, JP -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/559ae3c0.1050...@comcast.net
Re: apt stuck at Reading database
On 04/13/2015 11:10 AM, Curt wrote: On 2015-04-13, Jape Person jap...@comcast.net wrote: IIRC apt-listbugs or apt-listchanges (or both) don't work without the deb-src entries in /etc/apt/sources.list. I think these are tools that They don't? Is that documented somewhere? Not that I can find. I remembered having to restore the deb-src lines after someone on this list (IIRC) suggesting doing that when I lost my ability to see changelogs for upgradable files from within the aptitude TUI. Restoring those deb-src lines did restore the ability to see the changelogs in aptitude. I'm pretty sure my memory on this is correct. I'm wondering if it was a bug in aptitude. I'll try to do some research to find out whether or not this is simply some confabulation / conflation created solely by my tiny mind. ;-) Debian users should be encouraged to use. At the least they provide a bit of a heads-up to the unwary during installations and upgrades. I used apt-listbugs when I ran testing to avoid unpleasant surprises (you just hold off on upgrading a day or two, and the surprise usually goes away of its own accord). For stable I don't see the point. But I do get your point. Depends what flavor (stable, testing, experiemental) of Debian you're running, IMHO. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/552c080f.8020...@comcast.net
Re: Who is systemd-gpt-auto-generator, and why does s/he not like my partition table?
On 10/15/2014 02:45 PM, Jape Person wrote:
On 10/15/2014 01:38 PM, Don Armstrong wrote:
On Wed, 15 Oct 2014, Sven Joachim wrote:
I don't think there is actually an I/O error here, looking at the code
systemd-gpt-auto-generator makes this error up:
,
| errno = 0;
| r = blkid_probe_lookup_value(b, PTTYPE, pttype, NULL);
| if (r != 0) {
| if (errno == 0)
| errno = EIO;
| log_error(Failed to determine partition table type of %s:
%m, node);
| return -errno;
`
Somebody who is familiar with libblkid (i.e. not me) might explain why
blkid_probe_lookup_value() apparently failed but did not set errno.
Great catch. Yeah, blkid_probe_lookup_value apparently just returns -1
on all errors, regardless of what the error was.
This is probably a bug in systemd-gpt-auto-generator, but upstream (and
the maintainer) would know much more than I.
Thank you, both!
I'll see if I can file a cogent bug report.
Please let me know if you have particular suggestions about that.
Just wanted to note that I did file a bug report
(765...@bugs.debian.org). It was even almost cogent, except for the part
where I pasted the contents of /etc/fstab into the template area after I
had already given bugreport permission to gather that information
itself! Der!
Again, thanks to Sven and Don for your interest.
Jape
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some hplip components non-functional after python changes?
Two clean installations of daily build of Debian Squeeze are unable to run hp-setup. I am using an Officejet 6310 connected to router on home network. All systems are Debian Squeeze. Two of them were installed a few months ago. At that time I was able to run hp-setup -i xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to set up the MFP so that its scanner could be used by those systems. When I tried the same setup procedure on the two new systems I got the following output from hp-setup: Traceback (most recent call last): File /usr/bin/hp-setup, line 45, in module from base import device, utils, tui, models, module File /usr/share/hplip/base/device.py, line 37, in module import status File /usr/share/hplip/base/status.py, line 40, in module import hpmudext ImportError: No module named hpmudext When I checked the older systems, they also failed to run hp-setup interactively with the same error. Their access to the scanner was no affected -- until I fiddled around with them by removing cups and hplip and then re-installing them. Now all four systems are similar in that they can use the printing functions of the OfficeJet 6310 just fine, but there's no way that I can find to make the scanner work. I ran hp-check -r and got about 23 errors and the suggestion in the summary to install python-qt4-dbus and python-reportlab. Their descriptions in the package manager didn't fill me with hope that installing them would be fruitful, but I did it anyway. The only improvement in hp-check after installing the packages is that hp-check isn't asking for them any more. But cupsext, pcardext, hpmudext, and scanext are not being found and are not loading. I performed the following checks after reading a FAQ (http://hplipopensource.com/node/323) I found from a link in a Question posted at the hplip launchpad site. python -V Python 2.6.5+ I used locate to find the four modules that hp-check says aren't loading (cupsext, pcardext, hpmudext, and scanext) with the following results: /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cupsext.la /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/cupsext.so /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/pcardext.la /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/pcardext.so /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/hpmudext.la /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/hpmudext.so /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/scanext.la /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/scanext.so ls -l /usr/lib/ | grep python lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Jun 18 06:12 libpyglib-2.0-python2.5.so.0 - libpyglib-2.0-python2.5.so.0.0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root12332 Jun 7 14:43 libpyglib-2.0-python2.5.so.0.0.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 32 Jun 18 06:12 libpyglib-2.0-python2.6.so.0 - libpyglib-2.0-python2.6.so.0.0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root12096 Jun 7 14:43 libpyglib-2.0-python2.6.so.0.0.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Apr 27 06:24 libpython2.5.so.1 - libpython2.5.so.1.