OT: laptop evaluation

2024-07-02 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hello over there,

I'm considering purchase of Xiaomi Redmibook 16 Pro (2024) laptop: Intel 
Core Ultra 7 up to 4.8GHz, 32GB RAM, Intel Arc integrated graphics, 1TB 
SSD storage, 99Wh battery and 16” Super Retina display with 3.1K 
resolution.


The laptop has a very positive review on Notebookcheck. But now I'm do 
not know how Linux friendly (or unfriendly) it is. Does anybody has a 
personal experience with it? Any information, opinion, personal 
experience would be helpful.


Thanks.




Re: Anybody Skype users here?

2024-05-30 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hey Timothy, have you really read my post?

1. I wrote it clearly "I still need Skype". (And yes, I have my reasons 
for it, even if it surprises you.)
2. And how have you arrived to "Ubuntu" subject? I'm Debian user. Again 
read to post you replied to.
3. I really don't care what you personally use and if you are happy with 
it or not. I need a Skype user suggestion about a particular situation. 
You do not use Skype and have no clue to be in help. Then just skip off.


Boy, these thread hijacking boys are annoying.

Thanks


On 2024-05-30 7:06 p.m., Timothy M Butterworth wrote:



On Thu, May 30, 2024 at 6:59 PM Juan R.D. Silva 
mailto:juan.r.d.si...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Hi folks,

I use Skype installed from Debian official repo.  A couple of days ago
it refused to update reporting "server timed out". After looking into
it, I found that MS removed Skype.deb package from their server and
basically forces everyone to use Snap package instead.

Skype is the only app I would need Snap for on my system.
Unfortunately,
I still need Skype and I do not see any alternative but to concede
to MS
(and Ubuntu?) brute coercion.


To hell with Ubuntu, I use Google Voice, Chat and Meet. All three are 
free and work great just using the browser.


Any body installed Snap on their Debian system? Any problems with that
thing? Any suggestions to use Skype otherwise?

Thanks



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





Anybody Skype users here?

2024-05-30 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks,

I use Skype installed from Debian official repo.  A couple of days ago 
it refused to update reporting "server timed out". After looking into 
it, I found that MS removed Skype.deb package from their server and 
basically forces everyone to use Snap package instead.


Skype is the only app I would need Snap for on my system. Unfortunately, 
I still need Skype and I do not see any alternative but to concede to MS 
(and Ubuntu?) brute coercion.


Any body installed Snap on their Debian system? Any problems with that 
thing? Any suggestions to use Skype otherwise?


Thanks



Bookworm boot stacks with black screen after NVIDIA driver installed.

2023-08-15 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks.

Fresh Bookworm install on Dell M4800 Precision with i7-4810MQ CPU @ 
2.80GHz and NVIDIA Quadro K2100M graphic card. No problems install, the 
system works with the default nouveau driver well enough.


My video card is supported according to NVIDIA. Debian nvidia-detect 
advised installation of nvidia-tesla-470-driver available in repo. After 
installing it the system boot stacks somewhere in the middle with a 
weird black screen. No access to TTYs, no cursor, no reaction to 
keyboard. I tried to boot with "nomodeset" in GRUB with no result.


When rebooted in restore mode neither journal -b or journal -xe showed 
any problems. Nvidia module seems to be inserted and loaded. No other 
problems reported. The only way out is to execute 'apt purge "*nvidia*", 
and to reboot. The system then reverts to nouveau driver without any 
problems.


Anyone, please?

Thanks.



Re: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key [RESOLVED]

2023-08-15 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2023-08-08 10:52 a.m., Matthieu Roquejoffre wrote:

On 2023-08-08 at 03:37 p.m., Juan R.D. Silva wrote:> The problem is
resolved. My fault. :-).
Could you please explain to us what the cause of your issue was and how
you solved it ?
This could be useful for anyone facing a similar issue.


The whole thing was caused by a silly typo in CLI. So, I do not think 
the actual detailed report would be useful to anyone. I thought that 
stating:"My fault" was enough as an explanation.


