Re: need .md reader that can print ONLY tha page being viewed
A feature of markdown (.md) is that it is plain text. Bring it up in your favorite text editor, save just the bits you need, print with plain old lp(1). No "reader" necessary.
Re: lower CPU speed
Eben King wrote: > I have a variable-speed CPU. Normally the OS manages it. If I want to make > less heat inside the case, is it possible to cap it at a certain speed? If you're trying to control the heat--i.e., the power dissipation--your BIOS may have a CPU setting for the PL1, Power Limit 1, or such. That would be more direct.
/proc on /proc ?
I was running `xen-create-image` when it failed near the end trying to `umount` the `/tmp/SoMeThInG/proc` mount that it had created. `findmnt` showed me that it was mounted on itself, as was `/proc`! I got it unmounted with `--lazy`. I'm guessing that the Xen script was merely copying what it saw; the question remaining then is: Why would /proc have been mounted on itself? Anyone seen this before?
Re: [update] Re: Updating from Debian 9.13 to 12.7
wrote: > > Richard Owlett wrote: > > > > > Wandering a chain of links starting at https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/ > > > leads me to _suspect_ the configuration information I seek is in > > > /home/richard/.config/dconf/user . [...] > Besides, it might be a bad idea to change the file while the desktop > environment is "running". ISTR that the settings are kept by some > daemon and the file is "just" the persistence (daemon writes when > finished and reads at start). Right, I would definitely not try to edit the dconf/user file. Options for making changes are - MATE Control Center (top-level GUI for MATE configuration) - dconf-editor (GUI; not as user-friendly as Control Center, but gives you direct access to all the settings) - dconf (command-line) mike
Re: [update] Re: Updating from Debian 9.13 to 12.7
Richard Owlett wrote: > Wandering a chain of links starting at https://wiki.mate-desktop.org/ > leads me to _suspect_ the configuration information I seek is in > /home/richard/.config/dconf/user . You can dump the settings that are in dconf with gsettings list-recursively and redirecting the output to a file. You could then compare the text output from your two installs to home in on what needs changing in the new install. (You might want to sort the 2 text files before comparing them.) I'd expect a certain amount of trial-and-error with this approach (e.g., the diff output might flag changes that don't actually matter for you). But I've used it once or twice on my home desktop, and it did help give direction to my tweaking. hth, mike
Re: Firefox pausing network activity during vt-switch / screenlock
On Mon, Oct 7, 2024 at 7:06โฏPM Max Nikulin wrote:
> On 07/10/2024 08:35, Raj Kiran Grandhi wrote:
>
> The question is if Firefox for some reason believes that network state
> is changed. A simple test (unrelated to downloads though) is to try in
> dev tools console
>
> window.addEventListener("online", e=>console.log("online", e))
> window.addEventListener("offline", e=>console.log("offline", e))
>
> and if events are logged then you may compare timestamps with user
> switching. Mike wrote that in his case there is some delay.
FWIW, that was one of the first things I tried months ago. And again
yesterday. Nothing ever shows up. And just to double check my
sanity, I also add other event listeners that do happen to make sure
those are logged (and they are).
> > Sometimes, the firefox gui is also
> > a bit sluggish after returning from a vt-swtich, almost as if it were
> > resumed from an earlier CTRL-Z.
>
> Swap?
Another option is the web app catching up on a backlog of messages
suddenly streaming in. At least, if it has been a few hours (e.g.,
overnight or away from the computer).
mrc
Re: Uninterruptible sleep apache process while aceessing nfs on debian 12 bookworm
Carlos Llamas wrote: > I made a PHP script which locks a specific file in a NFS directory, measuring > every step involved. Then exported the results to CSV and graphed it on ELK > because I am more familiar with it. Thanks for the additional details. It sounds like you have a reproducible test case, which will help a lot for tracking down the problem. The bar chart that you included just shows the total time. Do your results show that some operations (e.g., lock/unlock) are particularly slow on the web05 (green) system? Or is it more that all the operations are slower when compared to the web04 (blue) system? I see that Debian includes sosreport, which I *think* reports log messages (among other things). I'd try to get log messages from both web05 and the NFS server, and look for warning messages that might be relevant. mike
Re: Uninterruptible sleep apache process while aceessing nfs on debian 12 bookworm
Carlos Llamas wrote: > When this happens, apache2 processes on a backend VM (NFS client > machine) wait in state D for a long time (I was only able to trace a > file, and lasted 90s until file unlocked). It sounds like the process is trying to unlock a file, and the system call hangs for 90 seconds. Do I understand you correctly? What version of the NFS protocol are you using for the mounts? > We have the same software versions across all machines and they get > updated every morning at 6 am. Which machines get updated? Just the NFS clients, or the NFS server, too? Does the update involve a reboot? mike
Re: Firefox pausing network activity during vt-switch / screenlock
For what it is worth, I've had the same trouble with all versions of Debian and FF for a "while" now, and have spent time trying to investigate it off and on during that time. A "while" is possibly a couple of years? I didn't have any desktop computer for a while, and when I did set one up, I ended up using WiFi instead of hard-wired, which is when I originally noticed it. So, I can't identify when it started happening. And I'm not currently able to check to see if this would go away when hard-wired. For me, the biggest signal is GMail and similar apps will go into a "You are not online" state. I've done a variety of tests, such as having ping running in a shell, using the browser console to catch certain events or polling values like navigator.onLine. I've dug through FF about:config items looking for what affects this so that I could control it, but not yet any luck. I've gone through most, if not all, config settings exposed via XFCE's settings (e.g., Power Manager), as well as Network Manager. Again, no luck. I've tried running an instance of FF under separate X sessions (Xvnc, Xnest, Xephyr, Xpra), with no luck. Probably the only thing I haven't tried is a full fledged VM. I've done a lot of web searches which have mostly led to folks mentioning the same issue, but no real solution. For me anyway, the time between the screen-saver kicking in and GMail going offline is long enough that I get distracted and forget that I was running a test. So tweak-setting/test cycles are difficult to do. All of this is just to say, OP is not alone in dealing with this issue. Yes, it is restricted to Debian (I've seen the same problem at least mentioned for MS-Windows). Yes, it is *likely* restricted to Firefox. But, asking on a Debian list might find someone who has had an "Aha!" moment. mrc
Re: Testing
On Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 10:46 AM Joe wrote: > > > Is that as good as mutt for viewing this list, ? > > It's been fine for the mailing lists, I haven't needed to use any > archives. I do use mutt on my server as that doesn't have graphics, but > not very often. As far as email goes, I use a local SMTP server, so > Claws doesn't talk directly to the outside world, though it can, of > course. I have occasionally connected to an Internet email provider in > setting up someone else's system. > > I also use it for Usenet access. I used to use Thunderbird for both, but > that just got far too slow. Claws-Mail starts in less than a second and > picks up the local IMAP server in only one or two more. > Thank you, Joe. :-) >
Re: Testing
On Mon, Sep 30, 2024, 3:21 AM Joe wrote: > > I use Claws-Mail and leave the HTML module turned off, so I certainly > can see it. Is that as good as mutt for viewing this list, especially archived posts? I use a phone for email only if I'm away from home. I can > see it in K9 on a Samsung phone. > FYI - A review on the Play store indicates that the latest version of K9 is broken. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fsck.k9
Re: Testing
I'm looking at this in Firefox in Debian, and I can't see it. But I did send that with my Motorola phone ;-) I installed mutt, because presumably I need it to read the older, archived messages. (?) It's been so long since I used it, I'll have to look for a good mutt tutorial. On Sat, Sep 28, 2024 at 6:07โฏPM Zenaan Harkness wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 29, 2024 at 8:00โฏAM Peter Ehlert wrote: > >> โ ๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ค๐ข๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ข๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ >> ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ถ๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข ๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ช๐ญ๐ฆ >> > > For me, the above says "๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ค๐ข๐ฏ'๐ต ๐ด๐ฆ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ต > ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ข๐ถ๐ด๐ฆ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ข๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ถ๐ด๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ข ๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฎ๐ฐ๐ฃ๐ช๐ญ๐ฆ". > > I am using gmail, but in chromium on a debian desktop. > > Does anyone else see that message? > > >> On September 28, 2024 1:47:23 PM Mike Waters wrote: >> >>> Testing with Gmail to see if I absolutely need to install mutt. >>> >>> Pardon my intrusion. :-) >>> >> >>
Testing
Testing with Gmail to see if I absolutely need to install mutt. Pardon my intrusion. :-)
Re: Where was my app installed?
Arbol One wrote: > After installing PostgreSQL on my Debian-12 machine > Is there a way I can locate the installation directory? Assuming that you installed the `postgresql` package. Try: dpkg -L postgresql
Re: wait until swapoff is *actually* finished (it returns too early)?
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 4:31โฏPM David Wright wrote: > Irrespective of the time taken, that could trigger the OOM killer, > couldn't it. Very risky, unless you're using two swaps as mentioned. I was actually surprised to see this happen in a test right now. I *thought* that swapoff() would fail if reduce the available memory to below current usage. But indeed, the OOM Killer not only killed my test program, it took out the swapoff command for good measure! mrc
Re: wait until swapoff is *actually* finished (it returns too early)?
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 11:45โฏAM David Wright wrote: > I'm not convinced. Finding out what needs copying back and locating > somewhere to put it is AIUI a slow process. What's much faster is > when processes themselves demand something be paged back in from > swap. I think there are "tricks" available to cause that to occur, > thus speeding up swapoff. Exactly. In my experience, running swapoff(8) _will_ take a long time if the swap area has a lot of content. It will block until everything is moved out. What I think we are seeing here is that phase has finished, but the kernel has not yet notified the backing store that it is no longer used. Though that is just a WAG. mrc
Re: wait until swapoff is *actually* finished (it returns too early)?
On Thu, Aug 22, 2024 at 5:45โฏAM Stefan Monnier wrote: > How 'bout checking the success of `cryptdisks_stop`? Does cryptdisks have the ability to display what is in use at the moment? Maybe polling that before executing the stop? I suspect that the race is that, when the the swapoff() syscall returns, the kernel has indeed moved all of the content off, so that part is fine... but it has not yet released whatever kind of resources is has on the backing store (akin to an open file handle). Or the cryptdisks stack itself hasn't fully processed the notification. Ideally the stop command would have a flag that says 'wait for any pending changes to happen', but short of that, some sort of status than can be polled with a sleep between it might be a bit more formal. You could then control the timeout by looping no more than N times, then failing a bit more gracefully than it is now. mrc
Re: upgrade to bookworm causes breakage
Bob Mroczka wrote: > I attempted to upgrade my system from debian 11 to 12 following the > instructions provided at > https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/update-upgrade-debian-11-to-debian-12-bookworm. In the future, consider using https://www.debian.org/release/stable/ and such. cyberciti.biz usually just copies content from elsewhere, to sell ads against it. It may not be authoritative. > Do you have any suggestions for further identifying the cause of this > and/or resolving this without recovering from back up? My only thought is that maybe, somehow, you're running a mix of incompatible libraries and executables, some upgraded and some not. You might go into `aptitude`, if it runs, and see what it thinks. The "rescue" option on the Debian image may be able to help you mount and install a proper installation on your existing disks, since it runs its own copy of Linux on a ramdisk. But it's been a long time since I've used it, so I forget the procedure.
