[Updated] How To Fix: Firewire IRQ Errors on Reboot

[RavenLX]

I've had problems with my ThinkPad T61 Freezing on me (wouldn't respond 
to keyboard, mouse, nothing). So I reinstalled Debian without the tlp or 
sensors stuff. I was back to the old IRQ problems (which turned into 
FIFO overrun errors if I put irqpoll in GRUB). It was just a constant 
cycle of problems. I finally fixed the errors but the computer is 
running quite sluggish now (and I haven't used it enough since to see if 
it was going to freeze or not - probably won't again as I'll just use it 
as a backup system in case my main system goes down).


Anyway, here's how to fix:

Computer: IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Laptop
OS: Debian 9 (Stretch):

Linux t61 4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.30-2+deb9u3 (2017-08-06) 
x86_64 GNU/Linux


Problems:

[   11.413790] [drm:i965_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* CPU pipe B FIFO 
underrun
[   11.678293] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20160919 for :00:02.0 on 
minor 0

[   12.374019] i915 :00:02.0: fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device

[   11.070526] [drm] Initialized
[   11.393344] [drm] Memory usable by graphics device = 512M
[   11.393348] [drm] Replacing VGA console driver
[   11.408922] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[   11.408924] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[   11.413790] [drm:i965_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* CPU pipe B FIFO 
underrun

[   11.672907] [drm] RC6 disabled, disabling runtime PM support
[   11.672927] [drm] initialized overlay support
[   11.678293] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20160919 for :00:02.0 on 
minor 0

[   11.743594] fbcon: inteldrmfb (fb0) is primary device
[   12.374019] i915 :00:02.0: fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device

Fix:

1. Download the BIOS Update ISO from here if you do not have the latest 
BIOS. To test to see if you do:


$ sudo dmidecode -s bios-version && sudo dmidecode -s bios-release-date
7LETD0WW (2.30 )
02/27/2012

2.30 is the latest. If you don't have it, get it here:

http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-67989

2. Burn the ISO to a CD-ROM. I tried putting this on a USB stick and 
while the ThinkPad can boot from USB, it will NOT boot this particular 
ISO from USB. The ReadMe that goes with it also states as such. So it 
must be a CD-ROM.


3. Boot the CD-ROM and update the BIOS.

4. Edit /etc/default/grub so that the following line is as shown:

/etc/default/grub: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="irqpoll nomodeset"

irqpoll is right after all, apparently. And nomodeset will remove the 
underrun error.


I hope this helps some folks or gives a clue as to what could be going 
wrong. If the laptop freezes and goes unresponsive again, I'll have to 
do a hard reset (holding the Power button down until it shuts off - can 
take 10 or more seconds for that to happen) and then dmesg to see what 
went wrong. But for now, this seems to at least get rid of all the errors.

Re: Virtualbox for stretch and buster not in repos

[RavenLX]

On 08/18/2017 10:25 AM, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 18-08-17, RavenLX wrote:

On 08/18/2017 09:14 AM, Sven Hartge wrote:

RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote:


I always used the Oracle repo anyway because it was updated more
frequently. But I do wish that something could be worked out so that
it would be back in Debian.


Highly unlikely, as Oracle behaves like this for all software released
and distributed by them.

Grüße,
Sven.



I wonder if there's a replacement for VirtualBox? I need something that will
allow me to share a directory between host and virtual machine, and to be
able to go between both quickly (I don't have a dual-screen system - no room
where I live for that). If I could find something that would work I'd
switch, I think. As for my friend, he would need far more features I guess
(I don't know what though).



qemu-kvm does not serve your needs? You can use it with GUI friendly
virt-manager, or from command line. And switching between host and guest
is switching between windows. As for shared directory, NFS?


The shared directory has to be a directory on the host (ie. ext4 is what 
I'm using). VirtualBox lets me share as many directories as I like and 
lets me specify which ones. I think I tried qemu and kvm and didn't even 
know how to use it or where to begin. I might have to revisit that 
sometime especially if I get tired of VirtualBox.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible? [was: Thoughts on Anible?]

[RavenLX]

On 08/19/2017 07:35 PM, deloptes wrote:

Zenaan Harkness wrote:


Pythong, -the- language for digital wedgies.


haha " digital wedgies"!
you don't have to know python to use ansible
Actually YAML is more important for ansible

regards


I always wanted to learn Python actually, and am learning it also for 
some work scripts I want to write.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible? [was: Thoughts on Anible?]

[RavenLX]

On 08/19/2017 05:52 PM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 02:32:45PM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

am learning Pythong.


Pythong, -the- language for digital wedgies.


ROTFLMAO! I think my typing needs to go bak to schtool. :P (That time 
typos were on purpose - just a little added humor ;) ) Whenever I go 
writing a post that is quite long, I will have to remind myself to: a) 
Never write a long post when tired and b) Proofread the post. Maybe a 
little dose of c) TBP (Think Before Posting) would also help in my case.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible?

[RavenLX]

On 08/20/2017 11:45 AM, deloptes wrote:

RavenLX wrote:


A friend suggested Ansible, but I think I agree with you that for what I
do, Ansible would be overkill. I have two laptops that I keep pretty
identical and so far have done well doing so with only a bash script I
wrote. As for servers I only maintain 1 web server and an identical test
server that is a virtual machine on my own computer. So I don't have a
lot of machines. (Well, to me they are not a lot).



Yes indeed, I think ansible is best when used to manage machines of similar
kind. If you want to keep your notebooks to same package and config level
it could be of advantage to write a simple ansible playbook to upgrade and
configure.

My experience is from a LXD project - roll out of the physical and then
virtual servers ... about 100+ in total.


Yaml is new to me. I'll have to look into it. I know a little about JSON
and XML but that's it.


Similar to JSON, but other logic and format. Don't worry if you have time to
play a bit, ansible could be fun and you can not only get management for
your notebooks, vms etc, but also learn YAML.

Note: under jessie you need to install and configure virtual python3 env and
pip install ansible into it.

Best use latest (and greatest) ansible version

regards


For what I do, I would install Debian (Stretch is what I'm currently 
using) without any Desktop environment. Then my Bash Script installs a 
minimum KDE (without a lot of the dependent software I never use). Then 
reboots and I re-run the script in a terminal, which detects KDE is now 
running and goes about installing all the rest of the stuff and updating 
configurations, etc. Works great on both machines.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible?

[RavenLX]

On 08/19/2017 02:43 AM, deloptes wrote:

RavenLX wrote:


Should Ansible be added to my list? Or do devs recommend something else?

(I am wondering if the "user" mailing list is even the right place to
ask?)


It was indeed a long reading. I couldn't understand why you exactly use
config automation.

In my opinion it is best suited where you must manage multiple devices of
same type and keep them at same state.
I wrote recently few ansible playbooks. If you are experienced you may not
need that much testing, but ... still it takes time to write and improve a
playbook.

Knowing ansible does not have anything to do with python. Actually you need
more yaml knowledge. There are ready modules that you can use.

regards


A friend suggested Ansible, but I think I agree with you that for what I 
do, Ansible would be overkill. I have two laptops that I keep pretty 
identical and so far have done well doing so with only a bash script I 
wrote. As for servers I only maintain 1 web server and an identical test 
server that is a virtual machine on my own computer. So I don't have a 
lot of machines. (Well, to me they are not a lot).


Yaml is new to me. I'll have to look into it. I know a little about JSON 
and XML but that's it.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible? [was: Thoughts on Anible?]

[RavenLX]

On 08/19/2017 03:40 PM, Osamu Aoki wrote:

Hi,


On Sat, Aug 19, 2017 at 02:32:45PM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

...


I think use of ansible or any similar tool is not prerequisite of
"development".  It's a configuration management system.   It's a nice
and interesting tool I am thinking to learn but I don't use it yet.


The biggest thing with me is my memory. In that if it takes too much to do a
task (ie. Ansible taking several lines to make a directory vs. Python taking
one line), then I tend to forget how things are done and it gets confusing.


You need C, Shell, Perl, Python, git, ... skills first for
development.


Great suggestions! Thank you. I do have some C programming skills but not
that great. I can get around the CLI pretty well, I'm proficient with Perl,
am learning Pythong. I had used git but I don't really have much to share
(right now) and so I don't have an account anymore there. Most of my stuff
is for my work, which doesn't really share stuff (though I could share my
code if I wish). I'm not thinking of going into a side-hobby of programming.
At work I manage a web server, and pretty much am more comfy with Perl and
Bash and now Python. But I also want to be sure to keep up with the times,
so to speak. So I wondered if other admins recommended Ansible as a "must
have skill" or just optional.


You are now talking different things.  "developer" --> "admins"

If you are managing multiple servers as profession, you need to make such
process recorded and reproducible.  That's what configuration management
system is for and it is becoming one of the very basic tool to know.

Good luck.

Osamu


I manage one server plus I have a test Virtual Machine I use on my 
computer to test things.


I also write scripts for the server to do some custom things we need to 
do. So I kind of do both things.

Re: Thoughts on Ansible? [was: Thoughts on Anible?]

[RavenLX]

On 08/19/2017 11:16 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

Just fixing the subject, for the benefit of search engines.

- -- t
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAlmYVkcACgkQBcgs9XrR2kb7fACfcOsMgvXnd34Ch56vm0dFrHMk
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-END PGP SIGNATURE-


Thank you. I'm sorry about the typo. I'll reply in this fixed thread.

On 08/19/2017 11:12 AM, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 18, 2017 at 07:01:03PM -0400, RavenLX wrote:
>> Please forgive my goofy questions. I am not really that well versed 
in CM

>> (Configuration Management) and this post is really going to show it.
>>
>> Because this will more than likely be tltr (too long to read), I'll 
try to

>> make it as fun as possible. Forgive if my humor is a bit strange.
>>
>> I noticed "Anible" isn't in the debian repos. Seems to be a Red Hat
>> scripting engine for creating automated installs.
>
> Just a fact correction.
>
> I think you are mistyping.  Ansible is in the repo of Debian:

Thank you. I think that's why I couldn't find it - I mispelled it. :)

[snipped apt show info]

...

> I think use of ansible or any similar tool is not prerequisite of
> "development".  It's a configuration management system.   It's a nice
> and interesting tool I am thinking to learn but I don't use it yet.

The biggest thing with me is my memory. In that if it takes too much to 
do a task (ie. Ansible taking several lines to make a directory vs. 
Python taking one line), then I tend to forget how things are done and 
it gets confusing.


> You need C, Shell, Perl, Python, git, ... skills first for
> development.

Great suggestions! Thank you. I do have some C programming skills but 
not that great. I can get around the CLI pretty well, I'm proficient 
with Perl, am learning Pythong. I had used git but I don't really have 
much to share (right now) and so I don't have an account anymore there. 
Most of my stuff is for my work, which doesn't really share stuff 
(though I could share my code if I wish). I'm not thinking of going into 
a side-hobby of programming. At work I manage a web server, and pretty 
much am more comfy with Perl and Bash and now Python. But I also want to 
be sure to keep up with the times, so to speak. So I wondered if other 
admins recommended Ansible as a "must have skill" or just optional.

Thoughts on Anible?

[RavenLX]

Please forgive my goofy questions. I am not really that well versed in 
CM (Configuration Management) and this post is really going to show it.


Because this will more than likely be tltr (too long to read), I'll try 
to make it as fun as possible. Forgive if my humor is a bit strange.


I noticed "Anible" isn't in the debian repos. Seems to be a Red Hat 
scripting engine for creating automated installs.


I wrote my own automated install script in Bash. Crude but worked. It 
didn't run as root (but would ask for sudo password if a command 
required it), and it ran on the machine that was to use apt-get and 
install packages, sed for editing configs, etc. Like I said, crude.


I'm currently learning Python (as in writing something while learning at 
the same time). So I'm re-writing my Bash script in Python as a practice 
project to learn from, and making it more general so I can use it with 
anything. I'm still in the process of creating the library of functions 
that will do the stuff like unzipping/untaring, installing packages, 
making directories, updating configuration files, etc. So far, it's 
really a lot easier than doing it all in Bash and I'm enjoying the 
learning process. It's going very well, actually.


I heard about "Ansible" and how it is supposed to make it easier to 
write installation scripts.


I took a look at the Ansible site's Quick Start video and was like 
'huh?' 'what?' "what just happened??" "What is he DOING??" I couldn't 
even decipher what he was saying, either (and English is my mother 
language). Then my eyes nearly popped out of my head. "Why in the blue 
blazes is he running this script on ONE machine, then ssh'ing into 
another machine as ROOT nonetheless and doing stuff on that remote 
machine as root via this scripting engine on the first machine? Isn't 
that supposed to be a big no-no or something??" I was thinking that's a 
lot of work to do when all you could do is write a Python (or bash) 
script and run it on the machine it's to install stuff on, then remove 
the script when done, and not have to ssh in as root! I felt too 
uncomfortable with the way the video was going about things.


Oh wait. He installs Ansible on the machine he just ssh'ed into as root 
and is running the script via Ansible on that machine. Ok, now that I 
think about it, how do you make sure all of Ansible is removed when 
done? I would at least want to uninstall Ansible afterwards so someone 
can't break in and use it to screw up the system. But then again, would 
they be able to?


I googled and saw that to make a directory using Ansible, you need to 
remember and write several lines in the YAML script. In python, it seems 
only one line was needed to create a directory (and with permissions).


I tried looking at Ansible's documentation. I recoiled worse than a 
(wait for it) Python! I'm one that learns by doing, not by reading "War 
and Peace" (which like this post, is tltr)!