Thanks.




Re: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key [RESOLVED]

2023-08-06 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2023-08-06 9:28 p.m., Juan R.D. Silva wrote:
I downloaded debian-12.1.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso, SHA512SUMS, and 
SHA512SUMS.sign files from 
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/.


$ sha512sum -c SHA512SUMS gives me OK. So the image is fine.

However verifying the signatures fails.

$ gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 10 Sep 2022 07:00:46 PM EDT
gpg:    using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

I downloaded the required key:
$ wget -c "https://www.debian.org/CD/key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt;

and imported it:
$ gpg --import key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt

When repeated verification get this:
gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 22 Jul 2023 01:04:11 PM EDT
gpg:    using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key 
" [unknown]


Can anybody explain it. I do not see what I'm doing wrong here.

Thanks.

The problem is resolved. My fault. :-).




Re: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key [RESOLVED]

2023-08-06 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2023-08-06 9:28 p.m., Juan R.D. Silva wrote:
I downloaded debian-12.1.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso, SHA512SUMS, and 
SHA512SUMS.sign files from 
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/.


$ sha512sum -c SHA512SUMS gives me OK. So the image is fine.

However verifying the signatures fails.

$ gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 10 Sep 2022 07:00:46 PM EDT
gpg:    using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

I downloaded the required key:
$ wget -c "https://www.debian.org/CD/key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt;

and imported it:
$ gpg --import key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt

When repeated verification get this:
gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 22 Jul 2023 01:04:11 PM EDT
gpg:    using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key 
" [unknown]


Can anybody explain it. I do not see what I'm doing wrong here.

Thanks.

The problem is resolved. My fault. :-).




BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key

2023-08-06 Thread Juan R.D. Silva
I downloaded debian-12.1.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso, SHA512SUMS, and 
SHA512SUMS.sign files from 
https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/amd64/iso-dvd/.


$ sha512sum -c SHA512SUMS gives me OK. So the image is fine.

However verifying the signatures fails.

$ gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 10 Sep 2022 07:00:46 PM EDT
gpg:using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

I downloaded the required key:
$ wget -c "https://www.debian.org/CD/key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt;

and imported it:
$ gpg --import key-DA87E80D6294BE9B.txt

When repeated verification get this:
gpg --verify SHA512SUMS.sign SHA512SUMS
gpg: Signature made Sat 22 Jul 2023 01:04:11 PM EDT
gpg:using RSA key DF9B9C49EAA9298432589D76DA87E80D6294BE9B
gpg: BAD signature from "Debian CD signing key 
" [unknown]


Can anybody explain it. I do not see what I'm doing wrong here.

Thanks.





11 to 12 - fresh install or upgrade

2023-08-06 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks,

It's time to move from bullseye to bookworm. Based on the previous years 
experience I've always preferred a fresh install vs. an upgrade, since 
the freshly installed system always run smoother and was not littered 
with any old junk left from the old system.


However, things might have changed/improved. Thus I decided to ask the 
community.


Could you share your opinion based on personal experience? To install or 
to upgrade? Mine is fairly simple desktop system for home use. Nothing 
special, except maybe the need of dual architecture support and Wine to 
run one special little app.


Thanks.





Potentially OT. Videos lagging & buffering in any browser but Google Chrome.

2023-03-25 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks,

Debian Bullseye here up to date. Browsers installed: Firefox, Opera, 
Vivaldi, and Google Chrome.


I'm having a weird problem streaming movies from archive.org. The movies 
are lagging & keep buffering in all browsers but Google Chrome. Google 
Chrome streams same movies at the same time without any stuttering.


So far I've notices it using on archive.org only, so I'm not sure if the 
problem is on my side or on archive.org. The problem is rather recent 
but persistent and in last days get really bad.


Any suggestions?

Thanks.



Re: LibreOffice - any way to recover not saved changes to the file?

2022-09-13 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

(short answer) No. Its more like "shit happens!"