[RESOLVED] Re: Was linux-image-6.1.0-22-amd64 spontaneously rebooting?
Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > If you have problems after using a live image, it might be that the first > of those was to use a live image :( > > The netinst and DVD installers are more mature and potentially better tested. > The live installer generally relies on different code if you use calamares, > for example. > > Repeat the install with a netinst if possible and report back. I repeated the install with the Live USB image. While doing so, I recalled that *during* the "Finish the installation" step, I initially had the system spontaneous rebooting; later attempts finished that step properly. That alone points not to the image, but to the hardware. The Live install--reformatting but not repartitioning the storage--completed successfully. So, again, I don't think it was the Debian image.
[RESOLVED] Re: Was linux-image-6.1.0-22-amd64 spontaneously rebooting?
I'll call this "resolved", not "solved". > I'll let it run for awhile before I believe that. I ran the -23- kernel for four days without issue. Then I rebooted into the previous -22- kernel, still installed. That has run for a day so far. So the problems no longer seem to be present. I don't know what caused them. Maybe it was just a burn-in issue with the power brick, the motherboard, the memory, or the NVMe SSD.
Re: Was linux-image-6.1.0-22-amd64 spontaneously rebooting?
On Fri, Aug 09, 2024 at 06:23:41PM +1000, George at Clug wrote: > run a memory test. Did that already, right after the build. Memtest86+. Also ran S-TUI stress for awhile. Temps never got above 60C. > Intel have been experiencing some instability That's only affected their "K" and "S" series Raptor Lake CPUs. I have an i9-14900T. And it's been seemingly a thermal issue, with the chips running at 90-100C. > I would prefer to start with a new, clean, working installation Well that's what this is. I just assembled the hardware, and just installed Debian last night. If I have the time, I may try that, i.e., "downgrade" to a new Debian 12.6.0 install to see if the instability returns. But only after I've let the current 6.1.99 kernel show its strength. So, anyways, my question still is just what the subject line says.
Was linux-image-6.1.0-22-amd64 spontaneously rebooting?
I just installed Debian 12.6.0 (from a Debian Live ISO image) on new server hardware. On the way to getting it installed, it was suddenly rebooting. I even got so far as installing it and running "apt upgrade", when it rebooted again. Then that upgraded linux-image-6.1.0-22-amd64 to -23-. So far, the system seems stable. I'll let it run for awhile before I believe that. So the question is: Has there recently been such an issue with the -22- package? It seems that there were a *lot* of changes from the upstream 6.1.94 to 6.1.99, so maybe something was repaired. I'm not sure what to doubt right now: the CPU (Intel's been having issues with Raptor Lake, but mine's a "T" series), the motherboard (may have been mishandled by the retailer), or Linux. This is an offbeat question, so I understand if I never get an answer.
Re: bash history
On Sun, Jul 28, 2024 at 5:16โฏAM songbird wrote:
> not that i would want that,
>
> but it would be possible for various terminals to save to
> their own unique history files based upon terminal pty or
> tty or anything else you'd like and to reload those upon
> starting up again.
Yes.
Setting HISTFILE is one way to control that. It is not uncommon for
folks to do something like:
HISTFILE=~/.history.${HOSTNAME}
when using a shared file system (e.g., NFS).
In bash, the history built-in takes a filename for most options. So
you can do something like:
history -r ~/.history.project
to load a curated set of helpful commands (though at that point, shell
scripts may start to be more useful)
mrc
Re: bash history
On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 11:23โฏPM Jeffrey Walton wrote: > On Sun, Jul 28, 2024 at 12:25โฏAM Mike Castle wrote: > > * I keep history under source control (currently git) and regularly > > (well, for some definition of "regularly"), merge them across machines > > This is an unusual use case (to me). Why do you save history in a > version control system? I rarely have raw data that needs backing up, so I don't do it on a system level. At work, all important data is in SCM, and various managed systems. At home, everything I care about is in SCM (including history) and that repo is backed up. Also, it allows merging between the machines. Back when almost every machine I used had $HOME on NFS, this was less of an issue. > Out of curiosity, do you scrub the file regularly for credentials, > like usernames and passwords, and remove entries? I never enter credentials via the command line. This is something I picked up before Linux even existed. In addition to history, they are viewable via ps(1). While many modern systems may allow programs to scrub their command line, few programs do it, and a wrapper script that just passes it along likely can't. But, I have trimmed out the occasional cat-walking-across-the-keyboard and falling-asleep-faceplant-and-drooling-on-the-keyboard type of history. mrc
Re: bash history
On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 11:04โฏPM mick.crane wrote: > If I've "su'd" I type "exit". > To close the terminal I click that X in the virtual terminal's top right > hand corner. Depending on settings, that may or may not save that invocation's history. You'll likely want to test to verify that it does what you want. But, as Greg pointed out, C-d or "exit" will generally ensure the right thing happens. If you weren't aware, C-d is the traditional terminal setting for end-of-file (EOF). It is a system level setting to indicates no further input is coming into this terminal, which causes the shell to exit. mrc
Re: bash history
On Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 2:50โฏPM mick.crane wrote: > Is this something that can be changed so history is shared between > virtual terminals? Yes. There are all sorts of settings that can control how shells save history. Most shells are capable of doing whatever you want, but the default configuration is likely different across each one (bash vs ksh vs zsh vs csh), and what values you need to change to achieve what you want varies between them as well. Everything you need should be available through the install manual pages, accessible via the command "man bash". Searching for "history" will turn up a lot of information. The same information, organized differently and likely different examples, is available via "info bash" if you install the "bash-doc" package, and that same documentation is available online at https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/ . All forms have a section If I'm not mistaken, by default bash has the following settings: * Each invocation bash loads the existing history file into memory * Each invocation keeps the last 500 commands while open * As each invocation closes, it writes out its own history, overwriting this existing history (e.g., the last one to exit wins) You can verify the above yourself by opening two terminal and running commands different command in them like: # In one terminal echo I am shell one # In the other term echo I am shell two Then exit the shells and open up a new one, and running the command: history | tail to see what was saved and in what order. You should experiment with the various settings listed in the documentation and see what works for you for day-to-day usage. For me, I see up bash with the following features: * Unbounded history * History is immediately saved to disk after each command finishes * I keep history under source control (currently git) and regularly (well, for some definition of "regularly"), merge them across machines For a while, I did experiment with "immediately sharing history between running shells." That lasted about three months, then I gave up on the immediate-sharing, but kept the immediate-saving. >From my .bashrc file, I have the following history related settings: # No limit on running shell history size HISTSIZE=-1 # No limit on lines saved in history file HISTFILESIZE=-1 # Enable timestamps in bash_history HISTTIMEFORMAT="[%F %T %z] " # Stop history being clobbered if there are multiple shells open shopt -s histappend # Immediately append history PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a' If you really want to try sharing history immediately between shells, use this: PROMPT_COMMAND='history -a; history -n' Note that PROMPT_COMMAND executes before printing a prompt, which means after executing a command. So, if using "history -n", then other shells will not load the shared history until a new prompt is printed (e.g., hitting the ENTER key to display a new prompt). For the record, I deal with the expected conflicts when merging history files across machines by using a simple python program that parses the history file (that includes the timestamps), discards the conflict markers, orders by timestamps, and writes it back out. It is by no means perfect, but "good enough for me". For those worried about the unbounded history, I started doing that about ten years ago and my work history is currently just shy of 180,000 commands. It would likely be less if I turned on the "erasedups" feature, but I like to keep the context. And I've seen comments about folks who have multiple decades of shell history. On modern machines, it simply isn't an issue. mrc
Detecting change in running kernel version between reboots
Hi all, I have a TV card in one of my boxen, which requires a kernel module to be built. I've got that all nicely scripted and so I can kick it off with relative ease. The issue is detecting when it needs to be done. ie after a change in the running kernel. At the moment, it's detected by the TV guide running out of data and triggering an Icinga alert, which then causes me to investigate and rebuild the kernel module. I was hoping for something a little more automated. I'm envisioning something which starts on boot checking if the kernel has changed and if so, kicking off the kernel module rebuild script. The question is: how to detect if the kernel has changed. Off the top of my head I'm thinking: 1) lsmod | grep I conceed that doesn't actually indicate the kernel has changed, just that the kernel module is missing. However, so far, it being missing has consistent indicated a kernel change and rebuilding the driver on a false positive isn't really an issue 2) last | grep "system boot" | head -n 2; then diff the values Probably a bit of a faff to extract the necessary information and probably not wholey robust either. I thought that I'd just run it past the hive mind and see if anyone has any better ideas? Kind regards, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: the usage of env
In addition to what everyone else has said about env(1), there is the fact that Korn derived shells also supports some of the same features. env VAR1=foo VAR2=bar random-command VAR1=foo VAR2=bar random-command If running a Korn-like shell (ksh, bash, zsh), both would set the envvars VAR1 and VAR2 to those values. (Note: I don't *think* earlier Bourne shells support that, but I may be misremembering when the feature was introduced. It was likely before even my time.) However, C-shell derived do not, you must use the env(1) command. But, env(1) does also offers the -i and -u flags to initialize and unset envvars. I use -u a lot during dev/testing to make sure scripts I write work correctly in various combinations. mrc
Re: Why is Firefox crashing so much lately?