My bash script (and python script) both run as current user and beep 
then ask for a sudo password whenever it needs to run something as sudo 
(if the sudo time hasn't timed out). It does the task as sudo and then 
goes on to the next task (which may or may not be sudo - if it's not, 
then it doesn't use sudo or root). So much of the script is run NOT as 
root/sudo. I assumed that is the best way to go about it? Also my script 
has colored output and a log file I can look at to see what got 
installed, when and where and how, or why something didn't get done, or 
edited, installed, etc.) The Ansible video only showed something was 
done but not what, and an IP address (which is not something useful in 
my situation).


For some strange reason, I'm finding my script easier to use and Python 
easier to write than trying to figure out Ansible. Besides, Python and 
Bash come pre-installed anyway.


Am I goofy or what? Someone please talk me into using Ansible. It seems 
googling, many people sing it's praises, but I'm not getting it for some 
reason. I'm petrified of that thing! I'm enjoying the process of 
learning Python, though.


Should I learn Ansible as well? Would it be a good skill? Or is it OK to 
just skip that idea and continue doing things my old-fashioned way using 
what's already there - bash or python?


I would like to have some decent linux development skills. I do know 
Perl quite well, and Bash I'm pretty decent at for the most part. I can 
write in C or C++ (and get myself in trouble, as you'd imagine). :)


Should Ansible be added to my list? Or do devs recommend something else?

(I am wondering if the "user" mailing list is even the right place to ask?)

Re: Virtualbox for stretch and buster not in repos

[RavenLX]

On 08/18/2017 10:44 AM, Patrick Bartek wrote:

On Fri, 18 Aug 2017 10:02:03 -0400 RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net>
wrote:

I wonder if there's a replacement for VirtualBox? I need something
that will allow me to share a directory between host and virtual
machine, and to be able to go between both quickly (I don't have a
dual-screen system
- no room where I live for that). If I could find something that
would work I'd switch, I think. As for my friend, he would need far
more features I guess (I don't know what though).


Virtualbox has shared folders (directory) as well as shared Clipboard.
You just need to install Guest Additions in the Guest OS to enable it.
I use both all the time.

VB has a lot of other features.  Just read the manual.

B


I know, I use the shared folders and clipboard in VirtualBox all the 
time. But with the way Oracle seems to be going with things, what if 
someone wants to switch *away* from VirtualBox and use something else? 
What other VM systems have these same features (which I really need)?

Re: Virtualbox for stretch and buster not in repos

[RavenLX]

On 08/18/2017 09:14 AM, Sven Hartge wrote:

RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote:


I always used the Oracle repo anyway because it was updated more
frequently. But I do wish that something could be worked out so that
it would be back in Debian.


Highly unlikely, as Oracle behaves like this for all software released
and distributed by them.

Grüße,
Sven.



I wonder if there's a replacement for VirtualBox? I need something that 
will allow me to share a directory between host and virtual machine, and 
to be able to go between both quickly (I don't have a dual-screen system 
- no room where I live for that). If I could find something that would 
work I'd switch, I think. As for my friend, he would need far more 
features I guess (I don't know what though).

Re: Virtualbox for stretch and buster not in repos

[RavenLX]

On 08/15/2017 12:37 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

On Fri, Aug 11, 2017 at 01:18:22PM +0200, Sven Hartge wrote:

Robert Menes  wrote:


Is there a reason why virtualbox hasn't migrated into stretch or
buster yet?


Short Answer: Because of Oracle.

Longer Answer: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=794466

Summary: Virtualbox will at the current state of affairs never be in
Testing or any stable release or stable-backports ever again.



I feel this answer is slightly disingenuous.

Yes it is true the official Debian repo won't contain Virtualbox again
until Oracle make changes they will most likely never make.

But, you can get VirtualBox to work just fine on post-Jessie Debian by
adding the following to your sources.list or sources.list.d:

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian stretch contrib

(Obviously you wouldn't use stretch, I am on stretch so that is what I
use)

then apt update and bob will be your uncle, and fanny will be your aunt.

Mark


I'm using the exact line you quoted (using 'stretch' in the virtualbox 
line) and it's not complaining at all. Works fine on this end. Also, I 
put it in a separate file in the sources.list.d but I don't know if that 
matters?


I use virtualbox for development and testing, so for me it's a 
must-have. A friend of mine recently moved from hardware servers to 
Debian Stretch + VirtualBox (I told him how to use the virtualbox.org 
repo as I too discovered it wasn't in the Debian repo).


I always used the Oracle repo anyway because it was updated more 
frequently. But I do wish that something could be worked out so that it 
would be back in Debian.

Re: How To Fix: Firewire IRQ Errors on Reboot

[RavenLX]

After some experimentation, I found that if you use "irqpoll" in the 
Grub command line, you'll end up with buffer underrun errors on a 
Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad T61.


Substitute this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="irqpoll"

With this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="noirqdebug"

[original post below:]

To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: How To Fix: Firewire IRQ Errors on Reboot
From: RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net>
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2017 09:25:52 -0400
Message-id: <[?] 5abcce6c-1786-f85c-5ffe-4f9821aac...@sitesplace.net>

I would like to share another discovery. This one fixed my firewire IRQ 
errors when rebooting my ThinkPad T61.


(Not-So-Obligatory) Disclaimer:
---

While, I do not notice any change in overall functionality of the laptop 
as a result of this fix, I also do not know what the referenced setting 
is really used for. Do this at your own risk! I hold no responsibility 
for the outcome!


System:
---

IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Laptop
* This may (or may not) work on other ThinkPad Laptops.

Debian 9 (Stretch) RC4
4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.25-1 (2017-05-02)

Problem Description:


I came across the following errors whenever rebooting:

irq 17: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option
handlers:
[<fffc01b8c10] irq_handler [firewire_ohci]
[<fffc0074040] usb_hcd_irq [usbcore]
Disabling IRQ #17

How To Fix:
---

Edit as root: /etc/default/grub

Change:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

To:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="irqpoll"

NOTE: If you have another option in the command line, then use spaces to 
separate each option. Example:


GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="[option1] irqpoll"

$ sudo update-grub

(NOTE: The 2nd reboot should show no more errors.)

Re: Darn 'beep' stoped working after installing Stretch in place of Jessie

[RavenLX]

On 08/02/2017 10:38 AM, david...@freevolt.org wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jul 2017, Juan R. de Silva wrote:


Hi folks,

I installed (fresh install instead of an upgrade) Debian Stretch on my 
laptop.
The installation is full success without any problem except a little 
one -
'beep' does not produce a sound neither from CLI nor from a bash 
scripts. I had

Jessie installed on the same laptop before and it worked just fine.

I checked everything I possibly could: pcspkr module loaded, alsa does 
not have
any muted channels, tried to use it as a user and as a root. No clue 
why it does

not work any longer in Strech.

Any suggestions?


Possibly the following excerpt from https://github.com/johnath/beep/
applies. (TLDR: Skip to the end, read the last three quoted lines.)

| A note about ioctl
| --

[snip]


| What this means is that root can always make beep work (to the best
| of my knowledge!), and that any local user can make beep work, BUT a
| non-root remote user cannot use beep in it's natural state. 


Amazingly, I tried 'sudo beep' in Konsole and it worked! So this is not 
going to be a problem for my script because some items in the script use 
sudo anyway. I'll just do that with beep as well.

Re: Darn 'beep' stoped working after installing Stretch in place of Jessie

[RavenLX]

On 08/01/2017 01:13 PM, Juan R. de Silva wrote:

On Tue, 01 Aug 2017 17:17:05 +0200, Dejan Jocic wrote:


On 01-08-17, RavenLX wrote:

Having it work out-of-the-box would be nice. After a fresh install, I
have a bash script I run that installs all the apps I use and
configures them. Sometimes though, there are things that a user needs
to answer. Thus, if I want to have the script running and go do
something else, I want to "beep" when it's going to need attention by
the user. I noticed this does not work in Stretch so I ended up
removing the part to install the "beep" package and use beep to alert
the user. I have tried escape codes via echo -e as well, and no beep
there either.



Does printf "\a" works for you? Though, echo -e "\a" works here too.


printf "\a" and echo -e "\a" work, as well as all other versions of
echo like:
echo -e \\a
echo -e '\a'
echo -en '\x07'
echo -en "\x07"

However neither of them produces an expecting "beep sound" (do not
confuse with 'beep' comand/utility). Exsecuting any of the above
produces default system "Sounds Effects" sound instead.


When I tried it in Konsole (the printf and the echo -e "\a" lines) I got 
no sound. In Xterm I got the default beep that I don't think is from the 
sound subsystem. Sounded very much like a standard terminal beep.

Re: Darn 'beep' stoped working after installing Stretch in place of Jessie

[RavenLX]

On 08/01/2017 11:24 AM, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:

On Tue, 01 Aug 2017, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 01-08-17, RavenLX wrote:

Having it work out-of-the-box would be nice. After a fresh install, I have a
bash script I run that installs all the apps I use and configures them.
Sometimes though, there are things that a user needs to answer. Thus, if I
want to have the script running and go do something else, I want to "beep"
when it's going to need attention by the user. I noticed this does not work
in Stretch so I ended up removing the part to install the "beep" package and
use beep to alert the user. I have tried escape codes via echo -e as well,
and no beep there either.


Does printf "\a" works for you? Though, echo -e "\a" works here too.


If it doesn't, you likely must fiddle with "digital beep" controls in
the sound subsystem.  Check alsa (alsactl, amixer...) and pulse audio
(pauvcontrol).  And try it from an xterm or the Linux text-mode console
just to make sure the beep ioctl is actually being issued...



That's weird. I tried it in XTerm and it works. It doesn't in Konsole 
though. I think you might be right about the sound subsystem. Seems like 
a lot to go through though to set up terminal beeps in Konsole. I guess 
maybe in my particular case (note that I am *not* the OP), I may just 
have to run my script from XTerm if I want beep notifications.

Re: Darn 'beep' stoped working after installing Stretch in place of Jessie

[RavenLX]

On 08/01/2017 11:17 AM, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 01-08-17, RavenLX wrote:

Having it work out-of-the-box would be nice. After a fresh install, I have a
bash script I run that installs all the apps I use and configures them.
Sometimes though, there are things that a user needs to answer. Thus, if I
want to have the script running and go do something else, I want to "beep"
when it's going to need attention by the user. I noticed this does not work
in Stretch so I ended up removing the part to install the "beep" package and
use beep to alert the user. I have tried escape codes via echo -e as well,
and no beep there either.



Does printf "\a" works for you? Though, echo -e "\a" works here too.


I just now tried it in Konsole. Nope, doesn't work.

[SOLVED] Re: KDE: GIMP tool tips are blank

[RavenLX]

On 07/29/2017 06:04 AM, Curt wrote:

On 2017-07-28, RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote:

I am using the default theme "Breeze" for both GTK and KDE (ie. never
changed it) in KDE. Whenever I use gimp and hover over something, the
tool tip is blank. Now I am not so sure if it's GTK related or not
because when I hover over something in Thunderbird, the tool tips are
black with white letters.


Appearance -> Colors (in System Settings)
"Apply colors to non-KDE4 applications"
uncheck the checkbox?


That worked! Thank you.

Re: Darn 'beep' stoped working after installing Stretch in place of Jessie

[RavenLX]

On 07/31/2017 05:21 PM, Juan R. de Silva wrote:

Hi folks,

I installed (fresh install instead of an upgrade) Debian Stretch on my laptop.
The installation is full success without any problem except a little one -
'beep' does not produce a sound neither from CLI nor from a bash scripts. I had
Jessie installed on the same laptop before and it worked just fine.

I checked everything I possibly could: pcspkr module loaded, alsa does not have
any muted channels, tried to use it as a user and as a root. No clue why it does
not work any longer in Strech.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.


I've noticed that as well. I'm very sorry I don't know if my experiences 
below is a solution for you (or at all) but maybe my saying something 
might mean others won't think as I first did that it was my hardware or 
something. Sound does work fine in my system. I even tried adjusting the 
sound levels and setting notifications for system beep. Nothing seemed 
to work.


Having it work out-of-the-box would be nice. After a fresh install, I 
have a bash script I run that installs all the apps I use and configures 
them. Sometimes though, there are things that a user needs to answer. 
Thus, if I want to have the script running and go do something else, I 
want to "beep" when it's going to need attention by the user. I noticed 
this does not work in Stretch so I ended up removing the part to install 
the "beep" package and use beep to alert the user. I have tried escape 
codes via echo -e as well, and no beep there either.


As for more information, I've tried this in a regular non-GUI shell 
(before installing a desktop environment) and also while in Konsole 
(KDE's terminal program). It did not work.


Now, if you install beep *after* you have installed your desktop 
environment, then it *does* work when you type "beep" at the Konsole 
prompt and in bash scripts.


I don't know why this is other than maybe you have to have your sound 
system pre-installed.


I don't know if this information would help you. I am beginning to 
wonder also if the update to 9.1 fixed things. I had the experience with 
9.0.


Another thing to try is to update your system to 9.1 and see if that 
fixes it.

KDE: GIMP tool tips are blank

[RavenLX]

I am using the default theme "Breeze" for both GTK and KDE (ie. never 
changed it) in KDE. Whenever I use gimp and hover over something, the 
tool tip is blank. Now I am not so sure if it's GTK related or not 
because when I hover over something in Thunderbird, the tool tips are 
black with white letters.


I'd like to get black letters on light background in gimp (what I think 
it was supposed to be).


Anyone know of a fix for this?

BTW, I'm using Stretch with all the latest updates.

Re: video driver?

[RavenLX]

On 07/18/2017 01:43 AM, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Mon, 17 Jul 2017 22:38:55 -0500
Doug  wrote:

Hello Doug,


I get so sick of this! Did you PAY for your nvidia software? No? then


Anyone that buys an nVidia chipset GFX card pays for the nVidia drivers -
whether they use them, or not.


it was FREE!