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1232788 Apr 21 06:26 libpython2.5.so.1.0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 19 Jul 3 06:59 libpython2.6.so.1 - libpython2.6.so.1.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2394804 Jun 30 21:26 libpython2.6.so.1.0 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 5 14:51 python2.4 drwxr-xr-x 21 root root20480 Apr 27 07:15 python2.5 drwxr-xr-x 23 root root20480 Jul 3 15:05 python2.6 drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Mar 10 06:20 python3.1 I could see that the system is using Python 2.6.5 and that the missing modules are located at /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages. I started to copy the modules to /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages, but the site-packages subdirectory doesn't exist. I'm guessing that this is an issue with Debian Squeeze / Testing and the ongoing Python version migration. Right now I'm not sure whether to try to fix the systems in their current state or wait for developments in the Python migration. I also wasn't sure whether I should ask about this on the hplip launchpad site or on the Debian user list. (So I'm doing both.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4c360488.80...@comcast.net
Re: Re: Switching from NV to Nouveau in Squeeze
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Kelly Clowers wrote: I don't have Nvidia myself, but tt should be a matter of installing Nouveau, and then changing the Driver line in /etc/x11/xorg.conf from nv to Nouveau (or adding the line in the Device section if it doesn't exist). Good old /etc/X11/xorg.conf. There isn't one on this system. I used to hate fiddling around with that file. The transition to other means of controlling video has been fraught with peril for some, but a few false starts with video configuration on this system under various distributions finally convinced me that the voyage needed to be undertaken. Cheers, Kelly Clowers Many thanks for your response. Best, Sam -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4be9a941.7090...@comcast.net
Re: The future of nv driver (was: Linux compatible mainboards -another thought)
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: And I claim he would be better off using a card that doesn't use firmware[1] or uses free firmware, since non-free firmware is an issue for distributors and it's relatively easy to accidentally participate in distributing software in violation of its license. That's an interesting sticking point. In reality, the probability of my accidental participation in distribution of the software is probably pretty low, but I can certainly see the principle involved. I wouldn't want to be stuck without non-free available, but I recommend making hardware purchases that allow you to avoid non-free as much as possible. I'm gradually moving that way myself. (Desktop and laptop each need one driver from non-free.) That is most certainly my aim. Once you've got the hardware, you might as well use it, even if it requires non-free drivers. The manufacturer has already got their cut of what you paid; you are hurting none but yourself by not using it. You should try and avoid becoming dependent on that hardware, since that makes you dependent on non-free software. And, if I were stuck in a situation where I really, really needed to use (for instance) proprietary drivers so that I could use the 3D acceleration capabilities of the nvidia cards, or if I needed to use the wireless cards that require proprietary firmware, I'd do so -- though it would irk me a little bit, perhaps enough to goad me on into getting new hardware. It's not a religion, but the ideas are important to me. And, as I said, I'm also just genuinely interested in seeing how well I can do without the proprietary bits. The resolve is made all the stronger by my experiences in industry where I see what I think are some pretty unwise decisions being made by companies who are often unwittingly tying their fortunes irrevocably to the whims (business models, I think they call them) of other companies -- companies whose interests might (and do) run in a counter direction. The industries I've worked in might not have had very many choices (at least without incurring huge development costs) when making their hardware / software decisions. But, as an individual, I can do what I danged well please -- even if others may think that it looks like I'm just cutting off my nose to spite my face. ;) [1] Firmware here is specifically limited to executable data transmitted to the device from a host operating system, and does not include executable data loaded from an EEPROM (or similar) that is provided with the device. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd7208b.1000...@comcast.net
Re: Re: The future of nv driver (was: Linux compatible mainboards -another thought)
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Celejar wrote: On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 09:53:27 -0400 James P. Wallenjpwal...@comcast.net wrote: ... Heck, I haven't even installed the non-free firmware to make wireless work in a couple of these notebooks. Firmware runs on the external hardware, not the system, so system stability shouldn't be an issue. I assume that here it's just the principle of the thing. Celejar I'd characterize it as a combination of principle and curiosity. I really want to see how well I can accomplish what I want to do and what I need to do using only FOSS. I'm relatively new to GNU/Linux, but I've had very few problems that were at all difficult to resolve. Come to think of it, the only problems that were absolutely indomitable were caused by the use of non-free software / drivers in my earlier forays into the various distributions. I guess those experiences have strengthened my resolve to stick with FOSS. I have to admit that GoogleEarth would be a nice thing to have. Jim -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd5810c.7000...@comcast.net
Re: Icedove/Thunderbird 3.0 (was Re: The future of nv ...)