At my new job I've been using 115.12.0esr for about three weeks now, with no crashes. However, also XFCE. At home, I use Mozilla's debian repo as described at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions for a while now, currently 128.0. Also XFCE. You could give that or a manual install a try to see if it is still a problem outside of ESR. mrc
Re: About dash as sh
On Fri, Jun 21, 2024 at 4:57โฏAM Greg Wooledge wrote: > That's why I find it frustrating when someone claims that this bug is > so severe that Debian has to *change their policy* without even describing > how this bug is affecting them in real life. I did not feel like the OP was saying the bug was that bad and the policy needed to change, but as a starting point to ask why it is still the policy after 27 years. mrc
Re: About dash as sh
bash is still 10x larger than dash: $ ls -l /bin/[bd]ash -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1265648 Apr 23 2023 /bin/bash -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 125640 Jan 5 2023 /bin/dash I would not be surprised if that impacts things like initrd and other resource constrained environments. Generally speaking, standards require multiple implementations. So having dash and bash leads to more consistency, not less. Folks have been using different shells for interactive and scripting usage for years. Just check in with anyone who uses csh for their interactive shell. That does not mean they write scripts in csh. Bash is known to have deviations from POSIX compliance, even in POSIX mode (though much fewer than I remember from the last time I bothered checking). On the other hand, it appears that POSIX is in the middle of a cycle introducing new shell features and Bash is actively implementing them. I have no idea if dash is doing similar. So it could be that, in a year or two, Bash is more compliant than dash. mrc
Re: Corrupt MATE configuration due to OPERATOR ERROR
Richard Owlett wrote: > I created a new, _apparently_ identical, panel. > *HOWEVER* > it displays something for each item open/active in *ANY* workspace. > > How do I get back to displaying something for each item open/active in > the *CURRENT* workspace? This is the "window list" applet that you're describing. Position your mouse just to the left of the leftmost item in the applet, and right-click. You should get a menu that has items like "System Monitor" and "Preferences". Click on "Preferences". That should bring up the controls for the applet as a whole. Somewhere in there will be a control for whether to display windows from the current workspace versus from all workspaces. mike
Re: Virtual Terminal has seen better days
On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 01:49:08PM -0400, Felix Miata wrote: > Michael Kjรถrling composed on 2024-06-14 17:11 (UTC): > > > On 14 Jun 2024 17:47 +0100, from Mike: > > >> I'd be grateful if anyone could give me any pointers to get the > >> terminals looking vaguely sensible, please? I think the first isse it > >> working out how to stop the screen turning off, which I assume is > >> because the display is out of range for the monitor. I can't seen to > >> figure out how to change that. > > > That would be the first thing I would want to rule out, too. > > > In GRUB, try "e"diting the boot command sequence and on IIRC the > > "kernel" line (the one that specifies the kernel and kernel > > parameters), add one of vga=0; vga=0x0f04 (leave current settings); or > > vga=ask followed by "scan" at the prompt and then select a reasonable > > one. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/svga.html. > > The following applies with all FOSS drivers I've ever used except possibly > mga: > vga= only works until KMS starts. video= does the desired job while KMS is > engaged. e.g. > > video=DP-1:1440x900@60 > > Causes 1440x900 with refresh 60Hz to be applied only to DP-1. Leave off DP-1: > to > have it applied to all displays. Leave off @60 to allow the system to > determine > refresh. > > https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/fb/modedb.txt > -- > Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, > based on faith, not based on science. > > Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! > Hi Felix, Thanks for your input. I tried the video= and it made no difference. However, I did discover that removing "quiet" creates a lot more output. Funny that, isn't it? Quite nice too! I should probably have mentioned earlier, that if one launches X and then quits X to return to the terminal, the monitor does not turn off again, howeer, the mode is a bit crazy. It appears to display 80x25 but when one starts a new line at line 25, you do not get the usualy scrolling behaviour, things just appear to get printed out "below the monitor" if you know what I mean. Eventually the screen does scroll but after maybe 200 lines or so and it does so in a big jump. I seem to recall reading that the Nvidia driver was a bit cavalier and reinvented various parts of X, so I wondered if there was some crazyness whereby starting X started some of a necessary components of the driver. Checking the output of lsmod, as well as ps for anything nvidia related doesn't appear to be any difference between before X and after X. I'm also pondering if it's something to do with the port it's plugged into. The card has 3 DP ports and 1 HDMI. Two have displayed plugged into them. That said, the UEFI manages to output to a screen and so does Grub / Kernel, so does X, so one would imagine the bit in the middle might get it right too? Any ideas? Kind regards, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Virtual Terminal has seen better days
On Fri, Jun 14, 2024 at 05:11:37PM +, Michael Kjรถrling wrote: > On 14 Jun 2024 17:47 +0100, from deb...@norgie.net (Mike): > > I'd be grateful if anyone could give me any pointers to get the > > terminals looking vaguely sensible, please? I think the first isse it > > working out how to stop the screen turning off, which I assume is > > because the display is out of range for the monitor. I can't seen to > > figure out how to change that. > > That would be the first thing I would want to rule out, too. > > In GRUB, try "e"diting the boot command sequence and on IIRC the > "kernel" line (the one that specifies the kernel and kernel > parameters), add one of vga=0; vga=0x0f04 (leave current settings); or > vga=ask followed by "scan" at the prompt and then select a reasonable > one. See https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/svga.html. > > In /etc/default/console-setup, try setting VIDEOMODE to the empty > string. See console-setup(5). > Hi, Thanks for the feedback. I have found both of these settings but they haven't helped too much. The /etc/default/console-setup, VIDEOMODE line was oringally blank, so I tried setting it and it made no difference. Likewise, fiddling with the display modes in grub didn't help too much either. I think the max mode I could run, according to vbeinfo or whatever is was is 1080p, so I chose that. I think it was auto selecting that already. Thinking back, I seem to recall the issue with the screen turning off started after I switched from Nouveau to the Nvidia driver. It fixed the issue I had with X but broke my console. Regards, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Virtual Terminal has seen better days
Folks, I'm trying to resolve a long standing issue with my virtual consoles. They're just a bit messed up. The most pressing issue is that when I boot, after Grub, I get some miminal output on the screen and then the screen turns off. If I blindly enter my userid and password and then type startx, the monitor turns back on and X works in beautiful 4k glory. I do get a bit of output to say that a couple of services failed to start, so it seems that the monitor goes into power off just before the login prompt should be displayed. I had a fiddle with a setting in Grub which I think was probably the wrong place and also /etc/default/console-setup, which sounds like a sensible place to fiddle, although it didn't make any difference. I'd be grateful if anyone could give me any pointers to get the terminals looking vaguely sensible, please? I think the first isse it working out how to stop the screen turning off, which I assume is because the display is out of range for the monitor. I can't seen to figure out how to change that. It would perhaps be nice too to tidy up the systemd output but probably best to get the display on first to aid debugging that. If anyone could offer any pointers, I would be really grateful. Kind regards, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: After upgrade, what do you do about "removed" and "obsolete" packages ?
Thomas Schmitt wrote: > But i am not sure whether the commercial package which i have to keep > will be preserved with "apt autoremove". > Is there a way to do a dry run which only tells what would happen if i > were more courageous ? When I use "apt autoremove", I am given a list of proposed removals and a prompt about whether I want to proceed. cheers, mike
Re: Uninstalling a package and its entourage
Even shorter: apt autopurge Apropos to my recent message regarding system configuration, I keep a personal metapackage around that lists the packages I really want. About once a quarter I do the following (as root): # apt-mark showmanual | grep -v mrc-mars | xargs apt-mark auto # apt autopurge (Where mrc-mars is my top level metapackage. For *me*, that is the only manual package I ever want on a machine.) If I see something that it wants to purge but I do actually want, I add it to my personal metapackage (build and push) and then do the above again. mrc
Re: Current best practices for system configuration management?
On Sat, Apr 20, 2024 at 4:40โฏPM Mike Castle wrote:
> Thanks for all of the commentary so far.
>
> Once I get something working, I will *try* to remember to follow up
> here with what I've managed to cobble together.
I have done quite a bit of research and experimentation and finally
settled on a solution that seems like it will work for me:
Plain old debian/* control files along with config-package-dev.
Effectively, I've abandoned `equivs` and now just using plain old
`debhelper` with a small wrapper script.
One thing I've learned along the way is that debian/control files can
build multiple .deb files. But the "control" files that `equivs` uses
are not really the same as regular control files, so need one per
package. Since I created a hierarchy of packages, I needed several
configs for equivs. Now, I can use just one, and it is MUCH faster
(about 8 seconds total).
I'm still working on replacing my old equivs stuff, but, I do have
some things I'm installing now. Essentially my setup looks like this:
debian/control:
Maintainer: Mike Castle
Source: mrc
Build-Depends: debhelper-compat (= 12), config-package-dev
Rules-Requires-Root: no
Standards-Version: 4.5.1
Section: metapackages
Priority: optional
Package: mrc-base
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends},
bc,
cron,
...
zip,
Package: mrc-mozilla
Architecture: all
Description: MRC's Mozilla apt configuration
Lots of files under /etc/apt.
Depends: ${misc:Depends},
Package: mrc-desktop
Architecture: all
Description: MRC's desktop installation
Graphical stuff.
Depends: ${misc:Depends},
mrc-base,
mrc-games,
mrc-python,
mrc-mozilla,
... more meta packages ...
Package: mrc-mars
Architecture: all
Description: MRC's host mars
Host specific deps.
Provides: ${diverted-files}
Conflicts: ${diverted-files}
Depends: ${misc:Depends},
mrc-desktop,
mrc-development,
mrc-virtual-machines,
... most host packages ...
A few other debian control files:
$ find debian/ -type f
debian/source/format
debian/mrc-mars.install
debian/mrc-mars.displace
debian/mrc-mozilla.install
debian/copyright
debian/changelog
debian/rules
debian/control
$ cat debian/rules
#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
dh $@ --with=config-package
The files that match .* are the magic. For example:
$ cat debian/mrc-mozilla.install
files/mozilla/* /
$ find files/mozilla -type f
files/mozilla/usr/share/lintian/overrides/mrc-mozilla
files/mozilla/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mozilla.list
files/mozilla/etc/apt/preferences.d/mozilla
files/mozilla/etc/apt/keyrings/packages.mozilla.org.asc
The etc/apt files come from
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions
and the lintian overrides is:
$ cat files/mozilla/usr/share/lintian/overrides/mrc-mozilla
mrc-mozilla: package-installs-apt-sources
mrc-mozilla: package-installs-apt-preferences
For the host packages, it is slightly more complicated, but not much
once I figured it out. Again, a basic "copy in everything under this
directory" install file:
$ cat debian/mrc-mars.install
files/mars/* /
which is currently this:
$ find files/mars -type f
files/mars/etc/hostname.mrc
Then the interesting bit:
$ cat debian/mrc-mars.displace
/etc/hostname.mrc
This "dispace" file is something that the `config-package` addon takes
care of. It sets up backing up the existing file name (/etc/hostname)
and symlinks in my version:
$ ls -l /etc/hostname*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 May 27 08:57 /etc/hostname -> hostname.mrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 5 May 27 06:52 /etc/hostname.mrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 6 May 27 07:37 /etc/hostname.mrc-orig
If I purge mrc-mars, then /etc/hostname.mrc-orig is moved back to /etc/hostname.