No, it wasn't.  Cost is hidden, but is still there.

In any case, the 'free' that Teemu was referring to was freeDOM.  That
is, the restrictions the nVidia license places upon the buyer.


This poses an interesting question: Why would a company keep something 
proprietary such as a driver? In my mind, those that *can* make use of 
it, like you said, already bought the product that has the chip. Those 
that haven't bought the product thus would not be able to use the driver 
anyway. So logically speaking, a driver that is not proprietary (ie. is 
open source) really can't be used by anyone other than someone who 
already paid the company anyway.


As a programmer, I don't think many (if any) would be able to say, 
reverse-engineer a chip or device, etc. and replicate it just by looking 
at programming code (unless I'm mistaken)?

Re: How to gain control over the system?

[RavenLX]

On 07/12/2017 09:21 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:

[snip]


I've been following this back-and-forth for a while. Yes, I think it's
a good idea to use the root account as little as possible. Myself, I
use sudo in the overwhelming majority of cases.

But I learnt the hard way that sometimes it's a good idea to keep a
root account (with a corresponding password!) around.

When the system boots and the root file system is corrupt (or a
similar early-boot problem happens), you find yourself staring at
a message more or less looking like that:

  Please enter your root password to start a rescue shell:

(message is from memory, but you get the -uh- message).

This was shortly after Debian convinced me that having a root password
is The Evil Itself.

Duh.

I'm wiser now.

(Yah, there is a workaround for that: a rescue disk, and that's how
I got myself out of that, but hey).


I have only used a rescue disk once many years ago. That was because of 
a failing hard drive. Got the data from it OK, thankfully.



Of course: no remote login as root (sshd_config). Use sudo in normal
life (it's more comfortable, anyway). All that. Use a hard-to-guess
root password (pwgen -n 16, for me).

But. A root password doesn't make your system more insecure (unless
it opens up one more remote access). And sometimes, just sometimes
you wish you had one :-)


I use a laptop but I've never needed to ssh into a laptop computer. 
Also, if you want to set up ssh, add ssh client and set up your user 
(sudo enabled) account and random obscure port in sshd config. Be sure 
to set it up so that it uses a key pair. Then you still won't need root 
over ssh.


I'm not totally convinced that having a root account accessible 24/7 is 
a good idea, especially on portable systems that can also be accessed 
via internet.

Re: How to gain control over the system?

[RavenLX]

On 07/09/2017 06:11 PM, Kaj Persson wrote:

Hi Jimmy,
Well, I did not follow your suggestion exactly, but as people has said,
the root account is already and always  there, even it has not been
assigned a password. So, against my real whish, not to activate the root
account, I gave the command sudo passwd root, and entered a password.
And now I suppose I have burned my ships and have no way back...


[Snip]

To remove the root password so root can't log in again:

sudo passwd -l root

It'll report that the root password expiry has changed:

from man passwd:

  -l, --lock
Lock the password of the named account. This option disables a password 
by changing it to a value which matches no possible encrypted value (it 
adds a ´!´ at the beginning of the password).


Note that this does not disable the account. The user may still be able 
to login using another authentication token (e.g. an SSH key). To 
disable the account, administrators should use usermod --expiredate 1 
(this set the account's expire date to Jan 2, 1970).


Users with a locked password are not allowed to change their password.

[end of man entry]

Now, nobody can log in as root. But, root account is still there if you 
need it. To get it back and give it a password:


sudo passwd -u root
sudo passwd root

(Then type in a secure password for root.)

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 07/05/2017 08:20 AM, Dejan Jocic wrote:
[snipped original message]


As explained before, settings for unattended-upgrades are in the
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades. You can set it to download
and install just security updates, which is default. Or, you can set it
to download and install all updates, if you uncomment certain lines, or
add new ones. Think that you can also set it from apper, or
plasma-discover, whatever kde uses these days. Or
software-properties-kde, if it is similar to software-properties-gtk.


I've uninstalled apper and plasma-discover when I did my install because 
I am not into gui-based updating of software. My bad, I guess! KDE seems 
to have installed both of those by default. If I need to make the 
changes, I think I'll go with your suggestion of editing the file.

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 07/02/2017 10:32 AM, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 02-07-17, RavenLX wrote:

On 07/01/2017 03:54 PM, Larry Dighera wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:31:37 -0400, you wrote:


Someone else mentioned unattended upgrades, which is a thing I have
never used, and which is also a thing I would disable if I ever found
it running.  But that's just me.


I would like to do that but don't know how. Anyone caring to enlighten
me without me having to bother poor old Mr. Google yet again - it would
be appreciated. :)


Perhaps you'll find this useful:


[Snipped script]

Thank you! I will have to give that a try.



If you wish to use the script for that. But simpler solutions were
already given to you. Did you try them?


Probably because I didn't see them until after I made my post (since 
those messages came in after I submitted my reply). :)


I decided after some thought to leave things as-is for now. But it's 
good to know that it's easily changeable if I should wish to do so in 
the future.


Thing is, I don't use the GUI for everything and have plasma-discover 
and plasma-discover-common uninstalled. Where else in the GUI should I 
be able to change this setting (if I want to in the future)?

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 07/01/2017 12:39 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Fri 30 Jun 2017 at 22:46:35 (+0200), Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 30-06-17, David Wright wrote:


I'm not sure what this is all about; unattended-upgrades appears
to have been maintained by the same person since the days of etch,
a decade ago. What constitutes an advertisement, and how is the
question posed as to whether updates are automatic or not?

Cheers,
David.



Probably because unattended-upgrades were not pulled in before
automatically on install of Debian. In Stretch, through some added
recommends, they are installed by default on at least Gnome and KDE
tasks.


My points were aimed at two sections: "how did this got to stable
without really being advertised properly through those running
testing. I was under the impression that for anything other than
security-bug-fixes everything goes through the unstable and testing
first. This seems as something that appeared behind us."
and
"An update of apt/synaptics/aptitude could have included
the option to consciously choose between auto or manual updates."

Neither of those have been addressed.

But on your point of what's pulled in automatically by accepting
recommendations, I can't see a great difference between jessie and
stretch; either of  task-gnome-desktop  or  task-kde-desktop
appears to install  unattended-upgrades  by virtue of the chains
of dependencies/recommendations below.


[snip]

There's this one difference in my system. In Jessie I was using XFCE for 
my desktop. Now in Stretch, I decided to go with KDE.

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 06/30/2017 08:54 PM, Jimmy Johnson wrote:

On 06/30/2017 06:56 AM, RavenLX wrote:

I think I might have a problem. I do the sudo apt-get update and then
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and ever since I have installed Debian 9
(after the official release) I have not seen any updates. Yet in Ubuntu
14.04 server there were updates to the kernel and to Apache. I've been
watching Debian-Security and noticed there are some updates coming up.
But I haven't seen any when I go to do the update.


How did you get sudo? Users do not have sudo rights by default.


When installing, it asks me for a root password and says that if you do 
not provide one, then the user you set up (on the next screens) will be 
granted sudo privileges. This is what I did. Left the Root password 
blank and filled in the user information on the next screen. I prefer 
not to give root any password or access on my systems.



Also, if you used the live dvd it's screwing up apt gpg-keys and you
will not see updates until the keys are fixed.  Or maybe you have some
other kind problems.


I didn't use a live DVD during installation. I used the firmware 
(non-free) version DVD (because my laptops are old and need some of the 
drivers - one needs a non-free firmware driver just to connect to the 
internet).


Seems from what I'm reading here, there were no problems and Stretch 
installed just fine and configured as it was supposed to. I just have to 
get used to doing things a little differently than I'm used to. I was 
used to at least 2 or 3 packages updraded per week on some weeks (and 
some weeks nothing) but that was in the last year of Jessie. Now that 
Stretch is new, I guess I won't see many upgraded packages (if any) for 
awhile. I checked and security updates are being installed automatically 
(as is default). I decided maybe I shouldn't change that "feature" after 
all. Would save me having to do updates manually for the most important 
stuff.

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 06/30/2017 12:34 PM, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 30-06-17, RavenLX wrote:



If you have unattended-upgrades package installed and it is configured
to fetch and install security updates only ( which is default ), that is
place to look for upgraded packages. You can also configure
unattended-upgrades to mail you where there was updates/upgrades and all
that jazz.


How do I go about upgrading then? I don't know of how to do it any other way
than via apt-get. Also I don't want to have it email me anything. I usually
go to the command line, do a series of commands and upgrade the system. I
would like to continue to do things that way. I do this once a week (usually
Thurs. but now I'm switching to Fridays).



Well, as you could see from your log, unattended-upgrades did it job and
upgraded security packages. If you want to keep those auto
updates/upgrades for security packages ( not that you will get much more
updates than those now that stretch is stable ), you do not have to do
anything. Security updates will be done automatically.


I saw another security update and went and checked to see what version I 
had installed. It looks like it did in fact automatically install the 
update.


While it might be hard to get used to at first, I think I'll leave it 
as-is since this would ensure that my system is automatically up to date 
on security issues.


Maybe it's a good thing after all and time for me to make a little 
change in my routine? :)


Would this affect other updates (ie. bug-fix) of packages or is this 
only for the security repo? Should I still do the apt-get routine weekly 
just in case? I would surmise that we probably won't get any 'normal' 
but fix updates for a long time since Stretch was just released?

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 07/01/2017 03:54 PM, Larry Dighera wrote:

On Fri, 30 Jun 2017 16:31:37 -0400, you wrote:


Someone else mentioned unattended upgrades, which is a thing I have
never used, and which is also a thing I would disable if I ever found
it running.  But that's just me.


I would like to do that but don't know how. Anyone caring to enlighten
me without me having to bother poor old Mr. Google yet again - it would
be appreciated. :)


Perhaps you'll find this useful:


[Snipped script]

Thank you! I will have to give that a try.

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 06/30/2017 10:30 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 10:24:15AM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

Here's what's on the system:

ravenlx@hpg7:~$ uname -r
4.9.0-3-amd64


That only tells you the package name, not the version.  Use "uname -a"
to get the actual running version,


ravenlx@hpg7:~$ uname -a
Linux hpg7 4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.30-2+deb9u2 (2017-06-26) 
x86_64 GNU/Linux



or "dpkg -l linux-image\* | cat"
to get the installed kernel versions.


ravenlx@hpg7:~$ dpkg -l linux-image\* | cat
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| 
Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend

|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name  Version Architecture Description
+++-=-===--===
un  linux-image(no 
description available)
ii  linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64 4.9.30-2+deb9u2 amd64Linux 4.9 for 
64-bit PCs
ii  linux-image-amd64 4.9+80  amd64Linux for 
64-bit PCs (meta-package)



Someone else mentioned unattended upgrades, which is a thing I have
never used, and which is also a thing I would disable if I ever found
it running.  But that's just me.


I would like to do that but don't know how. Anyone caring to enlighten 
me without me having to bother poor old Mr. Google yet again - it would 
be appreciated. :)

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 06/30/2017 10:06 AM, Dejan Jocic wrote:

On 30-06-17, RavenLX wrote:

I think I might have a problem. I do the sudo apt-get update and then sudo
apt-get dist-upgrade and ever since I have installed Debian 9 (after the
official release) I have not seen any updates. Yet in Ubuntu 14.04 server
there were updates to the kernel and to Apache. I've been watching
Debian-Security and noticed there are some updates coming up. But I haven't
seen any when I go to do the update.


[snipped info I already gave]


Start with dpkg -s unattended-upgrades

If that is installed, check as root/with sudo:

# cat /var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log


Here's what I got:

ravenlx@hpg7:~$ sudo dpkg -s unattended-upgrades
Package: unattended-upgrades
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Installed-Size: 246
Maintainer: Michael Vogt <m...@debian.org>
Architecture: all
Version: 0.93.1+nmu1
Depends: debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, init-system-helpers (>= 1.18~), 
debconf, python3, python3-apt, apt-utils, apt, ucf, lsb-release, 
lsb-base (>= 3.2-14), xz-utils

Recommends: cron | cron-daemon | anacron
Suggests: bsd-mailx, mail-transport-agent, needrestart
Conffiles:
 /etc/init.d/unattended-upgrades 290829a5efc55b7c435de0bb769f217b
 /etc/kernel/postinst.d/unattended-upgrades 
b74a4f1a1fe2e350aec97f472c25e0bb

 /etc/logrotate.d/unattended-upgrades e45049ee847f069a99e3e6ec39155d4a
 /etc/pm/sleep.d/10_unattended-upgrades-hibernate 
d4ebdc2a2fdfeea33e6cd39812a85c3a

Description: automatic installation of security upgrades
 This package can download and install security upgrades automatically
 and unattended, taking care to only install packages from the
 configured APT source, and checking for dpkg prompts about
 configuration file changes.
 .
 This script is the backend for the APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade
 option.

ravenlx@hpg7:~$ sudo cat 
/var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades.log

2017-06-26 10:44:53,533 INFO Initial blacklisted packages:
2017-06-26 10:44:53,533 INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
2017-06-26 10:44:53,534 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2017-06-26 10:44:53,534 INFO Allowed origins are: 
['origin=Debian,codename=stretch,label=Debian-Security']
2017-06-26 10:44:59,045 INFO No packages found that can be upgraded 
unattended and no pending auto-removals

2017-06-27 08:25:02,089 INFO Initial blacklisted packages:
2017-06-27 08:25:02,101 INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
2017-06-27 08:25:02,102 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2017-06-27 08:25:02,102 INFO Allowed origins are: 
['origin=Debian,codename=stretch,label=Debian-Security']
2017-06-27 08:25:07,323 INFO No packages found that can be upgraded 
unattended and no pending auto-removals

2017-06-28 06:34:25,955 INFO Initial blacklisted packages:
2017-06-28 06:34:25,967 INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
2017-06-28 06:34:25,968 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2017-06-28 06:34:25,968 INFO Allowed origins are: 
['origin=Debian,codename=stretch,label=Debian-Security']
2017-06-28 06:37:31,352 INFO Packages that will be upgraded: 
linux-compiler-gcc-6-x86 linux-headers-4.9.0-3-amd64 
linux-headers-4.9.0-3-common linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64 linux-kbuild-4.9 
linux-libc-dev
2017-06-28 06:37:31,353 INFO Writing dpkg log to 
'/var/log/unattended-upgrades/unattended-upgrades-dpkg.log'

2017-06-28 06:38:50,686 INFO All upgrades installed
2017-06-29 08:57:46,133 INFO Initial blacklisted packages:
2017-06-29 08:57:46,146 INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
2017-06-29 08:57:46,146 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2017-06-29 08:57:46,147 INFO Allowed origins are: 
['origin=Debian,codename=stretch,label=Debian-Security']
2017-06-29 08:57:51,337 INFO No packages found that can be upgraded 
unattended and no pending auto-removals

2017-06-30 08:12:38,490 INFO Initial blacklisted packages:
2017-06-30 08:12:38,503 INFO Initial whitelisted packages:
2017-06-30 08:12:38,503 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2017-06-30 08:12:38,504 INFO Allowed origins are: 
['origin=Debian,codename=stretch,label=Debian-Security']
2017-06-30 08:12:43,802 INFO No packages found that can be upgraded 
unattended and no pending auto-removals



If you have unattended-upgrades package installed and it is configured
to fetch and install security updates only ( which is default ), that is
place to look for upgraded packages. You can also configure
unattended-upgrades to mail you where there was updates/upgrades and all
that jazz.


