Re: Gigabyte mother board AMD cpu
On Thu, 27 Mar 2014 11:36:47 +0200 Andrei POPESCU andreimpope...@gmail.com wrote: On Mi, 26 mar 14, 20:11:07, Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com wrote: No. Dan asked for any tips. He didn't ask for package lists or other time consuming stuff, which I wouldn't have had time for. He asked literally Anything else, so I gave him anecdotes, quite clearly labeling them as such. He may or may not find them helpful. If not, he's free to ignore my anecdotes, just like everyone else on the list. http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#idp54197360 Kind regards, Andrei And your point is? Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140327084419.7a7b4a07@mydesk
Re: Gigabyte mother board AMD cpu
On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 09:17:40 -0400 Dan Ritter d...@randomstring.org wrote: On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 11:19:42PM +1100, Ike Shields wrote: I have Gigabyte mother board with AMD cpu No. GA-78LMT-S2P I need the drivers for it. I am using Debian Release 7.4 (wheezy) 64-bit Everything on that motherboard should work in Debian. The onboard video card needs xserver-xorg-video-radeon or fglrx-driver from non-free. The ethernet wants firmware-realtek. USB3 should work immediately. Anything else? -dsr- I have no idea which mobos Debian handles out of the box, but what I've observed is that life is much nicer if: * You do the network install * Choose Expert install or whatever it's called * Say yes (default is no) to install nonfree software When I do that, stuff just works. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140326102508.7b15343a@mydesk
Re: Gigabyte mother board AMD cpu
On Wed, 26 Mar 2014 23:03:01 +0200 Andrei POPESCU andreimpope...@gmail.com wrote: On Mi, 26 mar 14, 10:25:08, Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com wrote: I have no idea which mobos Debian handles out of the box, but what I've observed is that life is much nicer if: * You do the network install Irrelevant, the kernel is the same. * Choose Expert install or whatever it's called Irrelevant, the kernel is the same. * Say yes (default is no) to install nonfree software This activates the non-free repository. When I do that, stuff just works. It might be that the installer also installs firmware-linux-nonfree, which contains a lot of firmware, especially for Radeon video cards. This however still wouldn't explain why stuff (which stuff?) just works. Would you please be so kind to provide some facts to your theory, like package lists from installs with and without your method? No. Dan asked for any tips. He didn't ask for package lists or other time consuming stuff, which I wouldn't have had time for. He asked literally Anything else, so I gave him anecdotes, quite clearly labeling them as such. He may or may not find them helpful. If not, he's free to ignore my anecdotes, just like everyone else on the list. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140326201107.1ac407c4@mydesk
Re: Great Debian experience
On Wed, 19 Mar 2014 07:25:44 -0400 (EDT) Stephen Powell zlinux...@wowway.com wrote: On Tue, 18 Mar 2014 14:31:46 -0400 (EDT), Steve Litt wrote: ... I also unchecked the Debian Desktop selection. ... Then I did the following: apt-get install xfce4 xfce4-goodies apt-get install synaptic apt-get install iceweasel ... I realize that this is too late for this install, but maybe it will help you next time. Also, maybe it will help someone else. Try this. When you get the initial boot screen from the Debian installer, press F1 for help, then at the boot prompt type: expert desktop=xfce and press Enter. Do *not* uncheck the desktop selection in the tasksel menu during installation. The installer will install the xfce desktop. There's more than one way to do this, but this may be the quickest way. You can also add whatever other Debian installer options, kernel boot parameters, or environment variable values that you want to use on this line. Thanks Stephen! I'll recommend this to people. If and when I change my style of booting to CLI and then typing startx, this is the way I'll do it myself. I should probably explain my propensity to install a base system, get it running, and then use the package manager to add the rest. It comes from long years of usage of Red Hat, Caldera, Mandrake/Mandriva, and Ubuntu. On those distros, there was the very real possibility that installation would stall or produce a nonbootable system. So what I always do is install a non-X system with little but ssh server added to the defaults, get that installed, and then, from a nice, stable OS, use the package manager for the rest. This level of paranoia might not be necessary with Debian, but I don't yet completely trust its installation procedure. Relatedly, this past experience of hanging installations is one reason I greatly prefer CLI or nCurses installations to GUI ones. CLI installs are more likely to complete, and are MUCH more likely to install on a resource starved machine. I recently installed Debian, via the network install, on a machine with 128MB of RAM. No other complete Linux that I tried would go that low. Thanks, and I'll always keep F1 and then expert desktop=xfce in mind. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140326204606.7e29c305@mydesk
Re: Need a printer driver that's in Jessie, but must run Wheezy.
On Thu, 20 Mar 2014 17:48:10 -0700 Rick Thomas rbtho...@pobox.com wrote: Hi! I've got a MacPro G5 that refuses to run Jessie (crashes on shutdowns, and sometimes crashes randomly without explicit shutdown). So I have to use Wheezy on it. I have a snazzy new HP OfficeJet 4630 all-in-one printer. Jessie has a cups driver for it, but Wheezy doesn't. I've looked in the Wheezy backports but to no avail. Is there some way to extract just the driver for this printer from a Jessie machine and install it on my Wheezy G5? Docker? Has anyone tried that on Wheezy? SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321032005.76eff8cf@mydesk
Re: Security Implications of running startx from command line - was Re: Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 09:24:21 + Jonathan Dowland j...@debian.org wrote: On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 02:19:46PM +, Brian wrote: Ctrl+Alt+F1...F12 For systems with virtual terminal support, these keystroke combinations are used to switch to virtual terminals 1 through 12, respectively. This can be disabled with the DontVTSwitch xorg.conf(5) file option. I doubt that stops e.g. chvt(1) from working. I'm sure there are a myriad other ways to switch VT from within the X session, too. Not only that, but I don't think a day goes by when I don't switch to a VT to do CLI stuff, or even to kill X because X hung (not so much in Debian, but in other distros). I'd rather shut down the computer when I leave to go to the bathroom than set it up so I couldn't Ctrl+Alt+F3 to get a CLI environment any time I wanted. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321122649.69d515f7@mydesk
Re: Security Implications of running startx from command line - was Re: Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 11:06:03 + Robin rc.rattusrat...@gmail.com wrote: I may have missed something. If someone has physical access to your machine can't they just power off and go into single user mode and change the root password? Unless you have a BIOS password or encrypted root partition (or encrypted partition where /etc resides), yes. The OP's point was that those things take 5 minutes, whereas killing X started by startx gives the guy a logged-in command prompt in about 5 seconds, especially if Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is enabled to instantly kill X. I think it depends on the situation. If you're at the library with your laptop and need to go to the bathroom, it's best to take the computer with you, because it's easier to just walk off with it than to dink with the command prompt. I have my office in my home, where I trust everyone who goes in my office, so startx is fine. But if I were working in a cube farm with a desktop, where hundreds of people walk by my computer every day, and in fact some might actually have business being on my computer, disabling a 5 second route to a command prompt logged in as me would be a very good thing. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321123757.653c8c4e@mydesk
Re: Debian on a Dell Latitude E7440