(The way config-package-dev works is, it takes the first portion of
the package names, in this case "mrc", to identify what file names to
use.)
To drive it all, I currently use a simple wrapper script:
$ cat doit.sh
#!/bin/bash
set -e
work_dir=$(mktemp -d)
find -depth | cpio -pdm ${work_dir}/work
cd ${work_dir}/work
debuild --no-conf --no-sign --lintian-opts --info
OUTPUT=/srv/deb/packages
rm -rf $OUTPUT
mkdir -p $OUTPUT
cp ${work_dir}/*.deb $OUTPUT
cd $OUTPUT
dpkg-scanpackages . > Packages
echo "work_dir was ${work_dir}"
Not the fanciest, but "works for me" (so far). Essentially it builds
things in /tmp because the debian packaging tool chain always drops
the files into the parent directory and leaves things that *I*
currently do not care about littering my disk. Also, it drops
intermediate files into the debian/* directory, making it more
difficult to know what needs to go under SCM. With this approach,
"git status" will be easier to read.
The only drawback so far, over my previous approach of one `equivs`
config per package, is that now, all built debs share the same version
number. With the individual approach, I could add one pac
Re: Current best practices for system configuration management?
Hah! https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2013/08/msg00042.html
Re: Current best practices for system configuration management?
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Like Alex, one of my physical machines is a laptop that is not always on the home network. Though I'm usually connected to *something*. I'm still debating whether to bother with a VPN or trying something like a tailnet. Heck, before I adopted Debian and ran my own Linux-from-Scratch-started-before-LFS-or-Debian-existed "distribution", I used to run $HOME over NFS over WiFi. Sharing configs that way would be acceptable for me. I also used to keep my configs in CVS and pushed them using rsync-over-ssh-as-root, hence "current best practices". :-> Linux-Fan's MDVL stuff looks interesting. Everything can always be solved by one more layer of redirection. :-> I just have to suss out the Java and Ant stuff to understand the basics. Personally, I'm a big fan of NIH-Syndrome (otherwise I wouldn't have run a LFS type system for ~15 years). So it is likely I would reinvent what is happening there. One thing Linux-Fan mentioned was `config-package-dev`. In my OP, I commented about ``slightly old to really old tools'', and that was one I was thinking of. It looks like it hasn't been touched in seven years, and I wasn't sure if it still worked. But that drive by comments lends some hope. Using it would help address Alex's concern about modifying existing config files. That debhelper extension is designed precisely for that situation. But, its age is pretty much what inspired me to start this thread. Interestingly enough, I sent the OP just before I went to a BayLISA talk about Apple's PKL. Since I tend to only use whatever comes out of the Debian repos (my only exceptions being Firefox and an emacs package the maintainers won't fix for bookworm), I'm unlikely to do more than look at it, But, between it and MDVL, I think I'm definitely going to try to make sure I don't configure myself into a corner. :-> Thanks for all of the commentary so far. Once I get something working, I will *try* to remember to follow up here with what I've managed to cobble together. Cheers! mrc PS: Actually, I used to share $HOME (and /usr) over PLIP, so, it is probably obvious that FS speed is not always a concern for me.
Current best practices for system configuration management?
For a while now, I've been using `equivs-build` for maintaining a hierarchy of metapackages to control what is installed on my various machines. Generally, I can do `apt install mrc-$(hostname -s)` and I'm golden. Now, I would like to expand that into also setting up various config files that I currently do manually, for example, the `/etc/apt/*` configs I need to make the above work. For a single set of files, manual isn't bad, but as I want to get into setting up LDAP, autofs, and so on, it is time to explore solutions. I only have four systems at the moment (two physical and two virtual), so I don't think I need something too fancy. My first thought was to simply add a `Files:` section to *.control files I use for my metapackages. After all, for configs going into *.d directories, they are usually easy to just drop in and remove, no editing in place required. But, that is when I discovered that all files under `/etc` are treated specially. I've found a lot of documentation out there, but, of course, much of it is out of date. https://wiki.debian.org/ConfigPackages , for example, seems to recommend slightly old to really old tools. Tools like `ansible`, `puppet` and so on seem, at first blush, aimed at larger installations than mine. But maybe other's experience with them will show they scale down fine? Anyway, suggestions based upon actually experience would be appreciated. Cheers, mrc
Re: Inclusive terminology (instead of master/slave) for network bonding/LACP
On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 1:49โฏAM Alain D D Williams wrote: > We seem to be told that this must be done by those who will not be doing the > work. Was that explicitly stated anywhere? Or is the lack of any type of explicit "I'm willing to help drive this" statements leading to that conclusion? mrc
Re: Inclusive terminology (instead of master/slave) for network bonding/LACP
On Fri, Feb 23, 2024 at 2:07โฏAM Alain D D Williams wrote: > It is "fixing" an issue for today's English speakers. Should we scour our > systems looking for similar issues in other languages ? Then in, say, 20 years > time when different words will then be considered offensive, by some, do this > all again ? Yes.
Re: Aw: Re: Re: very poor nfs performance
Stefan K wrote: > > Can you partition the files into 2 different shares? Put the database > > files in one share and access them using "sync", and put the rest of the > > files in a different share, with no "sync"? > this could be a solution, but I want to understand why is it so slow and fix > that It's inherent in how sync works. Over-the-wire calls are expensive. NFS implementations try to get acceptable performance by extensive caching, using asynchronous operations when possible, and by issuing a smaller number of large RPCs (rather than a larger number of small RPCs). The sync option defeats all of those mechanisms. mike
Re: very poor nfs performance
Stefan K wrote: > 'sync'-mountoption is important (more or less), but it should still be > much faster than 20MB/s I don't know if "sync" could be entirely responsible for such a slowdown, but it's likely at least contributing, particularly if the application is doing small I/Os at the system call level. You could try removing the "sync" option, just as an experiment, to see how much it is contributing to the slowdown. mike
Re: a couple rpi problems
On Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 11:41:07PM +, ghe2001 wrote: > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA256 > > rpi5 and 4, standard Debian clone OS > > 1) The 5, pi5.slsware.lan, keeps sending me email saying, > "*** SECURITY information for pi5 ***" > and > "pi5 : Mar 4 15:40:14 : root : unable to resolve host pi5: Name or service > not known" > I have no idea why it's complaining or what's bent. mike@DevuanPI4b:~> cat /etc/hostname MikesDevuanPI mike@DevuanPI4b:~> cat /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 MikesDevuanPI > 2) On both the 4 and 5, 'needrestart' says I'm running on an old kernel and > tells me that a reboot will start the newer version. But it's just kidding > -- I reboot and I get the same message again. The 4's been doing that for a > long time, and I've just let it keep running the old kernel because I'm > afraid I might break something if I try to delete the old kernel. But I just > got the 5 a few days ago, it's doing the same thing, and I'd like to get this > dealt with. I've never seen that either and have 2 RPI4bs running Devuan daedalus on this one, Rasbian bookworm on the other. I assume you ran apt update & apt upgrade before reboot. One thing I have noticed is that reboot and 'shutdown -h now' then toggling the power, don't always give the same results. > -- > Glenn English Be well, Mike -- For more information, please reread.
Re: keyboard buttons
David Wright wrote: > You could try running: > > $ xmodmap -e 'keycode 124=' # to override XF86PowerOff > > $ xmodmap -e 'keycode 150=' # to override XF86Sleep > > $ xmodmap -e 'keycode 151=' # to override XF86WakeUp perhaps. Thank you Mr. Wright for trying to help. Given your input I read the xmodmap man page. I ran 'xmodmap -pk' and saw the keycode to function mapping as you stated. I ran the commands you suggested then ran 'xmodmap -pk' again and saw that the assignments were cleared. Just to be safe I checked the two files I normally keep open were saved then hit the XF86PowerOff button and watched my computer shutdown. I've heard more that once not to believe all you read. With all the disinformation on the net by enemies of democracy, both foreign and domestic, I take most of the news I read with a grain of salt. I guess I need to apply that to Linux man pages too. In spite of the outcome I appreciate your willingness to try to help and wish you good fortune this year. Be well, Mike -- "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
keyboard buttons
On my keyboard there are some buttons in the top right corner above the number pad. one marked with circle with an x over it, one with a moon the third with analarm clock ringing. Wondering what they were and how they were handled I typed 'Control v' in bash on the command line then the button with the Xed out circle. Much to my chagrin my computer shutdown while I had files open for editing. OOPs. I think I now know what those buttons do but am wondering if there is a way to disable them short of dismantling the keyboard. mike@DevuanPI4b:~> uname -a Linux MikesDevuanPI 6.1.70 #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jan 7 04:13:59 CET 2024 aarch64 GNU/Linux I'm now on a Raspberry PI running Devuan but also run Debian on a different PI and MS Windows 2000 on a Pentium based tower. Bumping one of those buttons and inadvertently killing the system while in the midst of a task is something I'd like to avoid, Be well and Thanks for any suggestions, Mike -- Keep in mind ... stressed spelled backwards is desserts.