How do I go about upgrading then? I don't know of how to do it any other 
way than via apt-get. Also I don't want to have it email me anything. I 
usually go to the command line, do a series of commands and upgrade the 
system. I would like to continue to do things that way. I do this once a 
week (usually Thurs. but now I'm switching to Fridays).

Re: [Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

On 06/30/2017 10:04 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Fri, Jun 30, 2017 at 09:56:16AM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

I think I might have a problem. I do the sudo apt-get update and then sudo
apt-get dist-upgrade and ever since I have installed Debian 9 (after the
official release) I have not seen any updates.



Here is my sources.list:

# Security
deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free

# Main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free


Hmm.  Well, that looks correct.


Am I really missing any updates?


Probably the easiest to check is the kernel.  If you're on amd64, and
if you're truly up to date on stretch fixes, then you should have:

linux-image-4.9.0-3-amd64  4.9.30-2+deb9u2


Here's what's on the system:

ravenlx@hpg7:~$ uname -r
4.9.0-3-amd64


Note that +deb9u1 and +deb9u2 were quite close together.  +deb9u2
reverted the "stack guard gap" fix from +deb9u1 and replaced it with a
different fix that didn't cause regressions.

If you really aren't getting updates when you run "apt-get update", and
there are no errors, then I'm not sure how to diagnose this.


Me neither. No errors at all:

ravenlx@hpg7:~$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for ravenlx:
Ign:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-updates InRelease 

Ign:3 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease 

Hit:4 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release 

Hit:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch-backports InRelease 

Hit:6 http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian stretch InRelease 

Hit:7 http://deb.debian.org/debian stretch Release 

Hit:8 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates InRelease 

Hit:9 https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease 


Reading package lists... Done

All looks good.

So maybe these security updates are for the older versions??

[Stretch] apt-get has no updates?

[RavenLX]

I think I might have a problem. I do the sudo apt-get update and then 
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade and ever since I have installed Debian 9 
(after the official release) I have not seen any updates. Yet in Ubuntu 
14.04 server there were updates to the kernel and to Apache. I've been 
watching Debian-Security and noticed there are some updates coming up. 
But I haven't seen any when I go to do the update.


More info:

I'm using KDE in Debian 9 (Stretch).
I did NOT install the "KDE" desktop when installing Debian 9. Intead I 
installe the kde desktop package *only* via the command line after 
installing Debian 9. This way I minimized a lot of the bulk and didn't 
have to install application I don't use (like juk and okular, for example).


- I have removed plasma-discover and plasma-discover-common because I 
prefer to do things the old-fashioned way - via the command prompt.


Here is my sources.list:

# Security
deb http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ stretch/updates main contrib non-free

# Main
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch main contrib non-free

# stretch-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-updates main contrib non-free

# Backports
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-backports main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ stretch-backports main contrib 
non-free


Am I really missing any updates? Or is there something wrong in my 
system? I really hate to install that plasma updater widget just to get 
updates.

Re: Nice email thanking the stretch release

[RavenLX]

On 06/28/2017 04:32 PM, Ana Guerrero Lopez wrote:


Hi folks,

After the release announcement, I got a bunch of direct emails.
Plenty of "thank you", "yeah", "finally!" and of course, a few
"UNSUBSCRIBE" ;)
The email below stood out and I thought it would be nice to share it
with the projet. The writer is in bcc in case they wants to add something.

Ana


Aw, thanks! :) I meant ever word too - You guys really do rock! :)

And an update. I got both my laptops running Stretch now! Didn't do the 
UEFI thing after all but the weird thing is the oldest laptop DID ask if 
I wanted to install EFI! I was rather surprised! I did legacy on both 
though, as I really needed to get this done. Another surprise was that 
same older laptop was complaining about an i915 buffer "underrun" on one 
of the bootups after having to hard-core turn off after a hangup (have 
no idea what caused that!) But no problems ever since.


The installs went well. I had to tweak my own script that installed and 
configured stuff I needed but that one was my doing. :)


I'm running KDE on both laptops (my minimal KDE install script worked 
fine). I'm really enjoying Debian 9! I even have some older DOS and 
Windows games set up to run in DosBox and PlayOnLinux. I don't even USE 
windows anymore now! And what's nice is it integrates and runs as if 
it's running natively. Fast and no lagging.


Anyway, glad to finally be upgraded and ready to roll. Thank you guys! :)

[my original post and comments below, for reference.]





On 06/18/2017 02:22 AM, Ana Guerrero Lopez wrote:
[snipped header]


After 26 months of development the Debian project is proud to present
its new stable version 9 (code name "Stretch"), which will be supported
for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security
team [1] and of the Debian Long Term Support [2] team.


A *huge* thank you to the Debian team! You guys rock! It was amazing to
see how everyone worked so hard in those last few hours before release
(I was in IRC for the first time in years, watching things unfold).



 1: https://security-team.debian.org/
 2: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS

Debian 9 is dedicated [3] to the project's founder Ian Murdock, who
passed away on 28 December 2015.


RIP. I don't know if he knew how big an impact he made in the computing
world. But he'll always be a legend in my book.


 3: http://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/dedication/dedication-9.0.txt

In "Stretch", the default MySQL variant is now MariaDB. The replacement
of packages for MySQL 5.5 or 5.6 by the MariaDB 10.1 variant will happen
automatically upon upgrade.


Going clean-install on my two laptops. I need to learn the differences
between MariaDB and MySQL as the boss at work (we use Ubuntu there)
wants MariaDB.


Firefox and Thunderbird return to Debian with the release of "Stretch",
and replace their debranded versions Iceweasel and Icedove, which were
present in the archive for more than 10 years.


So I can remove that from my script! Cool! I didn't even know that.


Thanks to the Reproducible Builds project, over 90% of the source
packages included in Debian 9 will build bit-for-bit identical binary
packages. This is an important verification feature which protects users
from malicious attempts to tamper with compilers and build networks.
Future Debian releases will include tools and metadata so that end-users
can validate the provenance of packages within the archive.


THIS will be very useful especially for those who compile kernels or
modules, I'm sure. I don't (anymore) and haven't in years. But with all
the malware going around in other OSs, it's only a matter of time before
it gets to be more of a problem in Debian. Luckily things are still safe
and secure for the most part. And good to see it's going to always be
that way.


Administrators and those in security-sensitive environments can be
comforted in the knowledge that the X display system no longer requires
"root" privileges to run.


There were some talk in the chat about KVM and "permission denied" when
using i915 chips. But as far as I can tell, that's an old issue and
might be a kernel issue? I don't have any machines with an i915 type
chip so I can't test it. But they were testing and some still had issues
while someone else on an i386 with the same chip had no issues.


The "Stretch" release is the first version of Debian to feature the
"modern" branch of GnuPG in the "gnupg" package. This brings with it
elliptic curve cryptography, better defaults, a more modular
architecture, and improved smartcard support. We will continue to supply
the "classic" branch of GnuPG as gnupg1 for people who need it, but it
is now deprecated.

Debug packages are easier to obtain and use in Debian 9 "Stretch". A new
"dbg-sym" repository can be added to the APT source list to provide
debug symbols automatically for many packages.
The UEFI ("Unified Extensible Firmware Interface") support first
introduced in "Wheezy" continues to be 

Re: [Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

On 06/26/2017 08:24 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:
[snip]


If I had to guess, I would guess that the OP's system is a laptop, and
the OP is attempting to use a wireless network of some kind.  There may
be setups where n-m handles wireless stuff particularly well.


You guessed right. I am sorry I didn't think to add those details 
because I (probably wrongly) assumed it was something that just happens. 
I also had this issue with two laptops: A 10-yr. old Lenovo/IBM ThinkPad 
T61 and a newer (I think about 4 or 5 yrs - forgot how old) HP Pavilion 
g7 2010-nr laptop. Both installing via WiFi using the firmware 
(non-free) install DVD (and no other DVDs). I was installing off a USB 
drive on both.


When I wrote the post, I assumed that it would do that because I was 
installing without a Desktop. I hadn't realized that maybe other factors 
may have been the reason.

Re: [Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

On 06/24/2017 03:33 PM, Brian wrote:

On Sat 24 Jun 2017 at 11:07:13 +0200, Erwan David wrote:


Le 06/24/17 à 04:43, RavenLX a écrit :

I want to share with everyone a fix for not getting network / internet
if you're installing Debian without a desktop (ie. not selecting a
desktop AND Unchecking the Debian Desktop Environment option).

If you install as I mentioned above and reboot, you get the command
prompt to log into (which is what I wanted so I could install minimal
KDE as I mentioned in another post). However, you can NOT get on the
internet! Even though the installer used the internet and set it up, the
settings won't stick. That's because the installer doesn't install
network-manager into the system!


Do you mean that network-manager is compulsory in stretch ? Impossible
to use a fixed configuration in /etc/network/interfaces or another
connection manager like wicd ?


The OP is particularly drawing attention to a situation which could
possibly occur when *Debian is installed*. Unfortunately, although one
of the conditions under which the installation was done (no selection
of a DE) is stated, the complete situation is not described. This
reduces the usefulness of the suggested fix.



My Bad: I was installing no DE *and* via WiFi (not cable) connection on 
a 10 yr. old laptop.

Re: [Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

On 06/24/2017 06:44 AM, Brian wrote:

On Fri 23 Jun 2017 at 22:43:40 -0400, RavenLX wrote:


I want to share with everyone a fix for not getting network / internet if
you're installing Debian without a desktop (ie. not selecting a desktop AND
Unchecking the Debian Desktop Environment option).

If you install as I mentioned above and reboot, you get the command prompt
to log into (which is what I wanted so I could install minimal KDE as I
mentioned in another post). However, you can NOT get on the internet! Even
though the installer used the internet and set it up, the settings won't
stick. That's because the installer doesn't install network-manager into the
system!

So what I do to get around this and get the network settings to "stick" when
rebooting:

1. When installing, at the screen that says to remove media and reboot, DO
NOT do this yet! Do not press Continue either.

2. CTRL+ALT+F3 (or some function key) to get to a terminal. Press ENTER to
activate the terminal.

3. Execute this: apt-install network-manager


3. Backup the interfaces file in /target/etc/network

[Snip]


6. Click "Continue" in the GUI installer to finish up.


Log into the command prompt and restore the interfaces file and use
ifup.



I tried using ifup and also tried to edit the interfaces file and it 
didn't seem to work for me. I gave up and decided to do it within the 
installer terminal mode. Seemed a bit easier.

Re: [Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

On 06/24/2017 05:38 AM, Brian wrote:

On Fri 23 Jun 2017 at 22:43:40 -0400, RavenLX wrote:


I want to share with everyone a fix for not getting network / internet if
you're installing Debian without a desktop (ie. not selecting a desktop AND
Unchecking the Debian Desktop Environment option).

If you install as I mentioned above and reboot, you get the command prompt
to log into (which is what I wanted so I could install minimal KDE as I
mentioned in another post). However, you can NOT get on the internet! Even
though the installer used the internet and set it up, the settings won't
stick. That's because the installer doesn't install network-manager into the
system!


Installing over a cabled connection gives a stanza in /e/n/i which
sticks. It is a bug if it doesn't. It is possible you have not
mentioned a crucial aspect of the way you installed.


You're right. I didn't. I was installing using WiFi (too much 
trouble/bending, etc. to plug in a friggen cable! :D )

Re: [Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

On 06/24/2017 04:01 AM, Curt wrote:

On 2017-06-24, RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote:


3. Execute this: apt-install network-manager



Is that right? Or is it not rather "apt install" without the hyphen (I'm
still Wheezing so I'm unsure).


Yes. There's no 'apt-get' when you are going into the terminal from the 
installer. I looked in the usual 'bin' directories and this is what I 
found. 'apt-install' with hyphen is what works.