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 07:37:39 -0400 ken geb...@mousecar.com wrote: I'm where you are, currently using a decades-old Dell Latitude with a couple cracks in it and a non-working screen. It's plugged into an old CRT monitor. Although, like yours, the battery lasts maybe fifteen minutes, it's still good for when the power goes off momentarily-- which happens four or five times a year. There's enough cash in my checking to buy a new laptop, but I just haven't gotten around to it. It's not going in the trash though. It's still good for a headless linux box. Long ago I buffed it up with a big HD and 2G of RAM, the cat5 and 802.11bg wifi still work, as do the two USB ports, DVD r/w. I figure it would still be useful as a print- and scanner server... and/or music server (the sound card is still fine), a sandbox machine, and possibly for some other things. I might spray-paint it, frame it, and hang it on the wall so it looks like art... even as it continues to serve useful purposes. I'd love it if this old piece of crap didn't make it into the landfill until after I do... maybe even *long* after. Linux will never die. It just gets perpetually revised. Another excellent use for it is as an OpenBSD/pf firewall. Much less bulky than a desktop, uses less electricity than an average desktop, and in its normal operation you ssh into it so no keyboard or monitor is needed. http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/pf/ SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321124441.29384669@mydesk
Re: Security Implications of running startx from command line - was Re: Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:25:14 +0100 Valerio Vanni vale...@valeriovanni.com wrote: Brian a...@cityscape.co.uk ha scritto nel messaggio news:21032014113647.c62190855...@desktop.copernicus.demon.co.uk For the situation when X is started with startx would 'startx exit' prevent the termination of an X session even if CTRL+ALT+FN etc gets console access? I've always used startx exit, and it works perfectly. It doesn't prevent the termination of an X session, but if it's terminated you get a logon prompt as if you had just booted the machine. I just tried both: startx exit startx; exit The former logs out of the original bash session immediately, running X in the background, so you see no stdout from X. I don't know where it goes. The latter shows the stdout from X, but when you leave X, whether normally from Xfce or by Ctrl+C'ing in tty1, it automatically logs out of the bash session and leaves you at the login prompt. I guess the choice between these two depends on how valuable you think it is to see the stdout from X (for debugging, presumably), how worried you are about where all that stdout is going if X is run in the background, how worried you are that somebody could find a way of killing X and simultaneously preventing the exit to happen. To cure my paranoia of having stdout going to an unknown place, I made the following executable /usr/local/bin/exx: == #!/bin/bash startx /dev/null exit == I invoke it like this: . exx I think that dot space before the command is similar to exec, which runs it in the current process, so the current process, rather than a spawned process, is what gets exited. It appears to work perfectly, logging out tty1 the instant X is up and running. I didn't plan this, but this 2 line shellscript has the added benefit that if I forget the dot, and forgetting it would leave the bash session open, it tells me I don't have privileges to run X, and refuses to run X. So I can't make a dumb mistake. I'm probably going to start using this exx script on all my Debian computers. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321133537.5e3e923b@mydesk
Re: cdimage.debian.org how-to? what gives? [solved]
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 16:38:25 -0600 Paul E Condon pecon...@mesanetworks.net wrote: Over the years since Potato, I have noticed that while each new release was bigger and better than its predecessor, the web site became more and more convoluted and difficult to navigate. I'm not a web designer, as well as not being a developer. But the new access path to iso images is something I can live with, now that I know it exists. I've noticed this too. I always need to struggle, navigate and wander to download the right ISO image. If I ever wanted to install Debian Testing (which I don't), I have no idea how to do that. Occasionally I don't know I downloaded the wrong image until I boot the DVD made with it. My other Debian confusion is all the program sources and how to enable/disable them. I know of no web page that explains the whats, where's and why's of this. Fortunately, I'm in several LUGs with Debian-knowledgeable people, so if I get in a bind, I can get help. Some time, after I truly understand the ins and outs of Debian versions, downloads, backports, and the like, I'll write a document to explain it, clearly, in one place, for the new Debian user. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140321194133.7cf4ea12@mydesk
Re: Great Debian experience
On Thu, 20 Mar 2014 20:33:17 +0700 Ken Heard kensli...@teksavvy.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 2014-03-19 23:02, Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com wrote: * Tell it to include the nonfree repos Did not, but ending up installing the ones I needed anyway. Hi Ken, Humor me... Unless you have a similar objection to nonfree software that Stallman has, just for fun tell it to install nonfree at installation time. For one thing, it makes things more just works, which is how the thread started, but also, it's remotely possible you *didn't* install that one nonfree software that would have made LVM work with your brand new hardware. That sounds bizarre, but might be possible. Example... Back in the day, Mandriva Linux came with a free Broadcom driver and the nonfree. The free driver flat out didn't work, and if it was installed, you had to disable it or it would deep-six the nonfree driver that *did* work. Thanks very much for the wicd tip. When I'm not using Xfce, I'm using Openbox, and nm-applet doesn't show up in Openbox, so I'm always looking for another way of handling networks, beyond ifup and wpa-supplicant. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140320173029.53733971@mydesk
Re: Great Debian experience
On Wed, 19 Mar 2014 21:32:10 +0700 Ken Heard kensli...@teksavvy.com wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 It never ceases to amaze me that there are people can get various iterations of Debian working out of the box. Ever since Sarge I have had no end of trouble either with new installations or upgrades, to the point that I dread every new iteration. I would have switched long ago to another operating system except for the fact that every other one I looked at was worse. My latest experience was a new installation of Wheezy in a new box. It took me the entire month of January to get the OS and essential applications to the point where the machine became usable. Yes it works, but so does a Ford model T. For example I wanted to use LVM but the attempt broke the installer. I still have not got sound working. So what is the secret? Ken Heard Hi Ken, I have a specific set of secrets: * Use the network installer, CLI (ncurses) mode, Expert Install * But mostly choose the defaults * Install the Stable version * Tell it to include the nonfree repos * Install a very small system working, then use apt-get to expand ..I don't even install X during the install * Use a robust, lightweight desktop like Xfce, LXDE, or Openbox * Install networkmanager. I'm no longer man enough to use wpasupplicant or iwconfig * Early, install synaptic. Much easier than CLI apt-cache search. * Don't use brand new hardware. About that last point: The next time I get new hardware, I'll try Debian Stable first, but if the hardware is newer than the drivers in Debian Stable, I'll use Xubuntu, and then a year later go to Debian Stable. HTH, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140319120249.243e4b09@mydesk
Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Wed, 19 Mar 2014 14:03:03 + Lisi Reisz lisi.re...@gmail.com wrote: Choosing XFCE from the beginning has already been suggested.I suggested choosing expert install and then choosing XFCE before being taken back to the ordinary installation. This also has the advantage that you don't have to type startx every time you log in, because you get a desktop manager. Yeah, when making a machine for a less technical or less command-prompt comfortable person, I like to have it boot into GUI via the desktop manager. But when setting it up for myself or for people technically sharp enough to log in and then type startx (and people you can trust with the command prompt), I like to boot to the command prompt. Booting to the command prompt gives me an extra test point, and also maximizes the probability that I'll boot to *something*. And, although this isn't rational given that I'm using Debian, Ubuntu's Plymouth has left a bad taste in my mouth for booting directly to GUI. And last but not least, booting to CLI and using startx gives me that nostalgic feeling for when I was a young whippersnapper using Red Hat 5.1. And then there's the fact that on rare occasions, I really don't want a GUI running, even though the machine's a desktop (or notebook). Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140319115041.2793b26d@mydesk