Re: top bar the way I want it
On Sat, Jan 20, 2024 at 9:12โฏAM Jeremy Nicoll wrote: > And, of course, write notes to yourself for EVERY change like this, so > you can remember how you did it. I actually have a quarterly reminder for myself to review my various systems and take notes on changes. Installed packages, make sure config files are captured in source control, was I running any A/B experiments to see if I like a new font better than the old one, etc. While most of this I do as I go along, I find having a regular true-up is useful to make sure I didn't miss anything. This applies to my computers, phones, car gadgets, kitchen layout, etc. mrc
Re: disable auto-linking of /bin -> /usr/bin/
On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 10:57โฏAM wrote: > Yes, the main reason for the separation of /usr has more or less > disappeared with the arrival of initramfs, but still... why. To some extent, it will make it easier for packaging. Look at any package built using autoconf, for instance, you run: ./configure --prefix=/usr Well, except for those you want installed in /, in which case you use '--prefix=/' But, what if you don't want all of those in /, you want some in / and some in /usr? Requires more manual work on part of the package maintainer to make sure that things work properly, that files are split across the destinations properly, reference config files appropriately, and so on. With usrmerge, that particular class of problems goes away. Back when I used my own home grown distribution (I was doing Linux >From Scratch before LFS was even a thing), that was one of the issues I'd run into every once in a while. mrc
Re: disable auto-linking of /bin -> /usr/bin/
On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 9:53โฏAM Andy Smith wrote: > เธ There was another use-case which is "sharing a read-only /usr > between systems by NFS, etc." but at the time this was widely > regarded a lost cause as so many other things violated the > premise. I did that for years. Then again, when I started doing that, I was using PLIP over a null-printer cable. But even after I could afford larger harddrives (so I had room to install /usr), and Ethernet cards (and later a hub), I still ran /usr over NFS. Personally, I'm rather saddened by usrmerge. But, such is life. mrc
visudo, /etc/sudo.conf, probe_interfaces
mike@RPI4b3:~> uname -a Linux MikesPI 6.1.0-rpi7-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.1.63-1+rpt1 (2023-11-24) aarch64 GNU/Linux Yes I'm on Raspberry Debian now but my Devuan system still isn't working well enough to post here and I ran into this first on my daedalus system. visud0 complains that my hostname can't be found via DNS, which I don't find surprising since I'm a single user system serving no ports. It's been like that for years and never caused a problem until I installed Devuan. 'visudo /etc/sudo.conf' shows a line '# Set probe_interfaces false' which should tell sudo not to worry whether hostname returns an FQDN. Unfortunalely, visudo sees that as a syntax error and sudo ignores that line. If I leave the line uncommented sudo still complains if mike takes eth0 up or down. I just checked and the same thing happens on this system. Both are Debian based systems and I'm wondering if anyone here can say if the problem comes from Debian or upstream. Thanks for listening. Be well, Mike -- Remember, success is ninety-nine percent the refusal to accept failure. - Charles Sheffield, _The_Cyborg_From_Earth_
Re: xfce screen detachment
Dan Ritter wrote: > Russell L. Harris wrote: > > system: amd64 desktop, debian 12, xfce, NEC MultiSync EA192M monitor [...] > That sounds something like having an X11 screen larger than the > monitor it is on, and X panning around that. Typically, though, > panning requires the mouse to hit the border of the monitor. > > If that's what is happening, try right clicking-on the desktop > to get the application menu, and run Settings => Desktop; then > reset the resolution to what your monitor actually supports. FWIW, I've noticed that Xfce eventually gets confused about the settings for my display. I don't know what triggers it, but I'll suddenly notice that the display has gone from 1920x1200 to 1920x1080. Resetting it works (under Display, not Desktop). I don't see the problem with MATE, KDE, Cinnamon, or i3. This is on Debian 11, amd64 desktop (radeon 3000 video), Acer 23" monitor. regards, mike
Re: kbrequest as in older /etc/inittab
On Mon, Jan 01, 2024 at 10:36:41AM -0600, David Wright wrote: > Is the history of this issue relevant? > https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=282768 David the most relevant part of that old post is the last line. > On Mon, 1 Jan 2024 13:53:44 -0500 Greg Wooledge wrote: > Oh, it's the same *name*. Huh. So, Mike, whatever you figured out in > 2020, you entirely forgot, and now you're starting over in a new forum? Yes, Greg, my name is still Mike. Have you always been Greg? If you think I figured it out in 2020 you clearly didn't read that post. I suggest you go back and read the last line at least. > What are you actually trying to do? If all you want are a bunch of > additional text consoles, you can simply increase the number of gettys > by editing the /etc/systemd/logind.conf file: I don't think I can state any more clearly what I'm trying to do than 'to tie a call to openvt to Alt Up'. I'm assuming you don't know how to do that either. You're quite right you can increase the number of gettys and you can log into every one of them before you can use them. I'd like to thank you for the reference to logind.conf. I've been looking for a while where the login on tty6 was coming from having set ACTIVE_CONSOLES="/dev/tty[1,3]" in /etc/default/console-setup. You are often helpful. One of these days I'll find a solution, I thought triggerhappy might do but so far haven't made that work either. Be well fellas, Still Mike -- 1984 was not meant as a blueprint for democratic governments.
Re: Content of /etc/ethers
On Wed, Jan 3, 2024 at 6:58โฏPM Greg Wooledge wrote: > What's not really stated anywhere is *why* these library functions > exist. I don't see many practical application for a library function > that reads a text file full of MAC addresses and hostnames, looks up > one of them, and spits out the other half of the line it's on. You'd > get more usefulness just doing "grep somename /etc/ethers". > > The Debian ethers(5) page references arp(8), so one might conclude > that this file is intended to augment/prettify the output of "arp" so > that it contains hostnames in addition to (or instead of) MAC addresses. > But the main use of the "arp" command has always been to find out the MAC > address of a host whose IP address you already know (or can get from DNS), > but whose MAC address is not currently known. So, if you've already got > a text file full of these MAC addresses, why would you even need to run > the arp command in the first place? IPv4 and IPv6 are not the only network protocols that can be used on Ethernet. Nor were they the first, and definitely not the only ones on unix-like systems. One can do raw ethernet packets. Or IPX, NetBIOS (used by SMB, Lantastic, and others), AppleTalk, Banyan's VINES, PPPoE, DECnet, , probably XNS. Probably many I missed, and perhaps some future enet based protocols that are not inet based. Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Network_Systems: > XNS also helped to validate the design of the 4.2BSD network subsystem by > providing a second protocol suite, one which was significantly different from > the Internet protocols; by implementing both stacks in the same kernel, > Berkeley researchers demonstrated that the design was suitable for more than > just IP. The getent(1) support ethers, so you can probably use that to test any information you put in there. As mentioned in the getent man page, ethers is one of the databases supported by NSS. mrc
kbrequest as in older /etc/inittab
Prior to the introduction of systemd /etc/inittab had this line in it: kb::kbrequest:/bin/echo "Keyboard Request--edit /etc/inittab to let this work." and I found it useful to tie a call to openvt to Alt Up which went well with ALT Right or Left arrow to move between VTs. . Has anyone knowledge of how to do this under systemd? Thanks, Mike -- ... what I was born does not matter, only what I will make of myself, only what I will become.
Re: single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
Mr. Wooledge, Long before I realized I could put /home/mike on a separate partition I started putting my stuff on a separate partition and just called it /mc. A couple of tomes I had different OS versions on the same hard drive so it made sense to keep the portions of my stuff that weren't OS specific in a place I could reach from both OS installs. Since my tower died and I replaced it with a Raspberry PI, home is on the uSD. Having /mc on a flash drive means I have it available whether I'm running debian, devuan or raspbian and if home were on that flash since those OSs are only similar things could get even more confusing than they are with my setup. A problem I've not run into but considered is how to deal with thngs if that flash drive dies. I suspect logging into a system where you have no home for your primary user might get interesting. Mr. Nikulin, I shouldn't be surprised if xterm-256color is just enough different from xterm and lxterminal that that is why you don't see a problem with the '"...": ...' syntax. If you have xterm-256color you likely have xterm too. Have you tried it? Thanks for showing me different ways of looking at my challenges. Happy New Year fellas Mike -- Happiness is not so much in having but in sharing.
Re: single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
In response to Greg Wooledge's message of Wed, 27 Dec. As it turns out every line in /mc/bin/xterm_bindings that was not a comment was problematic.From man readline or info readline I saw this: bind '"\C-x\C-r": re-read-init-file' and that is the syntax I used in xterm_bindings, as '"\e[1;5H": backward-kill-line'. Looking as you suggested for the problematic line, I deleted each line until none were left, only then did the "'" problem go away. When I compared .inputrc to xterm_bindings I then saw the problem. You wondered what /mc/implied, my name is McClain so /mc is where my stuff goes to separate it from system stuff making it easier to move my stuff from distribution to distribution. I started with DosLinux back around 1997-8 and have used redhat, slakware, solaris, freebsd and settled on Debian early this century. Since some of these use a spinoff of xterm [ -n $DISPLAY ] is a little more generic than [ $TERM == xterm ], RaspberryPI has chosen lxterminal as their default which would would fail that test but still runs bash. In spite of having used linux for years I'm still a 'luser' compared to you and often fumble as this case demonstrates. I do appreciate your input, bothe here and on the bash list. Thanks for the help and I wish you a happy new year. Mike -- Happiness is not so much in having but in sharing.
Re: Firefox Warning [SOLVED]
You are correct Tixy and my apologies. Raspberry Pi advertises itself as Debian and I hadn't noticed that the sources.list only has raspberrypi,com in it. It was designed as a children's teaching aid which probably explains the auto update. Again my apologies for raising what turns out to be a false alarm for regular Debian users. Happy Holidays, Mike -- The universe is made of stories, not atoms. - Muriel Rukeyser
Re: Firefox Warning [SOLVED]
Mr. Martinez, I tried every thing I could think of with little success: apt-get update; apt-get upgrade apt update && apt -y full-upgrade apt-get reinstall firefox None of these restores firefox's black menus Mr. Walton, I'm pleased to hear that you have not had the problems I've run into, however I had not initiated an update and though bookworm on the desktop occasionally pops up a window telling me of updates available and suggests I click the button on the taskbar to start the download, I've not seen evidence that the updates are done without my initiating same. If I recall correctly, Firefox used to have a checkbox in the preferences to permit or deny auto updates. In this version 121.0 for the Raspberry PI, that's no longer so and I'm quite sure that FF updated itself without asking. When it restarted the top three lines, menu, tabs and address plus associated buttons were black with grey text and bacically unreadable/unusable. Faced with that I'd suggest you might get a bit dramatic too. The good news is that kerry_s on the Raspberry Pi forum showed me where to change the screen theme. >From the taskbar popup menu/Preferences/Appearance Settings/Defaults choose: For medium screens: Set Defaults kerry_s also said there was a theme selector there that I didn't see. He's under wayland while I'm running X11 and that caused some confusion. I can't imagine why FF would choose to change desktop theme with their update but that theme change also made LibreOffice, Draw, Calc and Writer unusable. I hope you don't have this problem but at least if you do get stung you may remember the fix. Happy Holidays, Mike -- What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Re: single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
You guys were rigt all along, I just couldn't see it.
Greg's suggestion to try dash showed me the error of my ways.
I moved .inputrc to no.inputrc, commented out the line in
bash.environment that pulled in xterm_bindings, killed and restarted X
and sure enough I had '"' in an lxterminal window.
I moved no.inputrc back to .inputrc, killed and restarted X and still
had '"' in an lxterminal window.
I deleted half of the entries in xterm_bindings, reenabled the
statement in bash.environment, killed and restarted X and
lost '"' in an lxterminal window.
I deleted another half of the entries in xterm_bindings,
killed and restarted X and still no '"' in an lxterminal window.
Only when xterm_bindings has no executable lines in it does it not
kill '"' in an X terminal window.