[Stretch] Fix for not network after installing without desktop

[RavenLX]

I want to share with everyone a fix for not getting network / internet 
if you're installing Debian without a desktop (ie. not selecting a 
desktop AND Unchecking the Debian Desktop Environment option).


If you install as I mentioned above and reboot, you get the command 
prompt to log into (which is what I wanted so I could install minimal 
KDE as I mentioned in another post). However, you can NOT get on the 
internet! Even though the installer used the internet and set it up, the 
settings won't stick. That's because the installer doesn't install 
network-manager into the system!


So what I do to get around this and get the network settings to "stick" 
when rebooting:


1. When installing, at the screen that says to remove media and reboot, 
DO NOT do this yet! Do not press Continue either.


2. CTRL+ALT+F3 (or some function key) to get to a terminal. Press ENTER 
to activate the terminal.


3. Execute this: apt-install network-manager

4. The screen will go completely blank (except for a dash in the lower 
right). This will seem like the computer "crashed" but it didn't! Wait 
awhile (it does take awhile and no progress is shown). The # prompt will 
return.


5. CTRL+ALT+ (function key - keep trying until you get to the GUI). Do 
this ONLY AFTER the # prompt returns so you can be sure that the 
installation of network-manager is complete (since there's no indication 
of it installing or progressing when it's being done).


6. Click "Continue" in the GUI installer to finish up.

Log into the command prompt and do a 'sudo apt-get update'. Internet 
should now be working.

Re: Debian 9 - Stretch has been released!

[RavenLX]

On 06/19/2017 10:20 PM, Jimmy Johnson wrote:

On 06/18/2017 04:28 AM, RavenLX wrote:

On 06/17/2017 11:42 PM, Jimmy Johnson wrote:

  https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/

Cheers!


I was there in the IRC chat channels while they were working on it and
when they released it. It was the first time in YEARS I been in IRC.
Great folks there and they worked really hard! It was so cool to watch
those final moments unfold.

And they got it released just in time. I think it was a bit after 11 pm
or 11:30 pm (Eastern USA time) before it got out finally. I downloaded
an iso overnight so I'll be ready when I get my own stuff prepared on my
end (still working on that).


Yes, it's fun and exciting to feel apart of the Debian release! My last 
Stretch install was Friday RC5 for testing.  Are you ready to start the 
next release? Buster got fed it's first 65 package upgrades today, 
hopefully the next two years will not be too bumpy a ride and full of 
lots of fun, technology and learning.



A *huge* thank you to the Debian team!


+1

Cheers,


I generally stick with Stable with a few tweaks. :) I will wait until 
Buster is either frozen pre-release or actually released before I use 
it. I haven't even got both my laptops upgraded yet! Been busy with a 
script to install and configure all my favorite software and tools. I'm 
hoping I'll have Stretch on both laptops after the weekend is over.

Re: Debian 9.0.0 iso

[RavenLX]

On 06/20/2017 11:35 PM, sare...@att.net wrote:

> The full version of Debian 9.0.0 iso will not install
> from a flash drive. It boots into the live desktop with
> no option to install to hard drive. The CD version will
> install. The one from the flash drive looks for a CD
> after choosing the language and keyboard language. What
> is wrong with your iso's. I have installed many Linux and
> Debian systems and never had any problems with installing
> from flash drives.

I was able to put the firmare / non-free version of the iso on a flash 
drive and it installed without a problem. However, when I burn a DVD, 
then it doesn't work (says it failed after installing all the software). 
So I kinda had the opposite problem.


If the CDs work, then it's probably best to use those. Use what works. :)

How To: Install Minimal KDE in Stretch

[RavenLX]

I've figured out how to install a *bare minimal* KDE in Stretch:

1. When installing Debian to your computer, do NOT select to install 
"Debian Desktop" or ANY desktop option. Instead, install print server 
and system base *only* (nothing else). Complete the install and reboot.


2. Log in at the command prompt and then type in:
   $ sudo apt-get install kde-plasma-desktop

3. In KDE terminal (konsole):

   $ sudo apt-get purge kwrite konqueror kwalletmanager plasma-discover 
plasma-discover-common


   $ apt-get download dolphin
   $ sudo dpkg --force-all -i [dolphin_downloaded_filename]
   $ sudo apt --fix-broken install
   $ sudo apt-get autoremove

This is optional. It removes all downloaded packages that apt-get kept:
   $ sudo apt-get clean

This results in a minimal install of:

Graphics - ImageMagick*
Settings - System Settings
System:
Debian bug reporting tool
File Manager (Dolphin) (See above for installation)
Info Center
System Monitor
Terminal
UXTerm*
XTerm*
Utilities:
UXTerm*
XTerm*

* Note: These can be safely hidden in the menu:

1. Right click on the Menu icon - Edit Applications
2. Settings - Configure KDE Menu Editor
3. General options - check "Show hidden entries"
4. Click on entry to hide.
5. General Tab: check "Hidden entry"

Re: where to submit low security vulnerability in .profile?

[RavenLX]

On 06/18/2017 05:05 AM, Nicolas George wrote:

Le decadi 30 prairial, an CCXXV, David Bunch a écrit :

This could be a potential security vulnerability because if the user account
of a uesr with 'su' power, an attacker could place a malicious 'su', 'ls',
and 'which' in their ~/bin directory which could give an attacker the root
password when the user runs the 'su' command.


If the attacker is able to write in ~/bin, then they are also able to
write in ~/.profile and add anything they want there. Therefore, the
change you suggest does absolutely nothing for security.


A safer configuration would be PATH=$PATH:'$HOME/bin'.


If a user installs a program in their home that is already available on
the system, it probably means they want to use their version rather than
the system's. The same goes for programs installed by the admin versus
programs installed by the distribution. Hence, the correct order is
really ~/bin, /usr/local/bin then /usr/bin and not the other way around.

Regards,



I can see David's concern though if one puts their own version of 
something and it's compromised.


But now that you mention it, one should now better than to do that. :)

Re: where to submit low security vulnerability in .profile?

[RavenLX]

On 06/18/2017 12:56 AM, David Bunch wrote:

Hi,

I'm not sure where or how or even if i should submit a bug small security
vulnerability in the default .profile that is created in each users home
directory.

.profile searches for a ~/bin directory and if it finds it prepends it to
PATH like so: PATH='$HOME/bin':$PATH

This could be a potential security vulnerability because if the user account
of a uesr with 'su' power, an attacker could place a malicious 'su', 'ls',
and 'which' in their ~/bin directory which could give an attacker the root
password when the user runs the 'su' command.

A safer configuration would be PATH=$PATH:'$HOME/bin'.
This way if malicious copies of systems programs were placed in the user's
~/bin directory the uncompromised system copies would be still be run.

Kind regards,
-David Bunch


That's interesting. I didn't know there was a difference but now that I 
look at it, I think you're right. In Jessie, I had to set this manually 
in ~/.bashrc because it didn't work out of the box for some reason.


Then again, I do not create a directory called ~/bin but instead it's a 
symlink to another subdirectory inside a subdirectory in my $HOME 
because of the way I like to arrange things. That probably was why it 
didn't work for me out of the box in "Jessie"? I'll have to test that in 
Stretch.

Re: testing: odd? upgrade today for gnutls-bin to unstable version

[RavenLX]

On 06/18/2017 06:38 AM, songbird wrote:

   i have my preferences set in /etc/apt/apt.conf
to select testing as the default, but it still
grabbed the unstable version.


[snip]
There was a lot said in IRC that one should *not* (even if told to) put 
"testing" or "stable" in their sources.list because of the changeovers. 
Right now here's what they are pointing to:


stable: Stretch
oldstable: Jessie
testing: Buster
oldoldstable: Wheezy

People are strongly advising one use the version name (ie. "buster", 
"stretch", etc.) instead.

Re: Debian 9 "Stretch" released

[RavenLX]

On 06/18/2017 02:22 AM, Ana Guerrero Lopez wrote:
[snipped header]

> After 26 months of development the Debian project is proud to present
> its new stable version 9 (code name "Stretch"), which will be supported
> for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security
> team [1] and of the Debian Long Term Support [2] team.

A *huge* thank you to the Debian team! You guys rock! It was amazing to 
see how everyone worked so hard in those last few hours before release 
(I was in IRC for the first time in years, watching things unfold).


>
>  1: https://security-team.debian.org/
>  2: https://wiki.debian.org/LTS
>
> Debian 9 is dedicated [3] to the project's founder Ian Murdock, who
> passed away on 28 December 2015.

RIP. I don't know if he knew how big an impact he made in the computing 
world. But he'll always be a legend in my book.


>  3: http://ftp.debian.org/debian/doc/dedication/dedication-9.0.txt
>
> In "Stretch", the default MySQL variant is now MariaDB. The replacement
> of packages for MySQL 5.5 or 5.6 by the MariaDB 10.1 variant will happen
> automatically upon upgrade.

Going clean-install on my two laptops. I need to learn the differences 
between MariaDB and MySQL as the boss at work (we use Ubuntu there) 
wants MariaDB.


> Firefox and Thunderbird return to Debian with the release of "Stretch",
> and replace their debranded versions Iceweasel and Icedove, which were
> present in the archive for more than 10 years.

So I can remove that from my script! Cool! I didn't even know that.

> Thanks to the Reproducible Builds project, over 90% of the source
> packages included in Debian 9 will build bit-for-bit identical binary
> packages. This is an important verification feature which protects users
> from malicious attempts to tamper with compilers and build networks.
> Future Debian releases will include tools and metadata so that end-users
> can validate the provenance of packages within the archive.

THIS will be very useful especially for those who compile kernels or 
modules, I'm sure. I don't (anymore) and haven't in years. But with all 
the malware going around in other OSs, it's only a matter of time before 
it gets to be more of a problem in Debian. Luckily things are still safe 
and secure for the most part. And good to see it's going to always be 
that way.


> Administrators and those in security-sensitive environments can be
> comforted in the knowledge that the X display system no longer requires
> "root" privileges to run.

There were some talk in the chat about KVM and "permission denied" when 
using i915 chips. But as far as I can tell, that's an old issue and 
might be a kernel issue? I don't have any machines with an i915 type 
chip so I can't test it. But they were testing and some still had issues 
while someone else on an i386 with the same chip had no issues.


> The "Stretch" release is the first version of Debian to feature the
> "modern" branch of GnuPG in the "gnupg" package. This brings with it
> elliptic curve cryptography, better defaults, a more modular
> architecture, and improved smartcard support. We will continue to supply
> the "classic" branch of GnuPG as gnupg1 for people who need it, but it
> is now deprecated.
>
> Debug packages are easier to obtain and use in Debian 9 "Stretch". A new
> "dbg-sym" repository can be added to the APT source list to provide
> debug symbols automatically for many packages.
> The UEFI ("Unified Extensible Firmware Interface") support first
> introduced in "Wheezy" continues to be greatly improved in "Stretch",
> and also supports installing on 32-bit UEFI firmware with a 64-bit
> kernel. The Debian live images now include support for UEFI booting as a
> new feature, too.

Cool! I just might try this on my main laptop (which has UEFI I think). 
My spare laptop is too old for that. :) However, I might forget. I set 
my main laptop to "legacy" mode a long time ago.


[snipped a lot of stuff]

> Should you choose to install Debian 9 "Stretch" directly onto your
> computer's hard disk you can choose from a variety of installation media
> such as Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD, USB stick, or via internal network.

I've had problems (with the rc4 stretch) with the ThinkPad T61 not 
opening the DVD tray, and also it saying install failed (and kept 
failing) after installing all the packages needed (after package 
selection). But when I used a USB stick and booted that, it worked just 
fine. Can't tell if it is the DVD drive or the media or what happened 
there. But if anyone has issues, try a USB stick.


[snipped more stuff]

> Upgrades to Debian 9 from the previous release, Debian 8 (codenamed
> "Jessie"), are automatically handled by the apt-get package management
> tool for most configurations. As always, Debian systems may be upgraded
> painlessly, in place, without any forced downtime, but it is strongly
> recommended to read the release notes [12] as well as the installation
> guide [13] for possible 

Re: Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

On 06/18/2017 06:58 AM, Fungi4All wrote:
> From: nemomm...@gmail.com
>>
>> I"m going to wait about a week to 10 days after Stretch"s release
>> as Stable before installing while checking this list for any problems.
>> If all proves well, then clean, dual-boot install.
>
> So you fear something may break and in a week of 10 days there will
> be a new installer, Debian9.1 or do you feel that all of us running 
stretch
> for a long while we are full of problems and the stable release will 
fix them?

>
> I just did an update and nothing has changed since yesterday, and I am
> so bored I am switching to testing,  Enough with this stable stuff :)

(Forgive while I cut in here.) They released yesterday. I updated the 
rc4 install I had in a VM last night while they were working on pushing 
the release out and only 14 packages needed updating since last week 
(when I updated last). Then I ran a script that went in and downloaded 
more packages, set up configurations, etc. for stuff I want to use. All 
went well. No problems. So I think that those worried about updating may 
be OK, generally.


There WAS talk about an unsolved problem with KVM on i915 systems 
(still) not starting X and showing "permission denied" (as far as I can 
tell, it looks to be some kind of kernel issue with that chip). But 
another tester on an i386 machine with that same chip had no issues. YMMV.


I think it's safe to say the installer also is OK now. I'll find out in 
a couple days (when I get done writing my script and fine-tuning it and 
getting some other stuff done in the virtual machine. I'm still getting 
ready for the Big Install on my two laptops). But rc4 did pretty well 
(if using a bootable USB. Had some issues with DVD install but it might 
have be the DVD player or the DVD burn).