Re: Security Implications of running startx from command line - was Re: Startx: was Great Debian experience
On Thu, 20 Mar 2014 12:44:21 +1100 Zenaan Harkness z...@freedbms.net wrote: Yeah, when making a machine for a less technical or less command-prompt comfortable person, I like to have it boot into GUI via the desktop manager. But when setting it up for myself or for people technically sharp enough to log in and then type startx (and people you can trust with the command prompt), I like to boot to the command prompt. When logging in at the Linux console (on current kernels at least), then running startx, there is a security problem: Anyone with physical access to your computer could: a) logout of your gui session (if it's not screensaver locked), taking them back to your command line, and depending on your settings of /etc/sudoers tty_tickets or respectively !tty_tickets setting - see man sudoers) might give them instant root access; either way, mischief may ensure. b) type Ctrl-Alt-F1 (for example), followed by Ctrl-C to kill your gui session, notwithstanding if you even have it gui locked SO: what to do? What I did for a while was: a) log in to Linux console b) startx; exit This way, when the gui (X in this case) exits for any reason, then the console shell session logs out automatically. That's fine, but requires more typing, and remembering to add the extra ; exit command. So to optimize, simply put the sequency startx; exit (or similar) into a shell function - I use the name se since it's less to type :) So now I use: a) log in to Linux console b) se Happy and safe sessions to all, Zenaan Outstanding! I'm going to start doing that. Thanks. What shellscript contains the se function on your system? Of course, if a badguy has physical access, then you're pretty much screwed anyway: If you don't have a bios password they can boot System Rescue CD, mount your root partition, delete the x in the second field of root's record (or your record if there's no root), log in, press enter, log in, change the password to something they like, and have their way with the machine. But I still like your se, and will do that. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140319224849.1b1aaec5@mydesk
Re: Backup's to DVD
On Mon, 17 Mar 2014 09:57:07 +0100 an...@cyberh0me.net wrote: On Sun, 2014-03-16 at 16:54 -0500, Mr Queue wrote: I already have a pair of backup servers in different physical locations That's good. DVDs IMHO are useless as serious backup medias. Because? for example lifetime of the media itself, problems to read on different kind of dvd drives and some other kind of Problems Thanks Andre. So far, I haven't had readability problems on old CDs and DVDs. Blu-Rays seem a little squirrelly over time, but CDs and DVDs seem readable for many years. there are so many reasons why enterprise companys never use dvd's as storage medium for their data I think one of the big reasons enterprise backups avoid optical media is shear size. With DVD max 4.7GB and Blu-Ray max 25GB, a bare metal backup could involve a lot of time consuming media switching. But look at the alternatives. Tape has *always* been iffy on restorability, especially consumer grade tape devices. Backing up to a 2TB, 2.5 Western Digital external disk, about $120.00 at Costco, is a real possibility, but: 1) If you're worried about long time readability, you don't want this, because you're always going to be tempted to cannibalize old backups to make room for new ones, rather than spending another $120.00. 2) Magnetic disks tend to stop working if not spun up at regular intervals. 3) Magnetic disks can be (accidentally) erased. Not so with write-once optical media. 4) Magnetic disks are very subject to electric destruction and physical shock. Then there's cloud backup. This would theoretically be great if you could trust the commercial entity to: 1) Carefully keep you backups for later use 2) Protect your backups from being viewed by others. In practice, the only way I'd ever trust a cloud backup entity is if I had alternative copies (which I would), and the backup I submitted to them was GPG protected with maximum key size. Also, if you're like me and have upload speeds of less than 1Mbit, it's going to take forever to back up. And once again, for privacy reasons, there's no way I'd let the backup system iteratively access the files on my computer. however it depends how long you try to have this backup available and if you want to be sure you have a working backup Exactly. In practice, I do these three things: * Maintain my own, rsync driven, incremental backup server, as described at http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200609/200609.htm * Back up from the backup server to Blu-Ray * Back up from the backup server to Western Digital 2.5 drives Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140317110652.52e9db67@mydesk
Re: Backup's to DVD
On Sun, 16 Mar 2014 23:02:59 +0100 Ralf Mardorf ralf.mard...@alice-dsl.net wrote: On Sun, 2014-03-16 at 16:54 -0500, Mr Queue wrote: I already have a pair of backup servers in different physical locations That's good. DVDs IMHO are useless as serious backup medias. Because? Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140317010805.500484bb@mydesk
Re: Backup's to DVD
On Sun, 16 Mar 2014 16:54:48 -0500 Mr Queue li...@mrqueue.com wrote: Anyone doing anything interesting to backup data to DVD's? https://packages.debian.org/sid/dkopp I back up to Blu-Ray, among other things. Often (I try to do it daily) I back up to a backup server via rsync. Then, every few weeks, I make tarballs of the major trees, and back up the tarballs to DVD. I make a 25GB file, loopback mount and format it UDF, store all the files on it, then use growisofs to burn it to Blu-Ray. http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/blu-ray-backup.htm SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140317011512.2a33d826@mydesk
Re: When fogetting assigned login name rather than password
On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 11:01:15 + Tom Furie t...@furie.org.uk wrote: On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 05:45:14AM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote: If another OS had not been available but I knew the root password, is there some way I could have gained access as root? The classic approach to this problem is to pass 'init=/bin/sh' to the kernel. The method for doing so depends on which boot manager you might be using. Cheers, Tom That's really cool, and I'm going to remember it. Before this, I've always booted a live CD for stuff like this. Do you think this is going to continue working when we switch to systemd? Thanks for the info. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140315112541.7dd313a5@mydesk
Re: When fogetting assigned login name rather than password
On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 12:38:48 + Tom Furie t...@furie.org.uk wrote: Having gone back to re-read Richard's original post, he does state that he was bringing up an install without GUI. Which poses the question why not just log in as root to get the user name? unless root logins are disabled, which leads us back to how he has a root password in that case. One possible explanation might be that he disabled root login by having a blank /etc/securetty file, which disallows root login on a tty, but you still have a root account you can su to after logging in as a regular user. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140315113739.360a49dc@mydesk
Re: When fogetting assigned login name rather than password
On Sat, 15 Mar 2014 09:34:22 -0500 Richard Owlett rowl...@cloud85.net wrote: Andrei POPESCU wrote: [1] not sure how this works with a disabled root account though, in case you chose this during installation. Would a kind list subscriber with such a setup please test and clarify this for us? I'm about to do one of my routine disk wipes. Tell me what initial conditions you wish and what test procedure and I'll be happy to do it. The install medium will be Debian 6.0.5 DVD 1 of 8 with no internet connection. Before wiping, just for the fun of it, use either a live CD or Tom's pass 'init=/bin/sh' to the kernel method to access the hard drive, mount the normal root partition of your machine, edit /etc/passwd, and erase the x that's the second field (fields are delineated by colons) in your regular login. This leaves your regular name without password, meaning you can just press Enter when queried for a password. Disconnect from the network (for security, you now have no password), reboot, and immediately, use the passwd command to give your regular login a password. When asked for your current password, just press Enter. Once you're in, type su - and you can have your way with the machine. HTH, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140315114844.747c167a@mydesk