It does indeed :-(


Even with best of knowledge and abilities, what once was in memory (RAM)
will be reused pretty quick, and if you chose to not autosave regularly,
there won't be much left, and even if there would be, the work to get it
into proper shape might easily exceed the amount of work to recreate it.


It was my wild guess as well :-). Posted the question any way out of 
disperation :-)



It is in your memory - in one form or another...


This was a good one :-) I'm an older fellow. :-)


So for now: Take advantage of "short term memory" and things like that.



For the future, you might invite different consequences. You could think
again about the autosave feature.


I was pissed off to find out that autosave is desabled by default. I 
used not to care. Looks like now I want to enable it. :-)


And finally: You could fight the rising of bad habits (like
involuntarily clicking on warning boxes, or such...) because - as we
know - the PEBCAK.


In my case it was the bad mouse with jumping cursor. Logitec certainly. 
Now I'm going to replace it.



To me, your question does ressemble - in some way - to the guy, who
would like to undo his divorce, while not wanting to change its behavior
towards members of the other sex. Not much, you can do, but remorse. ;-)


This one is even better that the first above. :-)

Thanks for you time. Oh, I did recreated it. And I even think is very 
close to original. :-)





LibreOffice - any way to recover not saved changes to the file?

2022-09-12 Thread Juan R.D. Silva
I edited a file for hours and then mistakenly clicked "Do not save" 
while closing file. Auto save is not enabled. No backup exist in 
LibreOffice Backup folder. The computer is not restarted yet. Temp 
folder have only old version. Any way to recover the lost edited 
version? Or the only option to suffer the lost and to start all over again?


Appreciate any help.

Thanks



Re: GNOME brightness controls have no effect on brightness

2022-04-06 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2022-04-05 7:06 p.m., David Wright wrote:

On Mon 04 Apr 2022 at 15:42:46 (-0400), Juan R.D. Silva wrote:

On 2022-04-04 5:17 a.m., davidson wrote:

On Sun, 3 Apr 2022 Juan R.D. Silva wrote:

[ … ]

Sorry for the rant but it looks that either GNOME folks decided they
know it best what it should be for everyone or they are so busy with
frequent "nice" GUI changes and re-designs that there is no time
left for actual functionality. Fake controls and sliders doing
nothing?.. This is really climax.


I have no patience for figuring out where graphical desktops hide (or
document) their "user friendly" configuration tools, so I can
sympathise.

Something like the above procedure (maybe with some extra exploration
of /sys/class) has always worked for me.

Good luck. Hope this helps.


Looks that I failed to deliver the point in my post.

All 4 steps are correct. And I most certainly can happily change the
value in the /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness file to
whatever I want. The problem is it does not have any effect on the
actual/physical screen brightness.

The change of the value in the
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness only results in the slider
in Brightness settings and other related GUI controls being carefully
and precisely re-positioned to reflect the new value in
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness.

This is why there was a rant. Looks that like in GNOME moving the
sliders around is the only goal. Well, that's been achieved. Greetings
to the devs. :-) Sorry for another one. :-)


Having had two good rants at Gnome, surely you now have
to tell us whether moving the sliders changes the value
in /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness, regardless
of any effect on the screen itself.


Yes, it does. Sorry, I thought it was clear from the context. Re-vied my 
wordings and see now it was not crystal clear. :-)





Re: GNOME brightness controls have no effect on brightness

2022-04-04 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2022-04-04 5:17 a.m., davidson wrote:

On Sun, 3 Apr 2022 Juan R.D. Silva wrote:

Hi folks,

Debian 11 on Dell M4800 Mobile Workstation with Nvidia Quadro K2100M 
card.


I've been using the system with full (100%) screen brightness for 
rather long time. Today I wanted to reduce it and to my astonishment 
found that GNOME "progressed" to the point when even this basic 
feature has gone.


The function keys work, the sliders move. Everything is dandy, except 
it has no effect on the actual brightness, which stack at 100%. Even 
setting the brightness in BIOS to 50% instead of 100% has no effect.