>> I"ll start with a terminal-only system and build up to X and a window
>> manager only (Openbox) set up. I like my systems lean and mean with as
>> little cruft as possible. Full GUI environments are a waste of CPU
>> cycles as far as I"m concerned, I don"t care how "cool" they look.
>
> When I added a task/app bar and a filemanager on openbox the resource use
> was not that far off lxde, which surprised me a bit.
>
>> Good luck with your install.
>>
>> B
>
>

I'm going to be quite curious about how my laptops handle KDE again. I 
had went to XFCE because the fans were always going but that was before 
I discovered I needed to install tlp. So I'm bouncing between deciding 
whether to install both XFCE and KDE or just KDE. I grown accustomed to 
XFCE but I like a lot of the features in KDE. I might put both on and 
use XFCE in instances where KDE is keeping the fans on too much (ie. 
high processing things like audio and video, 3d, etc. or games).

Re: Debian 9 - Stretch has been released!

[RavenLX]

On 06/17/2017 11:42 PM, Jimmy Johnson wrote:

  https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/amd64/iso-hybrid/

Cheers!


I was there in the IRC chat channels while they were working on it and 
when they released it. It was the first time in YEARS I been in IRC. 
Great folks there and they worked really hard! It was so cool to watch 
those final moments unfold.


And they got it released just in time. I think it was a bit after 11 pm 
or 11:30 pm (Eastern USA time) before it got out finally. I downloaded 
an iso overnight so I'll be ready when I get my own stuff prepared on my 
end (still working on that).


A *huge* thank you to the Debian team!

Re: Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

On 06/17/2017 12:27 PM, Matthew McKinnon wrote:
On Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 09:17:22AM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

Anyone know of any "online" release parties?


You can join them in IRC and idle and follow what is happening with 
the release


Server: irc.debian.org
Channles #debian-release, #debian-ftp, #debian-cd

The teams are currently testing the CD/DVD Builds. amd64 Built and 
tested. Curretly testing i386.


You can also follow https://micronews.debian.org/ for updates on each 
stage.


I broke down, fired up XChat and am in those above and #debian. :) 
Anyone else in there? I'm also still working on my install scripts.

Re: Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

On 06/17/2017 12:49 PM, RavenLX wrote:

On 06/17/2017 12:27 PM, Matthew McKinnon wrote:
On Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 09:17:22AM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

Anyone know of any "online" release parties?


You can join them in IRC and idle and follow what is happening with 
the release


Server: irc.debian.org
Channles #debian-release, #debian-ftp, #debian-cd

The teams are currently testing the CD/DVD Builds. amd64 Built and 
tested. Curretly testing i386.


You can also follow https://micronews.debian.org/ for updates on each 
stage.


Thanks
Matthew


Awesome, Matthew! Thanks! I am not doing too well this afternoon it
seems like so I don't think I'll be in IRC today. I rather just follow
the newsfeed but it's nice to see there are online sources for those who
want to join the party. :)

BTW, please forgive, as I seemed to have sent this directly to your 
email and forgot to hit "reply list" instead. Still learning this thing.

Re: Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

On 06/17/2017 09:51 AM, Teemu Likonen wrote:

rave...@sitesplace.net [2017-06-17 09:17:22-04] wrote:


My question is, how are people upgrading?


By following the release notes (which I recommend):

https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/releasenotes

(I upgraded a week ago.)



Great resource! Thanks. My brain is a little fried (it'll be interesting 
to see how I manage to work on my script today). So I don't think I want 
to do all that reading! Yeah, I know, I should.

Re: Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

On 06/17/2017 09:22 AM, Brad Rogers wrote:

On Sat, 17 Jun 2017 09:17:22 -0400
RavenLX <rave...@sitesplace.net> wrote:

Hello RavenLX,


Today (Sunday June 17, 2017)


Say that again;  *Sunday* 17th?...

;-)



LOL! I meant to type Saturday and it came out wrong. See, I need to 
upgrade the system. Still using Jessie. :P


Seriously, it's been a LONG week and I didn't sleep much last 
night. Bad excuse I know. :)

Stretch release today - How are you upgrading?

[RavenLX]

Today (Sunday June 17, 2017) seems to be the day they are going to 
"officially" release Stretch! I never did get my laptops upgraded as I'm 
creating an installation script to run post-install to install and 
configure applications, utilities, services, etc. that I normally use.


My question is, how are people upgrading? This will give me some 
inspiration.


My plan is to wipe the hard drive of the target machine and then install 
a fresh version of Stretch which I will have made a Bootable USB stick 
from. I'll only be using the Freeware non-free install because one 
laptop needs those drivers in order for WiFi to work. Then it'll get the 
rest of it from the 'net. After installing, I'll reboot and then run my 
installer script, reboot and then configure the menus, widgets (going 
KDE here), etc. and bring my data over from backups. To me for my 
situation this is the easiest for me. Then I'll go wipe my main laptop 
and do the same. Finally, I'll create a virtual machine in VirtualBox, 
do the same there except without the apps, etc. I'll just configure what 
I need to and export and back up the machine so I have something for 
testing my own stuff.


Today I think I'll work on my little installer script. Been not well 
lately so I haven't done much work on it.


Anyone have other ideas, suggestions, or anything I should also do, let 
me know.


Oh yeah, and I do plan to do the following right after installing Debian 
9 itself (apt-clean helps me save space on the smaller laptop HD):


sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get clean

Also how is everyone celebrating the release? Parties? Just staying 
home? Me, I'm staying home. No parties that I know of in the area.


Anyone know of any "online" release parties?

Re: watchdog did not stop (on rebooting)

[RavenLX]

On 06/07/2017 07:33 PM, Dekks Herton wrote:


If you have a thinkpad and use tlp you can set the NMI watchdog to off
in /etc/default/tlp


I do have tlp installed. Here's what is in the file. Looks like it's 
already disabled:


# Kernel NMI Watchdog:
#   0=disable (default, saves power), 1=enable (for kernel debugging only)
NMI_WATCHDOG=0


also look at /proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog to see the state


$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/nmi_watchdog
0

Looks like it's "off" by default. This is strange!

watchdog did not stop (on rebooting)

[RavenLX]

I was trying to find a way to fix this warning on my Thinkpad. I have 
found out that it is normal for this to happen and can safely be ignored.


Reference links:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=153205

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/249654/message-at-shutdown-watchdog-did-not-stop

However, if I set reboot-acpi AND irqpoll (in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX in 
/etc/default/grub) on a ThinkPad T61 (my computer), I get this error:


"CPU pipe B FIFO underrun"

So naturally I don't set reboot-acpi! :) (I was experimenting in trying 
to get rid of the watchdog warnings but gave up as it seems harmless and 
won't go away anyway).


Just thought I'd share this in case others run into these things.

How To Fix: Firewire IRQ Errors on Reboot

[RavenLX]

I would like to share another discovery. This one fixed my firewire IRQ 
errors when rebooting my ThinkPad T61.


(Not-So-Obligatory) Disclaimer:
---

While, I do not notice any change in overall functionality of the laptop 
as a result of this fix, I also do not know what the referenced setting 
is really used for. Do this at your own risk! I hold no responsibility 
for the outcome!


System:
---

IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Laptop
* This may (or may not) work on other ThinkPad Laptops.

Debian 9 (Stretch) RC4
4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.25-1 (2017-05-02)

Problem Description:


I came across the following errors whenever rebooting:

irq 17: nobody cared (try booting with the "irqpoll" option
handlers:
[

How to Fix: tpm0 Errors on Boot (Stretch)

[RavenLX]

I thought I'd share a discovery with you guys in case anyone here 
happens to try using Stretch on a ThinkPad laptop. I have installed 
Stretch on mine and am testing things out. I don't know if this would 
resolve things on other computers, but maybe it might help in at least 
diagnosing some boot errors? What I have here is a fix for tpm0 errors 
on boot.


(Not-So-Obligatory) Disclaimer:
---

While, I do not notice any change in overall functionality of the laptop 
as a result of this fix, I also do not know what the referenced setting 
is really used for. Do this at your own risk! I hold no responsibility 
for the outcome!


System:
---

IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Laptop
* This may (or may not) work on other ThinkPad Laptops.

Debian 9 (Stretch) RC4
4.9.0-3-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.25-1 (2017-05-02)

Problem Description:


I came across the following errors whenever it would boot or reboot:

tpm tpm0: Unable to read burstcount
tpm tpm0: tpm_transmit: tpm_send: error -16
tpm_tis 00:05: Could not get TPM timeouts and durations

There was no file at /sys/class/misc/tmp0/device/timeout.

How To Fix:
---

So, I did a little research and found that it is due to a Security Chip 
not being detected. The fix (for me at least) was to disable it entirely 
in the BIOS. Once done, there will no longer be those errors on bootup.


To Disable the Security Chip in Bios (ThinkPad T61 and probably other 
ThinkPads):


1. Press the blue ThinkVantage button shortly after rebooting or turning 
on th emachine (It usually says that at the Thinkpad startup screen. 
Though on some machines it may be ESC or a function key).


2. Press F1 (or whatever function key is used to enter the BIOS Setup).

3. Go to: Security - Security Chip

4. Press ENTER. Choose “Disabled”.

5. Press ESC until you leave the BIOS.

Now whenever you boot the laptop, you should no longer see the "tpm" errors.

Re: Error on install: Repository "couldn't be accessed"

[RavenLX]

On 05/26/2017 04:02 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

On Thu, May 25, 2017 at 07:36:08AM -0400, RavenLX wrote:

On 05/23/2017 10:07 AM, Robert Hardy (r.hardy) wrote:

Err http://deb.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en


In my setup it's:

http://deb.debian.org jessie/updates main contrib non-free

Note that it's jessie/updates not jessie-updates. Replace the hyphen with a
dash in your sources.list and update again. See if that works?


Why would it be jessie/updates? Looking at deb.debian.org/debian/dists
with a web browser, there is no updates/ folder under jessie/ but there
is a jessie-updates/ folder...


You're right. My bad. I was reading security.debian.org line and not 
paying attention. Sorry about that. Mr. Hardy has the correct URL.


Another thing he can try is to move the affected lists from:

/var/lib/apt/lists
/var/lib/apt/lists/partial

Do another apt-get update and see if that helps. If not, you can always 
put the lists back, if you need to. Generally doing apt-get update after 
moving the lists out of those directories will refresh those lists.


That works for bad checksums when checking for updates, but not sure if 
that will help in Mr. Hardy's situation. Worth a try, maybe?

Sending Attachments to the List [was Re: Samsung ML-1915 printer]

[RavenLX]

On 05/22/2017 06:01 PM, Fungi4All wrote:

can anyone email attachments to the list, I thought you couldn't do it.
maybe use that paste.debian.org?


I saw an attachment. It said: emptyfile.bz2 and in it was an 
"emptyfile". I do not know if that was what you intended or if the list 
server did that?

Re: Error on install: Repository "couldn't be accessed"

[RavenLX]

On 05/21/2017 11:46 PM, Matthew McKinnon wrote:

Well I made my first contribution to the Debian Community. Made myself an 
account on the Wiki. It has now been updated with the new link - 
http://deb.debian.org


Thank you! :) Ever since the announcement that the ftp* was going down 
later this year, I wanted to get the right URLs just to be sure I don't 
forget and wonder what happened when the ftp* ones bite the dust.

Re: Error on install: Repository "couldn't be accessed"

[RavenLX]

On 05/23/2017 10:07 AM, Robert Hardy (r.hardy) wrote:

Err http://deb.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en


In my setup it's:

http://deb.debian.org jessie/updates main contrib non-free

Note that it's jessie/updates not jessie-updates. Replace the hyphen 
with a dash in your sources.list and update again. See if that works?

Re: Desktop Background Bites the Dust

[RavenLX]

On 05/21/2017 05:40 PM, David Christensen wrote:

As I understand it:

*   'apt-get upgrade' is for rolling forward to a new minor revision -- 
e.g. Debian 8.7 to Debian 8.8 -- and/or new packages -- e.g. icedove 
1:45.6.0-1~deb8u1 to thunderbird 1:45.8.0-3~deb8u1).


*   'apt-get dist-upgrade' is for rolling forward to a new major 
revision -- e.g. Debian 7 to Debian 8.



I do the former regularly -- once or more per week.


I avoid the latter, as it's caused me grief in the past (when I want to 
do a major version upgrade, I backup, move the system disk aside, do a 
fresh install, and restore).



My issue is likely tied to some software corner case due the the 
hardware -- e.g. 32-bit laptop with an off-spec 64-bit processor jammed in.


I've always used dist-upgrade for years without any problems. It's an 
old habit by now. If I don't, I learned there are some packages I *do* 
want to upgrade that get held back (ie. not upgraded) if I don't do 
dist-upgrade, such as new kernels (which I like to keep the kernel the 
newest out there). I haven't yet had any real major issues (even minor 
issues I've always found a work-around and 99% of the time it was just 
something I myself needed to configure, and not really a bug). I run 
stable so maybe that is why I have such good luck. On test VMs I do 
dist-upgrade basically because I know I can always start over if things 
go wrong. And Virtual Machines are the test systems anyway.

Re: Desktop Background Bites the Dust

[RavenLX]

On 05/20/2017 01:00 AM, Jimmy Johnson wrote:

On 05/19/2017 07:19 PM, David Christensen wrote:

I've been having problems with Xfce wallpaper on Debian 8.8 for a month
or more.  It broke after an apt-get update/ apt-get upgrade.  I filed a
bug report, received one reply, tried the suggestions to no avail, and
replied.  I'm still waiting for a response:

https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=860925


David if it makes any difference, recently Debian installed a Debian 
Stretch Theme and the Next wallpaper or the wallpaper you where using 
could have been changed or I should say probably did get changed, I run 
testing and Sid so I'm used to many themes being wiped out and replaced, 
it's the way of testing and not something you would expect from a stable 
system which Stretch is not, yet.  As I told Cindy, you can find the 
installed wallpaper in /usr/share/wallpaper.