Wodim: Was: My experiences with three CD players on Gnome
On Sun, 16 Mar 2014 10:35:36 +1100 Zenaan Harkness z...@freedbms.net wrote: Conclusion: Gnome Player wins. Correction: The command line wins :) cdcd wodim (contains readom) bashburn cdargs cdrskin cdtool FTW Hi Zenaan, Are you doing -pad and padsize=63s? Back in the day, Linux had a flaw, called the Linux read-ahead buffer bug, that caused errors on raw-reading a CD if you didn't use both those arguments. I wrote about it here: http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/coasterless.htm Are you using those arguments, and do you read your written CDs/DVDs as a device to check the md5sum against that of the iso you burned? Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140315212220.7d6cb22b@mydesk
Re: On what is helpful and what is not [was: Re: Wifi]
On Tue, 11 Mar 2014 13:10:11 +1100 (EST) Charlie Schroeder aries...@ipstarmail.com.au wrote: On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 20:14:26 -0400 Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com litt...@gmail.com suggested this: But as Dave said, yelling at first-time poster for a non-repeated minor mistake is just going to drive him over to Apple or back to Microsoft, and once we've driven away a few million, don't come crying to me when hardware vendors ignore Linux because almost nobody's there. The more hyperbole you use doesn't make it so. Yeah, the horse is dead, I'm going to quit beating it. [clip] Be well, Charlie Yes. I think I found a solution so everyone can be well. Although I'd hoped my newer than newbie friends would move to Debian because of its consistently stable performance, today I changed my recommendation to Xubuntu, which will doubtlessly please the tough love crowd at Debian-user, and will certainly be preferable for my friends, under the circumstances. Converting to Linux will be tough enough for my friends without their factual queries being countered with, well, you know. I don't want my friends to end up associating Linux with that kind of noise. Of course, I'm still using Debian Stable on my laptop, because it performs so darn well. And so I can communicate constructively on this list, I filtered Stan and a couple of his most ardent supporters. So, the tough love crowd wins, my friends win, and I win. Pretty cool, huh? SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140311040018.43d3208b@mydesk
Re: [Solved:] kmail2 inbox folder problem
On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 16:27:43 +0100 Hans hans.ullr...@loop.de wrote: Am Montag, 10. März 2014, 13:47:18 schrieb an...@cyberh0me.net: I accidently deleted my inbox folder (I mean the special inbox aka Posteingang) in kmail2. Now I cannot create a new one. How can I get it back without messing with my settings and other folders? use your backup? br Andre I only have an older backup! However, it is working again. Although I do not know what really happened, after reboot the folder appeared again. The nice side affect was, that I learnt, the mails are no more stored in ~/Mail but in ~/.local/share/.local-mail. Somehow I missed this change. Is this somewhere documented? Last but not least, it is working again. Thanks for all the help, Best Hans Hans, :-) Hi Hans, Congratulations. All's well that ends well. You should probably, immediately after breathing a sigh of relief, back up your Kmail2 and make a plan to back it up regularly. Kmail2 now stores part of its message content in a database called Akonadi. To me, that makes backup, restoration and transfer much harder than standard Maildir, Mbox or MH text/directory data storage. A couple years ago, when confronting a mandatory switch from Kmail to Kmail2 (with Akonadi), I switched to my current setup, and to this day I'm *extremely* pleased with the new setup. Here's info on the new setup, and how I transitioned: http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140310132142.53433ce9@mydesk
Re: On what is helpful and what is not [was: Re: Wifi]
On Tue, 11 Mar 2014 08:16:12 +1100 Charlie aries...@ipstarmail.com.au wrote: On Mon, 10 Mar 2014 11:15:11 -0400 Dave Woyciesjes sent: It's attitudes like that that keep people away from Debian Linux. Do you think so? I definitely think so. And if we ever want our OS of choice to have sufficient market share and mindshare that hardware vendors make their goods Linux compatible, we'd better quit blowing away potential Linux people by insulting them (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nub) when they make a minor mistake. Or is it that people are accustomed to having it all done for them, just turn the key and the engine fires up? Mailing list participants aren't digital. They all don't fall into the guru category or the having it all done for them category. Those with dumb symptom descriptions, civilly let them know about How to ask questions the smart way, or, if there are just one or two unclarities, ask clarifying questions. Or ignore their questions and let other answer. The few who continually ask dumb questions, just filter them out -- procmail's easy and life's too short. But as Dave said, yelling at first-time poster for a non-repeated minor mistake is just going to drive him over to Apple or back to Microsoft, and once we've driven away a few million, don't come crying to me when hardware vendors ignore Linux because almost nobody's there. That attitude should be ignored if one is interested in the assistance required to do what they want. But if not, it rather prepares a new user for the RTFM remark and that they have to take a few knocks and get back up again. Isn't that what life is all about? I don't think that's what life's about, nor do I think it prepares the new user for anything. If I forget my turn signal in traffic and the guy behind me gets out of his car yelling and screaming at me, he has a problem. If a guy posts about wifi and function keys and someone calls him a total nub (see Urban Dictionary definition), then the nub-caller has a problem. Which is fine, except one of those problems leads to road rage, and the other loses yet another Linux user and gives the hardware vendors even more reason to ignore Linux compatibility. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140310201426.7bdadc7d@mydesk
Re: [OT] Re: On why you should volunteer my way(?)
On Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:53:05 +1100 Scott Ferguson scott.ferguson.debian.u...@gmail.com wrote: Can we all move on to helping Debian users with the technical problems now? :) Of course we can, if somebody doesn't yell and scream and drive them away before we can give them assistance. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140310202118.6511b695@mydesk
Dirty switches: was Wifi
On Sun, 9 Mar 2014 08:13:43 -0700 LOwens ow...@netptc.net wrote: Steve et al I have a somewhat elderly Sony Vaio lappy with a Wi_Fi switch on the side which enables/disables WiFi. The switch is a bit touchy and often must be toggled several times before WiFi is enabled. Larry Hi Larry, The way I personally handle dirty switches is with electronics lubricant like Blowoff Electronic Lubricant. However, that's not without its risks, because you want the lubricant on the switch contacts and nothing else, so you can't go spraying it willy nilly around the whole switch. Sometimes it's better to use no-residue cleaner that, when it evaporates, leaves nothing behind. Or sometimes, the best course of action is to toggle the switch 100 times, and hopefully that will break off the oxides on the contacts, and make the switch work for another few months. By the way, here's an article I wrote on lubricating electronic contacts: http://www.troubleshooters.com/tpromag/200310/200310.htm HTH, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140309143209.2023b10f@mydesk
Re: On what is helpful and what is not [was: Re: Wifi]
On Sun, 09 Mar 2014 21:55:05 -0400 Jerry Stuckle jstuc...@attglobal.net wrote: On 3/9/2014 9:42 PM, Lisi Reisz wrote: On Monday 10 March 2014 00:15:18 Dave Woyciesjes wrote: Really, calling the OP a nub ( whatever the hell he means by that) isn't an insult? nub, short for newbie, i.e. new user. And no, it is not an insult. Lisi Maybe not where you are. But here in the United States it is considered quite derogatory. Newbie is the term we use here for a new user. Jerry True. I've seen noob referring to newbie, but not nub. So I looked it up on UrbanDictionary.Com, the authoritative reference on all things slang, and it appears that nub is not merely noob, it's much more insulting: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=nub Also, consider the context in which it was said. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140309230455.38f7f6d6@mydesk
Re: Brainless Debian Stable installation and usage?