The line that pulled it in was ;
[ -n "$DISPLAY" ] && [ -f /mc/bin/xterm_bindings ] && bind -f
/mc/bin/xterm_bindings;
Greg I have no idea when this happened xterm_bindings was started in 2011
and either I didn't notice it or it wasn't a big enough problem to
deal with. I keep tty{1-10} open all the time and X only on tty11 so
seldom use a terminal window in X.
Thanks for your help fellows and Happy Holidays,
May the new year be good for you,
Mike
--
Never ascribe to stupidity what can be explained as ignorance.
Re: single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
root@RPI4b3:~> tty; echo $SHELL; echo "' " | hd /dev/tty1 /bin/bash 27 20 0a |' .| 0003 mike@RPI4b3:~> tty; echo $SHELL; echo "' " | hd /dev/tty6 /bin/bash 27 20 0a |' .| 0003 mike@RPI4b3:~> tty; echo $SHELL; echo " " | hd /dev/pts/1 /bin/bash 20 0a | .| 0002 The above in a lxterminal window. mike@RPI4b3:~> tty; echo $SHELL; echo " " | hd /dev/pts/6 /bin/bash 20 0a | .| 0002 The above in an term window. As this demonstrates, I get single quotes in bash in a VT but not in X. I see the same whether beforre or after executing 'setxkbmap -layout us'. Suggestions for further exploration? Merry Christmas, Mike -- Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true' - Polish Proverb.
Re: single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
This is reported by "xev" in response to the "'" key:
KeyPress event, serial 48, synthetic NO, window 0x1e1,
root 0x3af, subw 0x0, time 1860575, (170,-87), root:(1005,201),
state 0x10, keycode 48 (keysym 0x27, apostrophe), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (27) "'"
XmbLookupString gives 1 bytes: (27) "'"
XFilterEvent returns: False
In lxterminal control v displays "'" though lxterminal doesn't.
"''" shows nothing and "'a" shows "a",
likewise "'e" = "e", "'o" = "o", etc.
I've examined /etc/inputrc, .inputrc, /etc/bash.bashrc, ~/.bashrc,
/etc/profile, /etc/profile.d/*, ~/.profile, ~/.bash_profile,
both of the latter two just pull in ~/.bashrc which pulls in
bash.{aliases,environment,functions} which are just stuff that started out
in ~/.bashrc but got split out when it got unwieldy.
The only things I've got that tweek the keyboard are
/mc/bin/setkeys which is run by /etc/rc.local
and /mc/bin/xterm_bindings pulled in by bash.environment.
Both of these contain keyboard assignments for bash/readline editing functions
or jed editing functions and don't change how a single quote is handled.
They have been around so long they probably predate my awareness of inputrc.
98% of what is /mc/bin I wrote plus a few things I ran across and kept for
the ideas/lessons they taught.
mike@RPI4b3:~> cat /etc/default/keyboard
# KEYBOARD CONFIGURATION FILE
# Consult the keyboard(5) manual page.
XKBMODEL="pc105"
XKBLAYOUT="us"
XKBVARIANT=""
XKBOPTIONS="compose:lwin"
BACKSPACE="guess"
Durring the hours I've spent exploring this problem it has occured to me to
wonder why I would see this problem only in a desktop terminal window
but not on tty(1-10)? That suggests to me that it is not a readline problem
but I don't know much about keyboard mapping in X or wayland as I'm under now.
Suggestions on where to look next?
Thanks for your ideas and Merry Christmas,
Mike
--
No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while
the legislature is in session.
- Mel Greene's _The_Greatest_Joke_Book_Ever_
single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal
I seldom use the command line while on the desk top since I keep 10 VTs open for day to day tasks so only recently noticed that when I type a single quote "'" in bash xterm or lxterminal nothing shows. If I open a file for editing with jed, my favorite editor, I can type a single quote but back on the CL again no "'". Suggestions on where to look for a solution? Thanks and Merry Christmas, Mike -- Silence & smile are two powerful tools. Smile is the way to solve many problems & Silence is the way to avoid many problems.
Firefox Warning
On my RPI4b bookworm system as I was browsing, Firefox stopped me demanding to update and I couldn't continue to use FF until I accepted its demand and let it update. It did so then restarted FF at which point it became almost totally unusable the menu bars had come to black background with very dark grey text. I have tried 'apt-get update; apt-get upgrade' hoping restore FF to usability also 'apt-get reinstall firefox' with no luck. FF was very difficult to read and it took hours and going back to my buster install on another PI before I figured out how to get it back to a usable state. When I loaded LibreOffice calc to record stock quotes I found that calc had, too, inherited the same problem with the top menu bars, as well as the side bars and bottom status bars are black with nearly illegible text. I've not yet gotten calc straightened out. If anyone can point me to what in the system Firefox update could have changed to affect other programs I'd appreciate the help. Frankly I'm aghast at the arrogance of the FF group to force an update on their users and quite peeved that they would do so and screw up my system as well. Merry Christmas everyone, Mike -- Silence & smile are two powerful tools. Smile is the way to solve many problems & Silence is the way to avoid many problems.
Re: Recommended simple PDF viewer to replace Evince
I use Evince probably once a week or so from the command line. I do not see that error, though I think I have in the past. I suspect that if you are seeing those issues with the current bookworm release, it is likely a problem local to you. You could be missing a package that evince expects to be there, but there is a missing dependency (likely, making it a Debian problem). You could have configured something some time ago that no longer makes sense, either Gnome based as a whole, something local to Evince, etc, or a cache corruption (which makes it a local issue which could be a challenge to track down). Or a good old fashioned bug somewhere along the line (perhaps making it a Gnome/Evince bug). One URL from the man page, http://www.gnome.org/projects/evince/, seems to go through a series of JavaScript based redirects to end up at https://apps.gnome.org. That does give a GitLab based 404 error. I'm not sure if that is the "throws an error" situation you were referring to or not. Possibly related, https://circle.gnome.org gives the same 404. Both of those links are listed in the footer of https:///www.gnome.org/. However, there is another site listed in the man page: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evince/issues , and that does appear to work. That might be another venue you can try if you want to resolve the issue instead of abandoning Evince. As far as alternatives, I think both current versions of Firefox and Chrome support PDFs natively. Also, before I started using evince, I used to use gv (based on ghostview) quite a bit. The following seems to list most of the various programs discussed in this thread, plus a couple of others: apt-cache search pdf-viewer mrc
used vs. unused packages installed
Is there any way to determine which packages are used of the many that come with an install? My Raspberry Pi install of bookworm has some 1800 packages installed many of which I know I don't use, many others I suspect I don't use but don't know if some program I do use depends on them at some point in its life. $ apropos editor | wc reports 23 hits Six of which are various versions of VI which I don't use but pico, nano, mcedit, mousepad and mu-editor are also included. I only use jed but don't know what would break if I purged the others and am loathe to break a working system. There are 259 packages whose name starts with 'python', admittedly I could purge one a week and see if anything breaks, that would only take 5 years but I'm not quite that patient. Suggestions? Thanks, Mike McClain -- Every problem has a gift for you in its hands. - Richard Bach
Re: IMAP vs POP was Thunderbird vs Claws Mail
Seeing several messages complaining about fetching messages from gmail.com I'd like to point out that gmail can be set to forward all messages to a gmail account to another account on a different server. I saw a message making that point several years ago, probably here, and seldom log into gmail but get all messages sent to my gmail accounts by others. A second item that's slightly off topic, I've had no luck setting up claws-mail to send out through frontier.net and if anyone knows how to do that I'd appreciate the claws-mail setup for it. Thanks, Mike -- Telling pious lies to trusting children is a form of abuse, plain and simple. - Daniel Dennett, 2010-01-12
masqmail
If anyone on the list is using masqmail I'd be interested in hearing how well it works and how easy it is to set up for a single user system that's not online 24/7. Thank, Mike -- Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life. - Maya Angelou
Re: Re: midnight commander
Re: Re: midnight commander
claws-mail
I'm running bookworm on a Raspberry Pi 4b. mike@rpi4b3:~> uname -a Linux MikesPI 6.1.0-rpi4-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.1.54-1+rpt2 (2023-10-05) aarch64 GNU/Linux This install didn't include exim4, postfix or anything supplying sendmail and fetchmail won't work without an MTA. I've set up several accounts in claws-mail for email accounts at att.net and gmail.com but so far haven't got them right to the point that claws-mail will collect mail from any of those accounts via POP mail. I'd appreciate any suggestions on how to get claws-mail working, so far the only suggestions I've gotten from the Raspberry Pi forum is to switch to thunderbird. I don't understand how either will handle local email like comes from cron or other system programs and I depend on several scripts to do daily checks on the system which cron emails me about on my buster system which has exim4, fetchmail and mutt installed. Obviously I can install those here too but suspect if I get this system set up correctly it should perform similarly. Any advice appreciated. Thanks, Mike
midnight commander
I'm running bookworm on a RaspberryPi 4b. mike@rpi4b3:~> uname -a Linux MikesPI 6.1.0-rpi4-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.1.54-1+rpt2 (2023-10-05) aarch64 GNU/Linux There are a couple of things I don't understand and am hoping one of you out there can clue me in or at least suggest a direction to explore. MC loads for root in under a second but for user mike it takes 10 seconds to come up whether on the CL ir on the desktop. On the CL my prompt is "mike@rpi4b3:~> " but in MC it is only "$" while root's in MC is like mike's on the CL. I've looked at the MC docs and all the MC config files I can find but not found anything to suggest the differences in root's and mike's usage of MC. The ~/.config/mc/ini files are identical. When I run buster on a Pi I don't see these differences but realize they are likely different versions of MC. Any thoughts? Thanks, Mike
Re: Performance of my computer
On Mon, Oct 30, 2023 at 5:14โฏPM Van Snyder wrote: > On Mon, 2023-10-30 at 19:40 +, piorunz wrote: > On 30/10/2023 18:56, Van Snyder wrote: > Firefox, in every version I've used so far, appears to have memory > > leaks. If I kill it, not by clicking its little "X" or Alt-F4, but with > > "kill -9", so that it reopens everything when I restart it, my memory > > usage immediately drops by 75%. Then it creeps back up. > > > Firefox doesn't have any memory leaks. It actively uses buffers, cache, > > filling available memory. I have Firefox running for days, sometimes > > weeks. On slow laptop, and fast workstation PC. Same result, no crashes, > > no memory leaks. > > > Then why does it use 1/3 as much memory to display the same pages and tabs > when I kill it and restart it? That's a symptom of memory leakage. Do you happen to keep the Web Developer Tools open? Or console logs set to persistent? Those will keep lots of things in memory just in case you need them as a developer trying to debug an issue. Generally, if I notice my memory usage going up, I will be sure to close the Dev Tools and reload the tab a couple of times. Then, eventually, the JavaScript garbage collector will kick in and start releasing the items the Dev Tools have stopped tracking. FF also has built in performance tools that can be used to determine what may be using resources. Menu -> More tools -> Task Manager (aka, shift-esc or about:processes). Nothing Debian specific here. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/task-manager-tabs-or-extensions-are-slowing-firefox#w_task-manager has more details. mrc
Re: A file synchronization tool that respects hardlinks
rsync supports hardlinks. --hard-links, -H preserve hard links Though, in general, the purpose of something like darcs is to *provide* the syncing. mrc
Re: Single-page application [was: debian.org - broken Download link.]