I haven't noticed any new wallpapers (I too am running Debian 8.8 with 
XFCE and have my wallpaper set to one I like which I saved in 
~/Pictures/Wallpaper) I also had no problems with the wallpapers going 
away and also was able to change them in the settings. I do notice that 
they don't all *stay* listed in the settings (except the current one 
being used) if they are located somewhere other than the default 
wallpaper directory. But other than that, no problems here, so far.


I did update using apt-get dist-upgrade and not apt-get upgrade. Maybe 
that made a difference?

Re: [trinity-users] Re: Strange clicking noise from my laptop hard drive

[RavenLX]

On 05/19/2017 09:24 AM, Philip Ashmore wrote:

I got a new hard disk.
I still get the same clicking, but now it also sometimes happens before 
I type in the passphrase to unlock the luks encrypted lvm partition the 
OS sits on.

Maybe it's the hard disk controller.
I also took out the Broadcom wifi/bluetooth pci express card as it was 
acting up too.

Maybe it's time to retire this Samsung NP-RF711-S07UK.
Bought in 2012, that's four years more than the warranty.

Regards,
Philip Ashmore

Still using the Samsung, no clicks at the moment.


I have a IBM/Lenovo T61 a friend gave me brand new (as a gift) back in 
2007. It's still going! Running Debian 8.8 with XFCE. However, I too 
hear some faint clicking noises from time to time and wonder if the HD 
is dying. I have a spare HD (has only 80GB and Windows Vista Home 
Premium pre-installed on it). I don't want to really replace the HD 
(whether new - as I can't afford it or the original 80GB one). But it's 
been working otherwise, no problems or errors.


My HP Pavilion g7 I've had maybe 4 or 5 years now (forgot when I 
actually got it) and it is my "main" system I use all day every day. 
Never any clicking noises or problems (set up the same with Debian 8.8 
with XFCE). That one sometimes would run a bit hot (so I put fans under 
it and have some power management packages installed).


I'm not sure why some systems react a certain way and other's don't. But 
if you put a new HD in and the clicking is still there, then you just 
ruled out the HD, at least.


Next thing I think you could check is the fan, and the system 
temperatures. Maybe a fan is starting to go or just needs cleaning and 
oiling?

Re: Virtual Machines: Newbie / novice questions

[RavenLX]

On 05/18/2017 09:35 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

This is the most unbelievable overkill. Windows VMs work just fine in
VirtualBox. When it comes to backup, I have my backup scripts check the
machines are down and if they are, include the virtual disks in the main
system backup, and if not, skip them for that night. There is no
Windows-level backup, it's all done at the host level.


My backups are done in the host too. Thing is, I want to back up the 
settings (ie. shared directory settings, machine settings, etc.) as 
well. I can't remember all the settings to the VMs I use. Exporting will 
back up everything in one neat package.



For this to work it has to be OK to down the Windows machines in order
to back them up,otherwise you risk Windows deciding to do a pointless
disk write in the middle of your backup and invalidate it. That isn't a
problem for me; if it were, I would either schedule a maintenance window
and back them up then, or look into Windows-level backup solutions
(which _still_ have no need for the nuclear-warhead-to-slice-a-banana
approach described above).


I shut down virtual machines so they aren't running during the export 
process.



Restore is smooth, and no license issues -- the Windows machine never
knows anything happened.


However, the virtual hard disk is a pretty large size. My method 
compresses it further so that the size of the backup is much smaller.


This has been the easiest and most effective way I have found so far. 
However, I might take a closer look at backing up only the virtual 
machine's hard drive along with a text file describing the machine's 
settings, then try to re-create the machine and see if it will lose the 
licensing or not.


Right now I have a lot on my plate so what I'm doing is still going to 
have to be the process until I find time to dig deeper into this.


Thank you for your reply and info.

Re: Error on install: Repository "couldn't be accessed"

[RavenLX]

On 05/18/2017 09:06 AM, Liam O'Toole wrote:
[snipped...]

I had that happened. I then changed all the http://ftp.* to
http://httpredir.debian.org. I learned of this here:

https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList#Example_sources.list

Then I apt-get update and it worked fine from there.


Just a FYI: the recommended redirector is now http://deb.debian.org/.



Thank you! The wiki probably either needs updating or was updated since 
I looked last.

Re: Virtual Machines: Newbie / novice questions

[RavenLX]

On 05/17/2017 12:42 PM, craigswin wrote:



On 05/17/2017 06:03 AM, RavenLX wrote:
Those Windows VMs though are a pain. Just warning you. If you don't 
absolutely NEED one, I'd advise not even bothering. I'm seriously 
considering just deleting mine. 


Can you expand on that?  New to VMs, considering them as an alternative 
to dualboot, with Stretch as host and Win7 as a guest to run Vectorworks.


I am not a fan of windows, no how, no way. So I admit I may be (a little 
more than) a tad biased.


But booting into a Windows VM is hard. You can't back up/export without 
losing your license and having to call MS (which is why I don't even 
bother) to have them 'fix' it. And updates take forever. My laptop is 
kinda old so it also bogs down the machine sometimes. In addition, the 
internet part doesn't always work. Sometimes it stalls and you have to 
reboot the windows VM to get it working again (maybe something not set 
right, who knows).


My normal workflow includes doing updates on the base VM (which take a 
long time), then doing a disk cleanup, then sdelete to zero out the 
unused areas. Next I would clone (at the command line) the VM disk file 
so that it is fully compressed. Then I export. Not doing this to 
compress it as much as possible results in a huge exported backup file.


I rather back up the exported machine, and then clone it if I need to 
use a Windows VM. This saves "messing up" windows and having to take 
half a day or more to reinstall everything, including programs, etc. and 
updates, etc. etc.


Windows 10, at least, is very slow with updates on a virtual machine.

Re: Error on install: Repository "couldn't be accessed"

[RavenLX]

On 05/17/2017 12:20 PM, Robert Hardy (r.hardy) wrote:

Hi,

I received this message when installing from the Debian 8.8 netinstall 
ISO (debian-8.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso)


Initial error was for ftp.uk.debian.org . I 
tried several others (including ftp.fr.debian.org 
 and  mirror.bytemark.co.uk) with similar errors.


Continued with the install, which appeared to go OK otherwise. Found 
that two lines were commented out in sources.list, post install:


# jessie-updates, previously known as 'volatile'

# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:

#deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main

# Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:

#deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates main

Uncommented these, and received the following errors on running apt-get 
update:


Hit http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie/main Translation-en

Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en

Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en

Err http://ftp.uk.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en

   404  Not Found [IP: 78.129.164.123 80]

Fetched 168 kB in 6min 3s (463 B/s)

W: Failed to fetch 
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/jessie-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en  
404  Not Found [IP: 78.129.164.123 80]


E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old 
ones used instead.


  * Is this a known issue?
  * Should I have any concerns about stability / missing files follow this?

Thanks,

Rob


I had that happened. I then changed all the http://ftp.* to 
http://httpredir.debian.org. I learned of this here:


https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList#Example_sources.list

Then I apt-get update and it worked fine from there.

Re: Update Notifier

[RavenLX]

On 05/17/2017 08:59 AM, Frank wrote:

Op 17-05-17 om 14:42 schreef RavenLX:

I love that Debian doesn't have an updater/notifier.


Erm... gnome-packagekit + pk-update-icon ?


No thanks. Not for me. But I think the OP might like it. :) I actually 
wasn't being sarcastic in my message. I actually genuinely glad not to 
have an updater bugging me. I prefer to do updates when I'm ready to do 
them (usually once a week).

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/16/2017 11:23 PM, Ric Moore wrote:

On 05/16/2017 11:04 PM, SDA wrote:

On Tue, May 16, 2017 at 08:50:45AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote:


*ROFL!*  ;/
I've been a computer _user_ for a half-century.
About 5 years ago I started seriously plotting my escape from the 
gloppy GUI

of an organization recently in the news.
I investigated "Linux from Scratch", Slackware, and Ubuntu. Debian was
chosen for having a good mixture of customizing possibilities and 
breath of

easily installed tested software.


IMHO You should do LFS - Over the past 18 months or so, the amount of
traffic attributed to you and your learning is incredible. A lot of 
time is

spent on your issues, (which face it aren't really problems) while I feel
that other users don't get the attention needed. What makes you think you
should monopolize this list as your personal research tool? It's fucking
ridiculous!


My current mantra is "If retirement isn't for learning, what use is it?"


Maybe get out and enjoy life more? I'm retired too, but don't spend 
all my

time at the keyboard!



If he's like me, an amputee in a wheelchair, keeping the ole brain 
active, while everything else is failing, isn't a bad thing. I also 
watch a lot of cooking shows, but that is another matter.  Ric


I'm disabled with Fibromyalgia and work from home. I can't afford to 
retire. And I spend almost all my time at the computer. I love watching 
YouTube (Gak!! *cough* Ok... some channels are actually pretty good). 
Though they are not cooking shows. Mostly sci-fi, spiritual, music, and 
tech and art or DIY related.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/16/2017 02:18 PM, deloptes wrote:

Thanatos Incarnate wrote:


My 2 cents: If you're used to Debian Stable level stability, then
Testing might get on your nerves with its tiny little paper cuts
(Firefox crashing, Thunderbird not knowing what to do with your Icedove
profile, KDE having GUI elements that follow your set theme, but then
also others that don't, KDE PIM being crashy as ever,...). Of course,
the less complicated your system, the fewer bugs you'll have. So, while
Openbox, a panel and a terminal won't drive your crazy even on Sid, KDE
or Gnome might.


To all that like the old stable style of DE I recommend TDE
http://trinitydesktop.org


That looked interesting! I used to use KDE all the time and then decided 
to use XFCE after finding that KDE kept my laptop fan running and the 
laptop running hot all the time. I don't have that happening in XFCE 
(but did add some power control stuff which may have helped as well). I 
also got quite used to XFCE and the fact that everything looks the same. 
No more GTK looking one way and KDE stuff looking another way.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/16/2017 07:22 AM, Thanatos Incarnate wrote:

Hello there,


My 2 cents: If you're used to Debian Stable level stability, then 
Testing might get on your nerves with its tiny little paper cuts 
(Firefox crashing, Thunderbird not knowing what to do with your Icedove 
profile, KDE having GUI elements that follow your set theme, but then 
also others that don't, KDE PIM being crashy as ever,...). Of course, 
the less complicated your system, the fewer bugs you'll have. So, while 
Openbox, a panel and a terminal won't drive your crazy even on Sid, KDE 
or Gnome might.


Well, I keep Firefox as a backup, use Thunderbird a lot, but never used 
Icedove. I use XFCE and not KDE (but was thinking of returning to KDE, 
not sure right now), and don't use PIMs at all. I don't know what 
Openbox is either. :)


I have a pretty functional development system setup and it works well 
for me. But the packages are probably very outdated. I would love to 
have newer packages.

Re: Virtual Machines: Newbie / novice questions

[RavenLX]

On 05/14/2017 07:51 AM, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:

I've never used a VM but I wanted to ask some newbie questions about them.



I regularly use Virtual Machines quite a lot for testing purposes. I'll 
be glad to cover your questions. For these questions, I'll be answering 
them based on using VirtualBox.



* Is it right to consider that there is somehow a base OS and the other VMs
somehow are set up on top of it--you boot into that base OS first, and then
have the ability to switch to another VM.  OK, I'm thinking that is not the
case--I think I've heard of things like a hypervisor (??), and now I'm
guessing that the machine boots first into the hypervisor and then from there
boot into any of one or more VMS, one of which would contain what I consider
my main or base OS?


Basically VirtualBox is a program you install into your computer. It's 
much like any other program you have. You run it and from there you can 
create new virtual machines you can launch from within VirtualBox (or 
right click on a machine and create a desktop shortcut for easy access 
to just the machine without running the VirtualBox program itself). So 
yes, you "base OS" as you call it (which is called a "host" in Virtual 
Machine language) is the operating system you boot into. Each Virtual 
Machine you create is called a "guest" machine.



* I know (or I'm 99.9% sure) that the software for a VM is on separate
partitions (except maybe some are or could be shared between the VM and the
"base" machine, such as for my documents and such (things that I'd want to be
accessible from any of the VMs).


Actually no. The software for the VM are stored in machine files. In 
VirtualBox you can even determine where to save these machine files on 
your hard drive. These machine files can also be exported (which I do 
after each update) so that you can keep them backed up on a USB stick, 
SD card, what have you. If something goes wrong you can then import that 
machine (from the exported file) and go back to work. I usually do this 
but any time I go to use a machine, I clone it first, then I use it, and 
destroy it when done. This way I don't use the original virtual machine 
and it's handy if I should need an identical one for testing something 
(which I often do). I only use the original one to do software updates 
on that machine.


As for shared documents, yes you can specify a folder on your hard drive 
(one or more, actually) and read (and even select settings to write to) 
that shared folder. This is the only way I know of to share files 
between the "host" and "guest" machines. For this, you have to use the 
Device menu to insert a "Guest Additions CD" (which is labeled in the 
Device menu for easy access). Then know the right command lines to mount 
that CD if it doesn't mount automatically, and finally you can move to 
that CD in the guest machine and run the appropriate program to install 
the guest additions. NOTE: In Linux you need gcc and build-essentials 
installed *first* before doing this. Also some updates may render the 
guest additions inoperable so you'll want to re-install them (especially 
if VirtualBox itself went through an update). Guest Additions will work 
on most Windows and Linux OSs. They do NOT work if you are using an 
Android "guest" machine as there aren't any built (that I know of) for 
an Android OS.