On Fri, 07 Mar 2014 18:54:13 +0100 Guy Marcenac g...@posteurs.com wrote: Le 07/03/2014 02:16, Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com a écrit : Hi all, I have several friends, with Windows XP, who are now considering moving to Linux because of XP's impending stoppage of support. Normally, I'd Hello, I don't understand why the lack of support leads you to this huge change for your buddies on these old machines. Support or not they will continue to run, simply MS won't fix any bug... Surely, there is something I did not understand about your needs. Security. SteveT -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140308032530.3de8a...@mylap4.domain.cxm
Re: Wifi
On Sat, 08 Mar 2014 15:18:17 -0500 Patrick Alouidor aloui...@gmail.com wrote: Hello all. I'm not sure if it me but I have a fresh install of Debian 7 on laptop Toshiba C-55A5310. and For some reason I cannot enable my wifi switch. I have been pressing the F keys but no luck. please This is my first Laptop ever and I wanted to put something stable on it and now I cannot get my wifi to turn on. My I please get some form of assistance on wifi. Thank you Patrick Alouidor Hi Patrick, If I were in your shoes, the first thing I'd do is an orderly shutdown, power down for 30 seconds, and power back up. You might get lucky and have Wifi just work when it comes back up. I've seen stranger things happen. Then I'd get the latest version of System Rescue CD iso, burn it, boot it on the laptop (you might need to temporarily disable secure boot or do the compatibility bios thing), and see if System Rescue CD sees your Wifi card. Do the same thing for an Xubuntu live DVD. This will tell you whether you're going to have serious problems with Linux in general (if neither of those can give you an operational Wifi, you have wifi hardware that's probably going to be somewhat problematic with Linux itself). If you get one of these two live CDs to work with Wifi, you can run commands to see what driver to use, and what kind of wifi it is, and what transmitter you're connected to, and at what speed and what frequency. Others on this list can give you the exact commands. Armed with this information, it should be much easier to get it to work in Debian. Finally, understand there are different levels of Wifi working, and you need to get the more basic levels working before you can deal with higher levels. That most basic level is being able to see a list of all the various available Wifi transmitters (access points, whatever they're called). You can do that, as root, with the following command: iwconfig scanning | less If you see no transmitters, either there's no wifi to receive, or your hardware plus driver is failing to act as a receiver. I feel your pain. You buy a laptop and hope its wifi works with Linux. I've spent lots and lots of time getting Linux laptops to work. Usually you can get a Linux compatable USB wifi dongle to work with Linux, but those things have tiny antennas and tend to go bad quickly. Sometimes you can get a travel router with the proper modes, have *that* receive wifi independent of operating system, and then just plug the travel router into your Ethernet port. A long time ago I wrote some detailed content about getting wifi to work with Linux. It's out of date and I'm sure it has some inaccuracies, but it might help you to read it: http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/wifitricks/travelrouter.htm http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201205/201205.htm#_Get_Wifi_to_Work http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/200612/200612.htm HTH, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140308162725.4cbe1558@mydesk
Re: Wifi
On Sat, 08 Mar 2014 23:35:26 -0600 Stan Hoeppner s...@hardwarefreak.com wrote: On 3/8/2014 10:02 PM, Tom Furie wrote: On Sat, Mar 08, 2014 at 09:51:52PM -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote: On 3/8/2014 2:18 PM, Patrick Alouidor wrote: Hello all. I'm not sure if it me but I have a fresh install of Debian 7 on laptop Toshiba C-55A5310. and For some reason I cannot enable my wifi switch. I have been pressing the F keys but no luck. please This is my first Laptop ever and I wanted to put something stable on it and now I cannot get my wifi to turn on. My I please get some form of assistance on wifi. You mention a wifi switch. There is no such thing. The laptop has a wireless ethernet adapter usually of the 802.11 a/b/g/n standard. It will connect to a wireless router or wireless access point. Given the context I would surmise that wifi switch means a switch on the laptop to enable/disable the wireless adapter, whether that be an actual switch, button, or key-combo. I would surmise his wifi switch is his wifi enabled cable/DSL router that also has an inbuilt 4 port fast Ethernet or GbE switch, stated in big bold letters on the box, prompting him to call it a wifi switch. Is your guess right or mine? He didn't mention WEP/WAP key setup or any other manual configuration steps/issues, which leads me to, again, guess, that he's trying to do WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) auto configuration. So maybe by wifi switch he means the WPS button on the WiFi router. And maybe Network Manager/WICD use the function keys to initiate WPS auto negotiation. I never do auto anything so again this is a guess. And I'd guess based on his post that WPS is exactly what he's attempting. The whole point of my post was to eliminate the guessing and get right to helping the guy at the technical level, or lack thereof, which he requires. It's pretty clear from his lack of correct terminology and technical details, no initial troubleshooting performed by him, that he's a total nub. All of the replies to this point, but mine, assume he knows how to get a bash shell to run commands and perform other common tasks. He may not even know that much. In fact, given he assumes everyone knows why he's punching the function keys, it's pretty certain he's a nub. And that's fine. But we need to know his knowledge level in order to best assist him. Stan, You mention the whole point of your post was to eliminate the guessing. You then assume, based on the original poster's generic one paragraph post, that he's a total nub. Personally, I call that guessing. On your part. In an earlier post, you state that there is no such thing as a wifi switch. I'd call that a guess, and a wrong one, because one of my old laptops, I think my 2006 Acer, has a physical switch with which I can enable or disable Wifi. Perhaps I'll post a photo of the switch. You state All of the replies to this point, but mine, assume he knows how to get a bash shell to run commands and perform other common tasks. He may not even know that much. In fact, given he assumes everyone knows why he's punching the function keys, it's pretty certain he's a nub. Another wrong guess Stan: See this: http://forums.speedguide.net/showthread.php?214308-How-to-turn-on-off-Wireless-in-various-Laptop-Models I could go on and on, but my saying you're a nub, and a mean one at that, is no better for this list than your treatment of the original poster. Everyone, Doesn't it seem that, on every list and IRC channel, there's always that guy? The defender of the perfect symptom description, who has completely memorized every portion of How To Ask Questions The Smart Way except for the portion on how to answer questions in a helpful way. The vigilante who just has to jump on every less than perfectly clued-in post and insult the guy. I'm not talking about insulting the dweeb who asks, then doesn't even read the answers, and asks again. I'm not talking about insulting the guy asking the question that a two minute web search can find the answer to. I'm talking about the guy who insults people like the original poster, whose symptom description wasn't all that bad, at least for a first stab at it. A symptom description that others felt was good enough to suggest diagnostic processes. The angry and insulting behavior of the defenders of the perfect symptom description does nothing but cut down on technical communication, raise the noise level, and often raise the heat level. Why do that? I mean really, is it too much to ask that these guys simply ignore posts they think are bogus? Or if the thread bothers them, filter the thread? The list will be better for it. To the original poster: In the words of Jonathan Dowland, who posted this on debian-users yesterday: Don't be afraid to ask any questions. Ignore any useless answers. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance
Re: I mistakenly installed 32 bit Debian. How can I ensure that I'm installing 64 bit?