On Mon, Oct 9, 2023 at 6:11โฏAM wrote: > Gah, no. As a user I hate those with all my guts. Page "state" is > distributed in some intransparent way across client and server and > there is no way to refer to "something" via an URL. Many modern SPAs track state via URL, so they can be referenced. And not just as a ?query or #fragment either. mrc
Re: Git for backup storage
Something I played with recently was https://packages.debian.org/stable/vcs/git-filter-repo But you definitely want to run tests on real data before you decide that deleting old data saves your anything, particularly with respect to time. If git is so efficient at storing this kind of data, then what do you expect to gain by deleting old stuff, outside of a smaller log to go through? mrc
Re: How can I find packages manually installed using "dpkg -i"?
Oops. The 'grep -v -F' should be 'grep -v -f'. Well, 'grep -v -F -f'
would probably be appropriate as well.
mrc
On Tue, Oct 3, 2023 at 7:58โฏPM Mike Castle wrote:
>
> Some tools I've been using lately are apt-mark and "dpkg-query --show".
>
> The following UNTESTED commands (ran as a normal user):
>
> (apt-mark showauto ; apt-mark showmanual) > apt-thinks-you-installed.txt
> dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package}\n' | grep -v -F
> apt-thinks-you-installed.txt > rest.txt
>
> The file "rest.txt" should have a list of packages installed that were
> NOT installed via apt. With any luck, it is small enough to examine
> manually.
>
> You could do something like "apt list" to get a list of all packages
> known by apt and see if you'd prefer to use just use the Debian
> instead of Mint versions. And anything not in that list *probably*
> came from other manual sources and you can do what you will with that
> information.
>
> You could poke around in /var/lib/apt/lists/ and see if the files from
> the mint repos you used in the past are still there (I don't know if
> they get cleaned up or not, might get lucky).
>
>
> Regarding the comment in the thread about packages that the installer
> added that show up as manual, you can do something like the following
> to at least make apt think they were auto:
>
> dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package} ${Priority}\n' | awk '$2 ==
> required {print $1}' > required.txt
> sudo apt-mark auto $(apt-mark showmanual | grep -F required.txt) #
> apt-mark will prompt, so you don't want to use xargs
>
> Again, the above is untested, so verify first!
>
> You might do the same for other priorities, like standard or
> important. If for no other reason than breaking the list of packages
> into smaller, digestible chunks that you can focus on. For example,
> on my machine:
> $ dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Priority}\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
> 5 extra
> 29 important
> 29 standard
> 33 required
>1472 optional
>
> I could probably handle going through those smaller collections to
> identify where they came from fairly easily. But that big optional
> collection, not so much. For something like that, I might add
> ${Section} to the --showformat option, and divide them up that way.
>
> Also, as a future project, you might consider creating metapackages to
> help organize your installation. Again, for my machine:
> $ apt-mark showmanual | wc -l
> 1
> $ apt-mark showauto | wc -l
> 1563
>
> I have a handful of debian control files that I use (base, desktop,
> dev, serviceX, serviceY, machine1, machine2,...). The machine ones
> depends on the services they host (NFS, LDAP, VMs), and whether they
> need a GUI (desktop), whether I build on them (dev), or play games,
> etc. Then each machine, after a base install I do something like:
>
> apt-mark auto $(apt-mark showmanual)
> apt install machineN
> apt autoremove --purge
>
> Of course, I monitor that autoremove to make sure it doesn't do
> anything silly, and if it tries to remove a package I missed, I go add
> it to the appropriate control file. My simple little way of doing
> this is:
>
> $ cat doit.sh
> #!/bin/bash
>
> for v in *.control; do
> equivs-build $v > $v.log &
> done
>
> echo 'Waiting'
> wait
> echo 'Done waiting'
>
> OUTPUT=/srv/deb/packages
> rm -rf $OUTPUT
> mkdir -p $OUTPUT
> cp *.deb $OUTPUT
> cd $OUTPUT
>
> dpkg-scanpackages . > Packages
> $ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mrc-home.list
> deb [trusted=yes] file:/srv/deb/packages ./
>
> And yes, I should do better than the [trusted=yes].
>
> Good luck on your upgrade!
> mrc
Re: How can I find packages manually installed using "dpkg -i"?
Some tools I've been using lately are apt-mark and "dpkg-query --show".
The following UNTESTED commands (ran as a normal user):
(apt-mark showauto ; apt-mark showmanual) > apt-thinks-you-installed.txt
dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package}\n' | grep -v -F
apt-thinks-you-installed.txt > rest.txt
The file "rest.txt" should have a list of packages installed that were
NOT installed via apt. With any luck, it is small enough to examine
manually.
You could do something like "apt list" to get a list of all packages
known by apt and see if you'd prefer to use just use the Debian
instead of Mint versions. And anything not in that list *probably*
came from other manual sources and you can do what you will with that
information.
You could poke around in /var/lib/apt/lists/ and see if the files from
the mint repos you used in the past are still there (I don't know if
they get cleaned up or not, might get lucky).
Regarding the comment in the thread about packages that the installer
added that show up as manual, you can do something like the following
to at least make apt think they were auto:
dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Package} ${Priority}\n' | awk '$2 ==
required {print $1}' > required.txt
sudo apt-mark auto $(apt-mark showmanual | grep -F required.txt) #
apt-mark will prompt, so you don't want to use xargs
Again, the above is untested, so verify first!
You might do the same for other priorities, like standard or
important. If for no other reason than breaking the list of packages
into smaller, digestible chunks that you can focus on. For example,
on my machine:
$ dpkg-query --show --showformat='${Priority}\n' | sort | uniq -c | sort -n
5 extra
29 important
29 standard
33 required
1472 optional
I could probably handle going through those smaller collections to
identify where they came from fairly easily. But that big optional
collection, not so much. For something like that, I might add
${Section} to the --showformat option, and divide them up that way.
Also, as a future project, you might consider creating metapackages to
help organize your installation. Again, for my machine:
$ apt-mark showmanual | wc -l
1
$ apt-mark showauto | wc -l
1563
I have a handful of debian control files that I use (base, desktop,
dev, serviceX, serviceY, machine1, machine2,...). The machine ones
depends on the services they host (NFS, LDAP, VMs), and whether they
need a GUI (desktop), whether I build on them (dev), or play games,
etc. Then each machine, after a base install I do something like:
apt-mark auto $(apt-mark showmanual)
apt install machineN
apt autoremove --purge
Of course, I monitor that autoremove to make sure it doesn't do
anything silly, and if it tries to remove a package I missed, I go add
it to the appropriate control file. My simple little way of doing
this is:
$ cat doit.sh
#!/bin/bash
for v in *.control; do
equivs-build $v > $v.log &
done
echo 'Waiting'
wait
echo 'Done waiting'
OUTPUT=/srv/deb/packages
rm -rf $OUTPUT
mkdir -p $OUTPUT
cp *.deb $OUTPUT
cd $OUTPUT
dpkg-scanpackages . > Packages
$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mrc-home.list
deb [trusted=yes] file:/srv/deb/packages ./
And yes, I should do better than the [trusted=yes].
Good luck on your upgrade!
mrc
Re: XFCE4 without panels
I just tried this in a VM and it seemed to work. >From a command line: xfce4-panel -q find ~/.config | grep panel Remove the xfce4-panel.xml (I also removed the empty directory just named panel.) The lack of panels seems to have survived a reboot. I don't know if it is sufficient for every variation involving saving session state or what not. But might get you started in the right direction. If worst comes to pass, you might be able to put the xfce4-panel -q command in a shell script that automatically launches when you log in. Good luck! mrc
Re: is it unusual that 12.1 is released so soon after 12?
I think it is kind of like buying a new ANYTHING. Some folks will buy a new model as soon as it comes out. Some will wait a few months to see if anyone else is having problems with it. Whether it is a vehicle, electronic device, refrigerator, MS-Windows, new online service, etc. As more folks use the ANYTHING, more issues will be found. Fortunately with something like operating systems, changes/fixes can usually be made fairly quickly. mrc
Re: is it unusual that 12.1 is released so soon after 12?
7: 2013-05-04 https://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130504 7.1: 2013-06-15 https://www.debian.org/News/2013/20130615 42 days 8: 2015-04-25 https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150426 8.1: 2015-06-06 https://www.debian.org/News/2015/20150606 42 days 9: 2017-06-17 https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170617 9.1: 2017-07-22 https://www.debian.org/News/2017/20170722 35 days 10: 2019-07-06 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190706 10.1: 2019-09-07 https://www.debian.org/News/2019/20190907 63 days 11: 2021-08-14 https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20210814 11.1: 2021-10-09 https://www.debian.org/News/2021/20211009 56 days 12: 2023-06-10 https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230610 12.1: 2023-07-22 https://www.debian.org/News/2023/20230722 42 days
If you don't know what package the bug is in...