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/24/2010 06:11 PM, James P. Wallen wrote: [snip] PS: My apologies. Recent update to my mail client coupled with lack of sleep. I accidentally sent Ron a direct e-mail reply. Mea culpa. I don't think I've hated a program more than I hate Tbird 3.0. I know that I had a good reason for deciding to use it. I just can't remember what it was. Probably the Icedove vs. Thunderbird / Iceweasel vs. Firefox thing. Oh yeah. Now I remember. The integrated calendar -- which is a whole other realm of suffering. That, and wanting to go as standard with application choices in my early foray into Debian. I have a tendency to just stick with something and adapt if it at least works with reasonable consistency. But some things finally irk me enough to goad me out of my inertia. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd4384b.7040...@comcast.net
Re: Re: The future of nv driver
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Mark Allums wrote: On 4/24/2010 7:31 AM, John Hasler wrote: Mark Allums writes: Ah, a matter of taste, then. (Debian tastes bad with Nvidia loaded, apparently.) No. A matter of support. Okay. But perhaps a less loaded word than taint could be chosen. MAA I always had the feeling that tainted was not so much meant to be derogatory as to indicate that the use of proprietary blobs introduce unknown elements into the kernel. If I brought a glass of purple water down to the local water purification plant and complained that their water tasted like grapes, they'd tell me it wasn't their problem that I'd added grape kool-aid to it. Same thing. Well, except for that fact that it's a crappy analogy. ;) Hmmm. Maybe Debian could set up activation servers that could determine whether or not we are using genuine Debian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd43bd8.3050...@comcast.net
Re: Re: The future of nv driver (was: Linux compatible mainboards -another thought)
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Ron Johnson wrote: On 04/22/2010 08:49 AM, Stephen Powell wrote: [snip] I shall now avoid, when possible, computers with Nvidia graphics cards. Except that Nvidia's drivers are still *much* better than ATI's drivers. Insofar as my experience goes I'd have to qualify that with a /sometimes/ they are better... I've got a couple of fairly high-end Quadro graphics workstation cards that have given me fits in every distro I've tried. If I used restricted / blob / proprietary / whatever drivers -- whether I got them directly from nvidia or from distro-associated repositories -- the result was always that bits and pieces of the desktop environment would break from time-to-time. Trying to use Compiz under Gnome could be a nightmare. Using the nv drivers has at least always left me with a reliable system, albeit without much in the way of glitzy special effects. Right now I run a bunch of systems with ATI, integrated Intel, and the Quadro cards in them. I've settled happily into Debian Squeeze with Xfce. The desktop compositing in Xfce 4.6.1 even works with the nv drivers -- but very, very slowly. The far cheaper ATI and Intel graphics subsystems are snappy and responsive with the same environment. If I use the binary blob nvidia driver, I get fast, snappy -- and unreliable. I don't like that. And I don't like nvidia's attitude. I came over to GNU/Linux because I was tired of feeling that I was being screwed over in the name of business models and IP. I won't be buying any more nvidia stuff, either. Heck, I haven't even installed the non-free firmware to make wireless work in a couple of these notebooks. attachment: jpwallen.vcf
Re: Re: The future of nv driver
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Mark Allums wrote: On 4/24/2010 6:26 AM, Sven Joachim wrote: On 2010-04-24 12:24 +0200, Mark Allums wrote: I've never understood the use of the word taint in this context. It means the same as contaminate. The practical consequence is that nobody will accept bug reports against the kernel if the nvidia module is loaded. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/#s1-18 http://kerneltrap.org/node/5616 Ah, a matter of taste, then. (Debian tastes bad with Nvidia loaded, apparently.) Sorry, I must respectfully disagree, although I do acknowledge the practical problem of getting your machine running properly when no one will read your reports. MAA One of the primary reasons I started using GNU/Linux was that I was really tired of being stonewalled when looking for explanations for system functions and malfunctions. Trying to figure out a problem by looking through data that is limited to what the associated proprietary interests think you ought to know is no fun. I'd say that it's not a matter of taste so much as a matter of practicality. I wanted control of the systems that hold my data. This is where I found that control. And, yeah, I'm tired of vendors who think that they own me. I deal with enough of that crap at work. attachment: jpwallen.vcf
Re: Re: The future of nv driver (was: Linux compatible mainboards -another thought)