On Fri, 07 Mar 2014 08:05:21 + Jonathan Dowland j...@debian.org wrote: On 06/03/2014 22:07, Patrick Chkoreff wrote: I'll try to keep the noise down henceforth, and aim to help others as I develop more expertise. Don't be afraid to ask any questions. Ignore any useless answers. +1 You know, there's an IRC channel called #html, where two people jump on 90% of the questions with one of these two responses: 1) That's offtopic 2) You're an idiot Of course, they have a basket full of interesting ways to say #2. Needless to say, almost no technical information gets transferred in that channel. So Patrick, Jonathan's right: Don't be afraid to ask any questions. Ignore any useless answers. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140307090654.5839ddae@mydesk
Re: I mistakenly installed 32 bit Debian. How can I ensure that I'm installing 64 bit?
On Fri, 7 Mar 2014 11:22:58 +0200 Andrei POPESCU andreimpope...@gmail.com wrote: On Vi, 07 mar 14, 08:05:21, Jonathan Dowland wrote: On 06/03/2014 22:07, Patrick Chkoreff wrote: I'll try to keep the noise down henceforth, and aim to help others as I develop more expertise. Don't be afraid to ask any questions. Ignore any useless answers. I'd rather recommend: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Yes, and especially this section of that document, with emphasis on the first point of the section: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#idp54197360 Which I think was Jonathan's point. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140307091334.239fcad3@mydesk
Re: Brainless Debian Stable installation and usage?
On Sat, 8 Mar 2014 00:04:48 +1300 Chris Bannister cbannis...@slingshot.co.nz wrote: On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 08:47:27AM +, Joe wrote: On Fri, 7 Mar 2014 01:28:11 -0500 Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com litt...@gmail.com wrote: What followed XP was Vista, and who would do that to themselves. In my opinion (not that I'm an expert on Windows), Windows 7 wasn't much better. And Windows 8 is a confusing mess. I wouldn't upgrade from XP either, unless it was to Linux or BSD. In the interests of balance, most people get their ideas about new Windows versions from 'journalists'. Vista has its problems, the main one being its insistence on running with zero free memory, filling the machine with anything it thinks you might want to use, and therefore being slow to open new documents. Windows 7 is enormously better and quicker, Vista was effectively a beta Windows 7, released before it was ready. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Linux also use all available memory? Depends. I have huge RAM in some machines, so it doesn't unless I'm working the machine hard. But mostly it does. For instance, my 4GB RAM desktop I'm working with right now looks like this: 4038752 total, 3512564 used, 526188 free, So it's using almost 90% of my RAM. I think Joe's point was that journalists run Windows with all sorts of creeping crud programs running, and evaluate it that way. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140307091932.42ab74f3@mydesk
Re: Brand new install, now how do I play a Youtube video?
On Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:31:34 -0500 Patrick Chkoreff p...@loom.cc wrote: I recently installed Debian on this laptop. Here's the detail: $ uname -a Linux laptop 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2 i686 GNU/Linux I'm using the IceWeasel browser, but I can't play a Youtube video. I don't want to install Flash because I just cannot stand Adobe. I searched around and found this: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=51504 I did what they said there, namely: $ sudo apt-get install gecko-mediaplayer iceweasel-greasemonkey Now IceWeasel shows a drop-down menu with a GreaseMonkey icon, and it is enabled. However, I still cannot watch any video on youtube.com. When I click to a video, it shows a black rectangle where the video should be, with the message An error occurred, please try again later. I got my laptop's Wheezy to play Youtube videos, using the instructions you referenced above. But I had to do a some fooling around and experimentation. Also, as I remember, I had to reboot after completing the instructions and doing my fooling around. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140306131654.76a9f7fb@mydesk
Re: feature request for this mailing list
On Thu, 06 Mar 2014 11:08:03 -0800 David Guntner da...@guntner.com wrote: berenger.mo...@neutralite.org grabbed a keyboard and wrote: Hello. As I am starting to subscribe to various mailing lists, I have noticed that some uses a kind of tag in subjects. Obviously, it is added by the ml-engine, not by users. I am also receiving more and more spam since 2 months. I guess my address was sold to or found by some f** spammers, which do not understand that someone without a classic hotmail, google or whatever mainstream mail provider will probably know what a spam is and only be annoyed. So I think that it could be useful to have this one prefixing mails with, for example [debian-user], or [du] or whatever. But I do not know where to submit this idea. Do someone knows? I know that some MUAs are able to do such kind of filtering automatically, but I am using a webmail (roundcube) most of the time, which have less features, but have the same configuration and display on all computers I use to access my mails :) I agree it would be nice if they added a subject line tag, but I don't expect it's going to happen. :-) I use Procmail to do my mail filtering for me. The recipe I use is: # Debian list processing # Look for the list address here and put them in their own file :0: * ^TO_ .*@lists.debian.org $MAILDIR/debian/ I do it that way because I'm subscribed to several list (announce, security, etc.) and they all have that in common. I don't care if they all get lumped into the same mail folder. :-) Here is the recipe from my .procmailrc: === :0: * ^List-Id.*\debian-user.lists.debian.org .debian_users/ === I've used it for a week, and it appears to be working perfectly. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140306164618.23e24a77@mydesk
Re: I mistakenly installed 32 bit Debian. How can I ensure that I'm installing 64 bit?
On Thu, 6 Mar 2014 19:33:14 + Brian a...@cityscape.co.uk wrote: On Thu 06 Mar 2014 at 13:55:44 -0500, Patrick Chkoreff wrote: On the other hand, Reco suggested that I use this image instead: debian-7.4.0-amd64-netinst.iso He was very kind and took pity on your predicament. I'd characterize it as Reco was very kind, in the tradition of free software mailing lists, and answered Patrick's question. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140306165014.5f1b1910@mydesk
Re: Brand new install, now how do I play a Youtube video?
On Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:04:00 -0500 Rob Owens row...@ptd.net wrote: On Thu, Mar 06, 2014 at 10:31:34AM -0500, Patrick Chkoreff wrote: I recently installed Debian on this laptop. Here's the detail: $ uname -a Linux laptop 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.54-2 i686 GNU/Linux I'm using the IceWeasel browser, but I can't play a Youtube video. I don't want to install Flash because I just cannot stand Adobe. I searched around and found this: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=51504 I did what they said there, namely: $ sudo apt-get install gecko-mediaplayer iceweasel-greasemonkey Now IceWeasel shows a drop-down menu with a GreaseMonkey icon, and it is enabled. However, I still cannot watch any video on youtube.com. When I click to a video, it shows a black rectangle where the video should be, with the message An error occurred, please try again later. I can right-click in the black rectangle, and I do see a pop-up menu with options like Movie Control / Play. But it just doesn't work. Is this Gnash/GreaseMonkey stuff really a viable alternative to Adobe Flash? Maybe resistance is futile here, and I just need to be assimilated by Adobe. Say it isn't so. You could try the Download Helper add-on. Download the video and then play it locally with VLC or maybe mplayer. Also, Totem used to have a youtube plugin that would allow you to search youtube w/o using a web browser. It's been a couple years since I've used it, so I can't really say if I recommend it or not. -Rob Before he does that, he should shut down, then power up. As I remember, I got where he is now, and a complete reboot got the videos playing. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140306201305.68421b37@mydesk
Brainless Debian Stable installation and usage?
Hi all, I have several friends, with Windows XP, who are now considering moving to Linux because of XP's impending stoppage of support. Normally, I'd just tell them to install Xubuntu. But some of these people have memory starved machines, and in my travels I've found that, using the Network Install, Debian installs in anything 128MB or above. Most other distros, even if they could somehow *run* in such memory starved machines, can't install in them due to the bloat of their GUI installers. What I'd like to do with my friends is: 1: Install them toward the *right* Wheezy network install image for their CPU. I've never been able to easily find the right network install image, and just sort of used whatever I could find. 2: Tell them how to use the network install CD to install Debian sans GUI. 3: Tell them to apt-get install xfce4 xfce4-goodies 4: Tell them how to make Xfce be what runs when they issue the startx command. 5: Tell them how to make iceweasel play youtube videos (I think today I saw someone on this list say to go to youtube.com/html5 : Is that a good solution in general?) 6: Are you guys cool with my friends, who would all be raw newbies, joining this list? Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140306201605.57de4998@mydesk
Re: Brainless Debian Stable installation and usage?
On Thu, 6 Mar 2014 21:42:50 -0600 Mr Queue li...@mrqueue.com wrote: On Thu, 6 Mar 2014 20:16:05 -0500 Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com litt...@gmail.com wrote: 6: Are you guys cool with my friends, who would all be raw newbies, joining this list? Steve that's what the GOLUG is for!!! Give them this link: http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html Already done. I did that before ever starting this thread. And yeah, hopefully they'll be on GoLUG's list also. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140307011744.27dd7e9a@mydesk
Re: Brainless Debian Stable installation and usage?
On Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:31:56 +0100 Ralf Mardorf ralf.mard...@alice-dsl.net wrote: On Thu, 2014-03-06 at 20:16 -0500, Steve Litt of Troubleshooters.Com wrote: Are you guys cool with my friends, who would all be raw newbies, joining this list? A few rhetorical questions: What do your friends expect, if they switch from Windows to Linux? This is multiple people. Publishers and authors mostly. I'd imagine they'd expect to run LyX, Inkscape, Gimp, LibreOffice, get and send email, and browse the web. Do they expect that they have to be self-responsible, do research on their own, before they send requests to Linux mailing lists? I think so. Do they expect that Linux isn't a replacement for Windows, but that Linux is a completely different operating system? I'm not sure that's true. Windows people write content, and I write content. Windows people make eBooks, and I make eBooks. Windows XP people use a taskbar with a start menu, and so do LXDE people, and also Xfce people who know how to configure. Why did they use XP until now What followed XP was Vista, and who would do that to themselves. In my opinion (not that I'm an expert on Windows), Windows 7 wasn't much better. And Windows 8 is a confusing mess. I wouldn't upgrade from XP either, unless it was to Linux or BSD. and why do they guess that now is a good time to switch from Windows to Linux? Microsoft's pulling the plug on XP updates, including security updates, which makes XP extremely vulnerable. Did you tell your friends that they can be the same computer users they were and when switching to Linux everything will be better, when using the computer? I forgot to. I did, however, tell them that Debian Stable is extremely dependable. IOW are your friends aware, that they have to become another kind of user? Are they aware, if they would not become another kind of computer users, switching to Linux will make everything more worse, than it was when using Windows? I think they are. I advised them to get a spare machine, install Linux on it a few times to learn the ropes, before installing it on their good machines. Do your friends expect a Linux installed to a PC can be maintained in a way to Android on a mobile phone? Oh HeckNo! They're shaking in their boots that big bad Linux will be too much for their brains. But they're really beginning to hate Microsoft. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140307012811.367a81be@mydesk
Re: Here's how to make yourself happier
On Mon, 03 Mar 2014 23:46:39 -0800 David Guntner da...@guntner.com wrote: Steve Litt grabbed a keyboard and wrote: clip GARBAGE=/dev/null ### DEBIAN LIST UBERSCREAMER ARNOLD BIRD'S 4 ADDRESSES :0: * ^From.*naturalli...@dcemail.com $GARBAGE :0: * ^From.*arnoldb...@cosmicemail.com $GARBAGE clip Unless you have a reason to want one test per address, you could simply put them all in a single test. :0: * ^From.*(naturalli...@dcemail.com|arnoldb...@cosmicemail.com|usspookslovesys...@muchomail.com|fredw...@mail.ru) $GARBAGE Collect them all! :-) --Dave Thanks Dave, I think once upon a time I knew that syntax, but long ago forgot it. I'll start using that again. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140304094237.5c7854f3@mydesk
Re: Here's how to make yourself happier
On Tue, 4 Mar 2014 09:05:41 +0100 Raffaele Morelli raffaele.more...@gmail.com wrote: Lately I would add :0B * .*(systemd) $GARBAGE :0 * ^Subject.*(systemd) $GARBAGE I can't do that, because I really need to know about that stuff. When Jessie becomes stable, I'm going to try to work with systemd. But if that becomes problematic, I'll need a plan B. A lot of today's traffic was very informative stuff about system startup. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140304094501.339cbe08@mydesk
Re: Email filtering - was Re: Here's how to make yourself happier
On Tue, 4 Mar 2014 16:38:17 +0800 (WST) Bret Busby b...@busby.net wrote: On Tue, 4 Mar 2014, Steve Litt wrote: clip GARBAGE=/dev/null ### DEBIAN LIST UBERSCREAMER ARNOLD BIRD'S 4 ADDRESSES :0: * ^From.*naturalli...@dcemail.com $GARBAGE :0: * ^From.*arnoldb...@cosmicemail.com $GARBAGE clip Is that procmail, or is that postfix (or, sendmail)? Procmail. Not knowing sendmail or postfix, I didn't know that they were similar. By the way, here's my email receiving system: http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/images/dovecot_setup.png If you want to read the document that came from, it's here: http://www.troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm I'm really pleased with my email architecture because the email client is used only for observing mail in Dovecot, so I can instantly replace it with another IMAP aware email client any time I want. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140304095202.3b90f0cf@mydesk
Re: Replacing systemd
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 10:16:35 +0100 Martin Steigerwald mar...@lichtvoll.de wrote: At least for Jessie as far as I understand all other inits are still planned to be packaged. So either stick with sysv + insserv or choose another one. The decision was just about *the default*. (Is this so difficult to crasp?) Yes, it *was* hard for me to grasp. Reading all the email, I didn't understand that I'd still have a choice. Now I do, and this is very good news. If I can change it, this becomes a non-issue. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140304100057.41a0f233@mydesk
Re: Proposal - preserve freedom of choice of init systems - SysV is FINE.