* Can I keep a VM in a running state for instant switching to it?  (I


Absolutely. You can even close the main VirtualBox window and keep the 
virtual machine running.



presume that in that case, it will be using RAM, on the other hand, it could
be in a non-running (either non-booted or suspended-to-disk) and not be using
RAM?


Yes, it uses ram. You could also take a "snapshot" or pause it and go 
unpause it later, I believe. I'm not 100% sure on this because I 
personally never had to use such a feature. However, I have kept VMs 
running and then even suspended my whole computer (ie. the host machine 
or as you call it "base OS") and then when I came back and took the 
machine out of suspended or sleep mode, the virtual machine also was 
awakened and running instantly.



* I presume that booting a VM takes  about the same amount of time, maybe a
little longer than booting the base machine /  OS (well, unless the OS in the
VM is significantly "smaller" in terms of footprint and services started at
boot)?


Yes, it would depend on the machine. But I don't find it is all that 
slow. In fact, sometimes it is about as fast as booting it via hardware. 
It depends on how fast your computer is, and also how much RAM, and CPUs 
you have set up for the virtual machine when you first put it together. 
There may even be other settings that might help with this, including 
hardware virtualization (which you should make sure your host (ie. 
"base") machine's BIOS supports and that it is turned on/activated. It 
might not always be necessary - but it depends on the type of virtual 
machine you 

Re: Update Notifier

[RavenLX]

On 05/14/2017 04:03 AM, Mark Fletcher wrote:

On Fri, May 05, 2017 at 04:32:44PM +, sare...@att.net wrote:

Why doesn't Debian 8 Cinnamon notify when updates are ready to install
after all these years Debian has existed? Don't tell me there is one,
because after installing Debian I waited a long time to see if a
notification would pop up. It never did. I know about doing apt-get
update && apt-get upgrade,but why should we have to use a command
line? It makes me wonder about Debian security. Would you please put
an update notifier in all your versions of Debian.



Who do you think you are talking to?


LOL! Love your reply! :)

I love that Debian doesn't have an updater/notifier. I rather do things 
at the command line. I'd be lost without it.


Also, updaters/notifiers I've found don't always pop up the extra 
information some updates may have (which you would have to read and 
sometimes interact with to make a decision of whether to keep a config 
file or not, or to reconfig something.).


If the OP want Debian with a notifier, maybe they should try a 
Debian-based distro rather than pure Debian. There's tons of them out 
there. They could check out distrowatch.com for more info.


Personally, I'm glad Debian doesn't notify automatically by default.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/13/2017 12:40 PM, Richard Owlett wrote:

I have a partition whose label is "common".


I could almost smack myself in the head. I had done that when I used to 
dual-boot Windows / Linux (now you can see why I'm not a fan of 
dual-boot, I guess! LOL!). I also used to dual boot SolydX and SolydK 
distributions.


In my VMs, I do use the guest additions and have a shared directory 
(necessity for what I need to do as well).


But that was one way I had shared data.

However, I still balk at dual-booting (like you balk at VMs :) )

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/10/2017 09:19 AM, Michael Milliman wrote:

On 05/10/2017 06:57 AM, songbird wrote:
[...]

   if you wanted to you could have one partition for
booting the stable distribution and only update that
when you have a good time for that.

   the thing with these setups is that in Debian you
don't have to get automatic updates if you don't want
them so you know when the system is being upgraded.


IMHO, this is a most excellent way of doing things, given that time is
available to maintain such a system.  This way, you have the best of all
worlds. And can incorporate newer packages and versions as they are
available and tested on your system into your working system.


"given that time is available to maintain such a system". That's where I 
seem to fall short. Time. And by the time I get done with my regular 
work (which lately I've been swamped with), I haven't really had the 
time to do any experimenting even with the Stretch virtual machine I've 
created (see my other longer reply on this).


For my situation, dual boot isn't a good trade-off. For others, it's the 
best way to go. Different situations call for different configurations. 
Virtual machines work best for my situation.


In fact, it was working with virtual machine versions of Linux that got 
me convinced (rather quickly, I might add) to switch from Windows to a 
GNU/Linux distro in the first place! That was almost 4.5 years ago and I 
have no intention of leaving! :) I used to distro-hop but I think I am 
going to stick with Debian now. I have to use Ubuntu at work, as it is 
so at least it's somewhat familiar.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/10/2017 07:57 AM, songbird wrote:

   you can set up several partitions with different
levels of fun if you want.


My spare laptop has a 250 GB HD and the laptop I use all the time has a 
600 GB HD. I already have both partitioned for *one* OS - Debian 8. I 
really don't want to go through repartitioning or reinstalling the whole 
thing because I have a quite a lot of programs (some of which I have to 
use for a jobs) and configurations which take a long time to put 
together. I simply don't have the time right now because of work and 
other commitments.


Also I hate dual-booting. I normally forget the other OS is there and it 
just sets there just taking up HD space instead.


What I did was updated a Debian 8 Virtual Machine (on VirtualBox). I 
have it but guess what? I haven't felt up to (nor had the time to) do 
anything with it since. I may end up having to wait a couple months. 
(Serves me right getting too curious!)


Having dual boot systems has it's advantages and disadvantages. But in 
my particular case, I've found virtual machines to be more to my liking 
as they don't require me to dual boot.


Also on the "other OS" I would still have emails, etc in that version's 
thunderbird and it would be a hassle to keep having to import them all 
to the "main" OS, and I don't like having to remember (and always 
forgetting) to pop in a USB stick to save/get emails.


My hardware pretty much has to stick to one OS and the spare laptop has 
to be identical so I can just plop in the backed up files (I at least 
remember out of habit to backup frequently) and get to work fast (which 
may be needed at any time).


This is why virtual machines come in so handy. I can clone one and go do 
whatever it is I want/need to do. If it breaks, I can delete the 
machine, clone another from the base and I'm good to go.


As for the "base" virtual machines, I keep the base VMs updated once a 
week and then condense, export and back them up. This way I have 
something ready to go on the spare laptop (which doesn't contain any 
data files that change regularly, just the programs needed to do the 
work I need to do, and data that is almost never changing).


I've found this setup to work best for me.


   the thing with these setups is that in Debian you
don't have to get automatic updates if you don't want
them so you know when the system is being upgraded.


I do upgrades once a week, so that would be giving me yet another system 
to upgrade and it would mean having to reboot and go into the other OS 
to do it. Call me lazy, but I already have quite a few systems to update 
every week now (2 laptops, an android phone, and 5 (so far) virtual 
machines (which need to stay updated and ready to clone at any time for 
use with development and testing). My computer is several years old so 
it's not the fastest at rebooting (I think the VMs boot much faster).


What I'll do is work in the virtual machine (when I have time that is) 
and then decide from there. Who knows, at the rate it's taking me to get 
around to doing any experimenting, by that time Stretch may have gone 
stable. :-P

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

My system is used for work (I work from home exclusively) and stuff I do 
sometimes can be mission-critical in that if I'm notified, I might have 
to go and do some work right away on something important. Customers 
would be relying on my ability to fix things. So, I really can't afford 
something to go down on my machine. This is why I have a spare laptop 
just in case my "main" laptop has a problem. They are both set up 
identical and data files are backed up very frequently so all I need to 
do is get the backups onto the spare laptop and be good to go within 
minutes.


Stability, in my case, is a must. However, I do like to have newer 
features as well.



On 05/07/2017 07:45 PM, Michael Milliman wrote:

Yeah, this is one of the main things sited as a drawback to the Debian
distributionpackages are sometimes a little older than in other
distributions.  But, this is because the Debian developers spend so much
time making sure that they work properly in the distribution before they
are released in the repositories.  As a result, things change a lot less
frequently.  The benefit of this is that Debian is 'stable' in all
senses of the word...few serious bugs and system instability, and little
or no instability in what is part of the distribution.  For many people,
especially businesses, this stability is important.  For others, like
myself, I can afford a little more instability, and so can deal with any
instability in testing for the benefit of getting newer versions of the
packages and run Testing (Stretch). Many people also run Experimental
(Sid) for the benefit of bleeding-edge versions of software, but a lot
of instability (in all senses of the word).

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/07/2017 04:33 PM, cbannis...@kinect.co.nz wrote:

By the way, the words "unstable" "stable" as used in the distribution names
don't mean likely to crash, --- it refers to the amount of changes
occurring, i.e. 'stable' has no new packages entering it, and supposedly only
security updates, whereas "unstable" is unstable because there are many
changes occuring on a constant basis.


Thank you for this info. I admit I always thought "unstable" meant it 
might still have bugs or still be in beta. I don't mind when things 
change frequently because sometimes this is how one can get new features 
in a newer version of a program.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/06/2017 08:07 PM, Michael Milliman wrote:

That is most definitely NOT a dumb question!! It is difficult at times
to determine where to report bugs.  However, if the bug is within the
Debian distribution, I would use the Debian bug reporter to report it,
the development team will work with upstream as necessary to resolve the
problem. 


You know what, I never realized that was in there! I had to find it in 
the debian menu in XFCE (which I rarely use, since I have everything I 
need in a side panel).


Many thanks for this info.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/06/2017 06:46 PM, Michael Milliman wrote:

beta testing.  Usually, by the time Stretch reaches the 'frozen' stage,
most of the major issues have been worked out, and it is reasonably
ready for production.  However, they may still be a few problems to be
worked out...it is a beta after all.


I have come to know over the years nothing is 100% perfect, even if it's 
out of beta. :) I've used beta software in the past that was very 
stable, and used stable software in the past that was buggier than 
you-know-what. (I must say the majority of the buggy software was back 
when I used to use Windows as my main OS). Since I use Debian as my main 
OS, I have had quite reliable and rock-solid results.



I use out of distribution packages on occasion as well.  However, there
is no guarantee that such packages will work or continue to work under
the new distribution, even after it is released as Debian Stable.


The ones I use are Google Chrome (because I need to have things like 
bookmarks, etc. available across several devices), JEdit (I use this for 
development), TLP Power Management (because otherwise my laptop's fan 
would be on all the time and it would get quite hot for some reason), 
Thunderbird from Ubuntuzilla, and VirtualBox (because I like to have the 
latest). Also videolan is in there for the stuff needed for playing DVDs 
on my laptops. I don't use CiaroDock right now but I do have it 
commented out in case I want to go back to it. Also I added the 
backports repo. That's the crazy setup I have. I'm thinking of doing 
this for GIMP and Blender as well. Not sure yet. I like having new 
features. :) I'm considering going back to KDE and having the latest KDE 
updates, too (right now I'm doing quite well with XFCE from the Jessie 
repo). Sometimes I like to try different things (and do so usually first 
in a virtual machine for awhile).



Having said that, if they worked under Debian 8, they may well work
under Debian 9.  Keep in mind, however, the libraries available with
Debian 9 will in many cases be new and updated versions, and may not be
the same as the ones used by the out of distribution packages. So there
may be some compatibility issues. (Issues I did have with one of the
out-of-distribution packages I use.)


I've had that happen a long time ago with something (I forgot what now). 
Very much a PITA.



Give it a try.  If it works for you great.


Going to do that in a VM first.


If you have problems,
especially with packages/libraries within the distribution, report them
so that they can be addressed and fixed.  That kind of input is
important in getting the Stretch distribution through the process to the
Stable distribution.


I'll earn the "dumb question of the century" award for this but...

What list do I report bugs to and is there something online that tells 
someone (who doesn't normally report bugs) the proper way to do bug reports?


Thank you for the detailed information you gave. It's very much 
appreciated. :)

Re: Debian 8.8 Released but can't get via apt-get?

[RavenLX]

On 05/06/2017 05:07 PM, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:

You get the updates normally.  If you managed to update to 8.7 just
fine, likely that means your mirror just doesn't have sync'd yet.  Wait
a few hours, and try again.


Now it works! I just updated my main laptop. Sven Hartge was right - I 
just needed a little patience. :)



The /etc/debian_version file usually has the version of Debian installed
in the system.

Try this in a command line shell:
cat /etc/debian_version


Now it says 8.8. All is good!

Thank you (both you and Sven) for your assurances.

Re: How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

On 05/06/2017 06:31 PM, Fungi4All wrote:
First check the hardware differences that are supported, then take a 
look at the bug lists for testing and unstable to see if you are using 
any buggy packages that do not apply on stable.  If you don't see 
anything that relates to your use you will be happy.


Good idea. I didn't see anything that would be too much of a problem, 
overall (even on a virtual machine).


Don't let the terms testing/unstable scare you much.  Remember many 
distributions are based on those two and not stable.


It all depends on your specific use.


I remember some time back I used SolydK and if I remember right, they 
based theirs on Testing, come to think of it.

How stable is the frozen stretch?

[RavenLX]

I am thinking about trying out Stretch (Debian 9) in either a spare 
laptop or a virtual machine. If I like it I might just point my sources 
list to that repo on both laptops if it's stable enough.


My question is, once it's "frozen", how stable is it or is it still 
pretty much not suitable for production yet? I also use a couple 
programs from outside ppas (*gulp!* :-O) and am taking into 
consideration conflicts with those as well. They do work great with the 
current stable.

Debian 8.8 Released but can't get via apt-get?

[RavenLX]

I have 8.7 on my system and read that 8.8 is now available. I did an 
update yesterday (I prefer to do this at the command line). I'm still at 
8.7, so after the announcement I did another update. I got no updates. 
(sudo apt-get update and then sudo apt-get dist-upgrade showed no 
updates available).


Does it take awhile for the updates to get to the mirrors? Or do I 
already have them? I thought if I had them then /etc/debian_version 
would show 8.8 but it doesn't. It still says 8.7.


Can someone enlighten me as to how to get the 8.8 updates or how to tell 
if I already have them?