On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Ron Johnson wrote: That's one difference between us: I don't use Compiz. That's not a difference. I don't use it, either. My use of Compiz was just a part of exploration of the Gnome DE. I don't even use Gnome now. ... because I don't need glitzy special effects. Neither do I. That's why I use Xfce. Are there any non-glitzy benefits to compositors? I occasionally turn on Xfce's compositing for specific tasks in which it actually makes my work easier. But most if the time, it's off. Which driver version do you use? nv - Debian Squeeze Gave up finally in December last year trying to get the blobs to work reliably. They're simply not worth the effort for someone with my particular needs. I'm reasonably happy with the systems with the nvidia workstation cards. But the cheaper systems with Intel and ATI graphics are faster and handle any special effects I might want (like occasional use of desktop compositing) better, and I'm happier with them. Nvidia is simply not on my radar for any future systems because I consider their approach to Linux to be inimical to FOSS. PS: My apologies. Recent update to my mail client coupled with lack of sleep. I accidentally sent Ron a direct e-mail reply. Mea culpa. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd37aa0.2040...@comcast.net
Re: The future of nv driver
I occasionally turn on Xfce's compositing for specific tasks in which it actually makes my work easier. But most if the time, it's off. How do you enable it? Did you also have to add something to xorg.conf? Desktop compositing in Xfce? I just turn it on in the Compositing tab of the Window Manager Tweaks applet. No fiddling with xorg.conf necessary. What about GoogleEarth? I don't use it. I guess I ought to look into it. My brother showed me a really fantastic use he made of it for tracing the path of a priest through Colorado and Kansas in the 1600s for an anthropology paper he was doing. Just what I need, another way to spend time at a computer. But I have to admit that it's a fascinating application, despite my curmudgeonly tendency to scoff at fancy browser stuff. I don't suppose the bits are open source? If not, I'll probably be passing. Eh, maybe I could talk myself into running it in a virtual machine. ;) and I'm happier with them. Nvidia is simply not on my radar for any future systems because I consider their approach to Linux to be inimical to FOSS. That's a reasonable position to take... Well, I'm seldom accused of being reasonable. But I figure I can be unreasonable with my own systems. Thank you for the reminder of GoogleEarth. I've been so busy since I saw my brother that I had let it slip from my mind. Or it could just be old age. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/4bd3ae7c.9030...@comcast.net
Re: Re: [OT] Ubuntu vs Debian forums (was recompiling the kernel with a different version name)
Stephen Powell wrote: On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 13:13:22 -0400 (EDT), Bob McGowan wrote: I run Ubuntu on my laptop, because I got tired of the manual Nvidia setup every time the kernel changed. I have been a regular on this forum for several months now, and I know from experience that the topic of the proprietary nvidia driver has come up as a topic of frustration many times. I have a couple of machines at home with nvidia cards in them, and I plan to do some research in this area and publish my findings on a web page, assuming that I can find something useful to say. But first, I've got to get my taxes done! Man, can I sympathize with you two. I started using Linux about a year-and-a-half ago. Various versions of Ubuntu worked perfectly well on one notebook, and anything but perfectly on another. The other notebook has an nVidia Quadro 1400 Go display subsystem on it, and I was using the restricted (proprietary) drivers. Just about every time there was an update to GNOME or Xorg or maybe something else I would see new glitches on the system with the nVidia card. No problems on the system with the integrated Inel video. A year ago I switched to Debian testing and saw the same danged thing on the system with the nVidia video card. No problems on the system with the system with the integrated Intel video. I tried Xfce. Same weirdness, though a little less drastic. I reinstalled the OS on the nVidia-capped (as in handicapped) system, but this time just used the FOSS drivers. Yeah, it's slow -- especially desktop compositing. But the system is now as reliable as a train in countries where trains are reliable instead of messed up like in the U.S. I'm thinking that, if you want a system with nVidia parts to work well under Linux, you should stick with the open source drivers. I realize that I'm making a huge leap with my extrapolation, but I'm not going to be putting any blobs on my systems any time soon. I don't even have wireless because I've extended that philosophy all the way. No contrib, no non-free, no commercial stuff. It has been a really nice ride since I made that decision. Regards, Sam attachment: wallenjames.vcf