On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 19:26:48 -0800 Natural Linux naturalli...@dcemail.com wrote: System V is NOT hard to maintain The scripts were written YEARS ago. They're fine. They do NOT need to be changed. Debian SysV has concurrent boot aswell. Hey Natural Linux You and I are different. When I post, I put my real name because I'm proud of who I am, what I do, and I want people to know me. When I post to tech lists, I usually leave my rage about politics out of my post, unless the politics directly involves technologists, such as H1-B etc. Just like you, I sometimes get angry. But I try to leave anger out of my emails, because it ruins credibility. Just like you, I have my likes and dislikes, and sometimes I rant. Like about KDE and Kmail. But when I do, I don't go on a KDE list or Kmail list to rant about these things, because I long ago found found Xfce and Claws-Mail (or Mutt or Thunderbird) as substitutes. So, instead of yelling at the Kmail guys, on the Claws-Mail list I gloat about how much better Claws-Mail is than Kmail, and help Kmail refuges to transition to Claws-Mail. I don't waste of time telling Kmail fans how bad their product is. Life's too short, and I have a life. You don't like Debian's choice. That's cool. There are lots of distros out there. And it sounds to me like it might be doable to replace your distro's chosen initialization. Rather than tell Debian people how stupid the Debian choice was, why don't you just choose another distro? Why don't you just find a distro not using systemd, switch to it, join *their* list, and gloat how much better their distro is than Debian. Do that, and you can even use your real name proudly. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140303172109.7b255938@mydesk
Re: Replacing systemd
On Tue, 04 Mar 2014 04:07:33 +0100 Jerome BENOIT g62993...@rezozer.net wrote: On 04/03/14 02:50, Steve Litt wrote: Hi everyone, I just checked with my local Linux group (GoLUG), and the opinions there are that systemd is not a particularly good thing. I also heard from our LUG's most vociferous proponent of Daemontools that Daemontools wouldn't be a good replacement because it has no concept of running things in a specific order. So let me ask you this: If I wanted to replace systemd on a future Debian system, what would I replace it with, and how? openrc ? Thanks Jerome, I'll look into it. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140304011847.4d59d5dd@mydesk
Re: Four people decided the fate of debian with systemd. Bad faith likely
On Sat, 1 Mar 2014 18:26:25 -0700 ghaverla ghave...@materialisations.com wrote: I will try Sabyon (sp?). But it looks like it might move to systemd willingly leaving no option. It is based on Gentoo, which I could move to. Gord, I tested Sabayon during my last distro shootout, and it's *a lot* different than Debian, especially Debian Stable. Sabayon is a rolling distro, which can be convenient, but means broken code could sneak onto your computer at any time. This is also true of things like Ubuntu, but it's not true of Debian Stable unless a security update is bad. Sabayon isn't all that easy to install. If I remember correctly, I was forced to configure the kernel myself at install time (I might be confusing it with Gentoo, this shootout was about 3 years ago). I got the kernel wrong, and had to boot from System Rescue CD. Anyway, Sabayon was difficult to install, and felt rather fragile to me. I have no knowledge of init systems and couldn't possibly comment on systemd vs udev vs SysV, so I don't understand what's so terrible about systemd. But my research from 3 years ago tell me that Sabayon's no panacea. I just started using Debian (Wheezy) on a regular basis, and like its solid ease. Systemd would need to be awfully bad for me to give that up. Thanks, SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140302112759.5e50a80c@mydesk
Numerical Methods Programming: was: Four people decided the yadda yadda yadda
On Sun, 2 Mar 2014 11:31:08 -0700 ghaverla ghave...@materialisations.com wrote: Most of the programming I have done is numerical methods, What language did you use? I've used a little bit of Scheme, and kind of liked it for numbers. When you say numerical methods programming, do you mean this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerical_analysis I've often thought of writing a differentiator program in Python, or who knows, maybe Scheme, perhaps something that solves y = f(x) type equations simply by iterating closer and closer to see where it crosses the axes. This gets ever more inviting, because I'm continually forgetting more and more of my high school and college math. I'd love to know what you're doing and how you're doing it. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140302144621.53d6b3ff@mydesk
Re: Jessie almost freezes every several minutes
On Sat, 01 Mar 2014 12:11:35 -0500 Gary Dale garyd...@torfree.net wrote: On 01/03/14 11:30 AM, Gary Dale wrote: I shut down iceweasel and things seemed noticeably faster. I was still getting the solid disk light intermittently but it's didn't slow the system to a crawl. After restarting Iceweasel and restoring the previous session, things have continued to be speedy. The disk light is still coming on and staying solid for extended periods, but the system isn't slowed down. The main i/o users currently are virtuoso-t and ext4lazyinit (occasionally jbd2 shows up), with virtuoso being by far the largest (and doing both read and write). At this point I'm confused... But my system is speedy again after weeks of being frustratingly slow. Spoke too soon. The problem is back and shutting down Iceweasel didn't fix it this time. Gary, if you're running KDE, read this: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=92886 Personally, because of instability, slowdowns and hangs on Mandrake and Mandriva and Ubuntu, I exiled every KDE program and library from my computer, and life has been faster and more stable ever since. Because of KDE's philosophy of monolithic entanglement, it's not enough to use a non-KDE desktop but use KDE apps, I found I had to banish all things KDE from my system to get rid of 99% CPU dbus processes, gigabyte-plus soprano-virtuoso.db files, and various other intermittent KDEisms. I've heard people say the KDE problems were due to poor integration in the Linux distribution, so perhaps if you used Wheezy instead of Jessie this problem would go away. But from my perspective, if I need to choose distros based on whether KDE doesn't screw up, that's a KDE problem, not a distro problem. I've had excellent results with Xfce. Same with LXDE, except LXDE traditionally has slow mousing. I've found OpenBox to be excellent if you like that no-taskbar experience. By the way, my advice would be to install Xfce no matter what you really use for a desktop, just so you can have the outstanding xfce4-appfinder program, which is a spectacular timesaver if bound to a hotkey. SteveT Steve Litt* http://www.troubleshooters.com/ Troubleshooting Training * Human Performance -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/20140301123645.5641cb42@mydesk