Google revealed a lot of complaints but so far I've not found any 
really helpful suggestion.  Worse, I even couldn't find any trace of 
this being a bug of some sort.


Anyone can help here? I'm getting old and my eyes sore. :-(


I'll show you what I do. I don't use GNOME, but maybe it will work.

Four steps:

1. Confirm this directory has expected contents:

   $ ls -p /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/
   actual_brightness  bl_power  brightness  device  max_brightness  
power/  subsystem  type  uevent


It has "brightness" and "max_brightness" files. So far so good.


2. Find out what counts as maximum brightness. (I think I have seen
this vary from laptop to laptop):

  $ cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/max_brightness
  7


3. Find out what value current brightness is:

  $ cat /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness
  5


4. As root, write some value less-than-or-equal-to maximum brightness
(found in step 2) into "brightness" file. For example, when 5 is too
bright, I might try replacing that with 4.

  # echo -n 4 > /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness

That is all.


Hope this helps.



Sorry for the rant but it looks that either GNOME folks decided they
know it best what it should be for everyone or they are so busy with
frequent "nice" GUI changes and re-designs that there is no time
left for actual functionality. Fake controls and sliders doing
nothing?.. This is really climax.


I have no patience for figuring out where graphical desktops hide (or
document) their "user friendly" configuration tools, so I can
sympathise.

Something like the above procedure (maybe with some extra exploration
of /sys/class) has always worked for me.

Good luck. Hope this helps.


Looks that I failed to deliver the point in my post.

All 4 steps are correct. And I most certainly can happily change the 
value in the /sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness file to 
whatever I want. The problem is it does not have any effect on the 
actual/physical screen brightness.


The change of the value in the 
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness only results in the slider 
in Brightness settings and other related GUI controls being carefully 
and precisely re-positioned to reflect the new value in 
/sys/class/backlight/acpi_video0/brightness.


This is why there was a rant. Looks that like in GNOME moving the 
sliders around is the only goal. Well, that's been achieved. Greetings 
to the devs. :-) Sorry for another one. :-)


Thanks.





GNOME brightness controls have no effect on brightness

2022-04-03 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks,

Debian 11 on Dell M4800 Mobile Workstation with Nvidia Quadro K2100M card.

I've been using the system with full (100%) screen brightness for rather 
 long time. Today I wanted to reduce it and to my astonishment found 
that GNOME "progressed" to the point when even this basic feature has gone.


The function keys work, the sliders move. Everything is dandy, except it 
has no effect on the actual brightness, which stack at 100%. Even 
setting the brightness in BIOS to 50% instead of 100% has no effect.



Google revealed a lot of complaints but so far I've not found any really 
helpful suggestion.  Worse, I even couldn't find any trace of this being 
a bug of some sort.


Anyone can help here? I'm getting old and my eyes sore. :-(

Sorry for the rant but it looks that either GNOME folks decided they 
know it best what it should be for everyone or they are so busy with 
frequent "nice" GUI changes and re-designs that there is no time left 
for actual functionality. Fake controls and sliders doing nothing?.. 
This is really climax.


Thank you,
Juan



Re: OT: anybody uses eero 6 WiFi router?

2022-01-13 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2022-01-13 2:20 a.m., Alexander V. Makartsev wrote:

On 13.01.2022 07:56, Juan R.D. Silva wrote:

Hi folks,

Shopping for a new ISP came across company that uses exclusively eero 
6 router. Anyone to share your experience/opinion about the thing?


2 concerns of mine are:
- cloud based private network management
- Amazon owned

Thanks

I've never used this thing, but if I had to choose I would choose 
against it.
If ISP uses eero 6 router exclusively, doesn't mean it is good, it is 
probably because of a special deal with Amazon.
Just by skimming few reviews I can see, it's a "black box" without any 
information about hardware inside, so it must be dirt cheap to produce.
Other concerns, it comes with Amazon spyware (content proxy) 
pre-installed, which raises privacy concerns.
It is impossible to control without a smartphone and special app, which 
leads to security concerns.
A few owners has reported about connectivity issues, that means a 
firmware is not stable enough.

There is no telling about for how long it will be supported by Amazon.
The only positive thing I can think of about this overpriced toy is an 
Amazon eco-system integration and Alexa interaction support. That is if 
someone needs something like that in their home.


If I was in the market for the router for myself, I'd always choose one 
from MikroTik¹.
They all have no-nonsence hardware and software design, no 
smartphone\app requirement, no eco-system requirement (like 'Ubiquiti' 
devices), it is highly customizable, has every feature you can think of, 
it could be controlled via many ways, secured and monitored and will be 
supported by manufacturer for years via firmware updates.
The only downside I can think of is somewhat advanced configuration 
could be difficult for somebody, but with help from official forum and 
wiki² quite manageable and as a bonus I'll learn a lot about networking, 
routing.



¹ https://mikrotik.com/products
² https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Main_Page



Wikipedia says:

"On 3 August 2018, MikroTik routers were found to have been compromised 
by the Coinhive cryptocurrency malware."


"Beginning in June 2021, a botnet composed of unprotected Mikrotik 
devices created huge volumes of application-layer traffic using http 
pipelining, resulting in DDOS. The net was named Mēris (or Meris) by 
Qrator. Yandex reported attacks beginning August 4 2021 (over 5 million 
requests per second) with a massive attack on September 5, 2021 reaching 
almost 22 million RPS (requests per second). Cloudflare acknowledged an 
attack at over 17 million RPS in July 2021. The botnet appeared to be 
composed of 250,000 devices."


Nice try Alexaner. :-)

Thanks anyway.



OT: anybody uses eero 6 WiFi router?

2022-01-12 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

Hi folks,

Shopping for a new ISP came across company that uses exclusively eero 6 
router. Anyone to share your experience/opinion about the thing?


2 concerns of mine are:
- cloud based private network management
- Amazon owned

Thanks



Re: Looking for recommendations [SOLVED (for now]

2021-12-30 Thread Juan R.D. Silva

On 2021-12-29 8:46 p.m., David Christensen wrote:

On 12/29/21 11:53 AM, Juan R.D. Silva wrote:


On 2021-12-28 8:31 p.m., Juan R.D. Silva wrote:
The headphone jack failed on my Dell M4800 laptop. I need to find 
reliable with decent stereo audio output External USB Sound 
Card/Audio Adapter with 3.5mm Stereo Headphone (3 pole plug) and Mono 
Microphone (nice to have) Jacks. It should be available in North 
America.


Any recommendations?

Thanks



 > Looks that I kind of solved it for now by cleaning the jack with the
 > toothpick soaked in alcohol. Silly solution. I'm not sure for how long
 > but the jack works now.
 >
 > Thanks for all replied folks.


It is easy to forget the old-school electronics technician skills -- 
good for you.  :-)



(If you need to do this again, Amazon carries "micro applicators" with 
2.0 mm diameter heads.)



David



Do you think you can provide a link for an example?

Thanks



Re: Looking for recommendations [SOLVED (for now]

2021-12-29 Thread Juan R.D. Silva
Looks that I kind of solved it for now by cleaning the jack with the 
toothpick soaked in alcohol. Silly solution. I'm not sure for how long 
but the jack works now.


Thanks for all replied folks.

On 2021-12-28 8:31 p.m., Juan R.D. Silva wrote:
The headphone jack failed on my Dell M4800 laptop. I need to find 
reliable with decent stereo audio output External USB Sound Card/Audio 
Adapter with 3.5mm Stereo Headphone (3 pole plug) and Mono Microphone 
(nice to have) Jacks. It should be available in North America.


Any recommendations?

Thanks







Looking for reccomendations

2021-12-28 Thread Juan R.D. Silva
The headphone jack failed on my Dell M4800 laptop. I need to find 
reliable with decent stereo audio output External USB Sound Card/Audio 
Adapter with 3.5mm Stereo Headphone (3 pole plug) and Mono Microphone 
(nice to have) Jacks. It should be available in North America.


Any recommendations?

Thanks