It is a MATE problem regrading two, possibly related issues. I was thinking mate-desktop-environment, but maybe that is wrong. Maybe it is mate-desktop-common or something else. It has to do with: (1) the panel placement; Limits on which displays it allows me to place the panel; and, (2) the inability to move the displays to the correction position via System/Preferences/Hardware/Displays -- โโ Ellis Michael "Mike" Liebermanย Purok 13, Morales Subd. Brgy Mabuhay, General Santos City, 9500 Philippines
Re: Wireless temperature & humidity measurement
I was just researching this myself a couple of days ago, and spent several hours going down a rabbit hole. It seems that many folks are going the way of using an open source solution, Home Assistant (aka, HA), (https://www.home-assistant.io/). Even to the point where I found that folks that used to have standalone code that could maybe read a sensor was migrated over to HA and then only supported there. HA really wants to be the only thing installed on a machine, to the point where if you do install it on Debian, if you add any other packages, they won't support you. But, installing their HA Operating System (HAOS), which appears to be Debian based, can be with any number of VMs, some stuff via OCI compatible stuff (like Docker, and I suppose, Linux containers, though I'm less sure of this). All of that is overkill for what you (and I) are looking for: simple scraping abilities. But, it does have a large list of supported hardware and protocols. So, you could go through the hardware list, find something you like, and then extract the appropriate software bits. Or at least identify what software packages are necessary. Good luck! And please, if you find something you like and get up and running, follow up. mrc
Re: unzip files bigger than 4 GB
Nvm, confused 2G with 4G. Sorry for the noise. On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 12:21โฏPM Mike Castle wrote: > > It seems like it should. I haven't upgraded my system yet: > > $ unzip -v | grep -e 6 -e LARGE > UnZip 6.00 of 20 April 2009, by Debian. Original by Info-ZIP. > USE_DEFLATE64 (PKZIP 4.x Deflate64(tm) supported) > LARGE_FILE_SUPPORT (large files over 2 GiB supported) > ZIP64_SUPPORT (archives using Zip64 for large files supported) > USE_BZIP2 (PKZIP 4.6+, using bzip2 lib version 1.0.8, 13-Jul-2019) > > On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 11:19โฏAM Van Snyder wrote: > > > > unzip v 6.0 (the version delivered with Debian 10) doesn't work with files > > bigger than 2^32 bytes. > > > > Is there an alternative program to do it? > >
Re: unzip files bigger than 4 GB
It seems like it should. I haven't upgraded my system yet: $ unzip -v | grep -e 6 -e LARGE UnZip 6.00 of 20 April 2009, by Debian. Original by Info-ZIP. USE_DEFLATE64 (PKZIP 4.x Deflate64(tm) supported) LARGE_FILE_SUPPORT (large files over 2 GiB supported) ZIP64_SUPPORT (archives using Zip64 for large files supported) USE_BZIP2 (PKZIP 4.6+, using bzip2 lib version 1.0.8, 13-Jul-2019) On Wed, Jun 14, 2023 at 11:19โฏAM Van Snyder wrote: > > unzip v 6.0 (the version delivered with Debian 10) doesn't work with files > bigger than 2^32 bytes. > > Is there an alternative program to do it? >
Re: Running Debian without initramfs?
On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 10:50โฏAM Greg Wooledge wrote: > Merged-usr is officially mandated for bookworm, and upgrades to bookworm > will do the merge, if it hasn't already happened. End of an era. My first Linux system (predating the existence of Debian), mounted /usr over NFS over PLIP. I couldn't afford a large enough harddrive for the second system, nor ethernet cards (and a local shop was going to charge me $50 to make a crossover cable if I went that route!). Anyway, I think it is also pretty common to install merged-usr on LVM as well, which I think is another reason to need initramfs. mrc
Re: Multi Desktop Windows?
Depends on your desktop/window manager, most likely. For me, with XFCE, it is ctrl-alt- by default. And they appear to be configurable in the Settings -> Window Manager -> Keyboard section. mrc
Re: debian-user-digest Digest V2023 #416
Hi, I am new here. Can anybody help me with this; I have a 2021 Macbook Pro 16" and am trying to install Debian via USB to USB C. The boot loader is recognizing the keyboard and trackpad on the 2007 keyboard I want to use but the OS will not recognize it once opened. I only have one USB - USB C connector. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you. On Sat, May 6, 2023 at 8:34โฏPM wrote: > Content-Type: text/plain > > debian-user-digest Digest Volume 2023 : > Issue 416 > > Today's Topics: > Re: disk usage for /usr/lib on bulls [ David Wright < > deb...@lionunicorn.co ] > Re: Logging off an X session closes [ ] > Re: bind9 and dns forward [ Michel Verdier ] > Gnome Evolution charset question [ Byung-Hee HWANG > =?UTF-8?Q?=28=E9=BB ] > Re: Gnome Evolution charset question [ Alex ] > Re: Gnome Evolution charset question [ Byung-Hee HWANG > =?UTF-8?Q?=28=E9=BB ] > Re: I installed 11.6 [ Greg Wooledge > ] > Re: I installed 11.6 [ Henning Follmann >Re: I installed 11.6 [ gene heskett < > ghesk...@shentel.net> ] > Re: I installed 11.6 [ David Christensen >Re: Wi-Fi broken on Dell E6520, Inte [ David Christensen >Re: repeat of previous question that [ Alex King ] > Re: repeat of previous question that [ David > ] > Date: Fri, 5 May 2023 23:51:33 -0500 > From: David Wright > To: "debian-user@lists.debian.org" > Subject: Re: disk usage for /usr/lib on bullseye > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > Content-Disposition: inline > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > On Fri 05 May 2023 at 14:35:08 (+), Bonno Bloksma wrote: > > As I was trying to find out what would work and if I was doing something > wrong getting rid of old kernels > > > > After upgrading a new kernel for a week I will do apt autoremove to get > rid of the old kernel(s). > > And this will produce the situation you have with 16 and 17: > > linutr:/usr/lib/modules# du * -sh > 4.7M5.10.0-16-amd64 > 4.7M5.10.0-17-amd64 > 309M5.10.0-18-amd64 > 309M5.10.0-19-amd64 > 309M5.10.0-20-amd64 > 309M5.10.0-21-amd64 > > You need to run apt --purge autoremove in order to remove the > files that aren't in the linux-package that you installed. Look: > > $ ls -Glg /lib/modules/5.10.0-21-amd64/ > total 4968 > drwxr-xr-x 124096 Jan 23 21:45 kernel > -rw-r--r-- 1 1241172 Jan 23 21:46 modules.alias > -rw-r--r-- 1 1187730 Jan 23 21:46 modules.alias.bin > -rw-r--r-- 15541 Jan 21 08:35 modules.builtin > -rw-r--r-- 1 0 Jan 23 21:46 modules.builtin.alias.bin > -rw-r--r-- 16754 Jan 23 21:46 modules.builtin.bin > -rw-r--r-- 1 38430 Jan 21 08:35 modules.builtin.modinfo > -rw-r--r-- 1 498055 Jan 23 21:46 modules.dep > -rw-r--r-- 1 671751 Jan 23 21:46 modules.dep.bin > -rw-r--r-- 1 476 Jan 23 21:46 modules.devname > -rw-r--r-- 1 154011 Jan 21 08:35 modules.order > -rw-r--r-- 11067 Jan 23 21:46 modules.softdep > -rw-r--r-- 1 562879 Jan 23 21:46 modules.symbols > -rw-r--r-- 1 685618 Jan 23 21:46 modules.symbols.bin > $ > > apt (auto)remove only removes the package files, dated Jan 21. > The ones here dated Jan 23 were generated when the package was > installed, and are only removed when you /purge/ the package. > > > Debian will automatically keep the current kernel and the previous in > the /boot folder. > > Somehow, I get the feeling there either is a bug which causes the > /usr/lib/modules/ folder not to be cleaned up or there are somehow links to > it from packages that were updated when a specific kernel was active. > > > But is this a bug in the cleanup of an old kernel or are there realy > links to the old modules, links that are now broken? > > If it s a bug, who will report it? I know only enough to report the > symptoms. > > Someone who demonstrates it. AFAICT you don't seem to be aware of > the --purge option and the necessity of using it here, and have > likely just forgotten to even run apt autoremove in the case of > versions 18 and 19 above (where the modules are also present). > > On Fri 05 May 2023 at 11:54:55 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote: > > On Fri, May 05, 2023 at 02:35:08PM +, Bonno Bloksma wrote: > > > Just created a snapshot of my servers and then did: > [ โฆ ] > > It seems like you're just trying random commands without understanding > > what they do. > > Agreed. It makes you wonder how much in this thread that was written > about these commands has been absorbed. > > > > I am now cleaning some by hand. Running kernel -22 and having -21 as > backup kernel I did: > > > x:/usr/lib/modules# rm -rd 5.10.0-16-amd64/ > > > x:/usr/lib/modules# rm -rd 5.10.0-17-amd64/ > > > x:/usr/lib/modules# rm -rd 5.10.0-18-amd64/ > > > > One imagines that if you simply purged all of the kernel packages that > > had been autoremoved, this would clean up
Re: xscreensaver fails to activate via "Preview" button or via "Blank after" setting
Celejar wrote: > The logs show regular deactivate events like the following every 20 > seconds: > > ClientMessage DEACTIVATE: already inactive, resetting activity time > > I saw this: > > https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/faq.html#no-blank > > I guess I have to figure out what application is sending these messages? > Firefox? I do tend to keep a lot of tabs open. I recall seeing something several months ago about the Xfce power manager fighting with xscreensaver, though I'm not able to find it right now. If you have the Xfce power manager configured to manage the display, you could try disabling that. mike
Re: xscreensaver fails to activate via "Preview" button or via "Blank after" setting
Celejar wrote: > I'm running Debian Sid with XFCE. Xscreensaver used to work, but a > number of months ago, it broke badly: it now fails to fails to activate > via the "Preview" button or (more importantly) via the "Blank after" > setting. Thank you for bringing this up. I just noticed yesterday that XScreensaver was not working with Xfce in my Bookworm VM, but I was too busy to look into it. I could start it by hand after logging in, but there was an autostart entry for it, so I expected it to already be running. Have you verified that the daemon is running? (Does "pgrep xscreensaver" produce anything?) Prompted by your email, I added an Xfce autostart command to run xscreensaver in verbose mode and with logging enabled. The log says xscreensaver: 09:09:49: running in process 4072 xscreensaver: 09:09:49: "cinnamon-screensaver" is already running on display :0.0 (window 0x121) By the time I could look at the log file, though, cinnamon-screensaver was no longer running. The xscreensaver man page does say something about uninstalling other screensavers. It's in the section "INSTALLING XSCREENSAVER ON GNOME OR UNITY", but maybe it applies to other DEs? It does seem odd that cinnamon-screensaver would get started in Xfce. Maybe this is some side-effect related to using systemd to start screensavers? Anyway, if you don't have any other screensavers installed in your VM, try enabling logging and see if it tells you anything interesting. mike
Re: Xfce destop environment
William Torrez Corea wrote: > On Mon, 2023-01-30 at 00:07 -0600, William Torrez Corea wrote: > > What happened with my desktop environment? > > > > My desktop environment has problems, the title bar is hidden. [...] > The problem started 1 month ago. I don't know what caused the problem, a > day logged in on my laptop and the desktop environment is ruined. It could be a case where the window manager (xfwm4) died or failed to start for some reason. If the system is configured to remember what applications were running when you exit a session, future logins will not have xfwm4, either. I'm not running Xfce at the moment, so I can't give you exact instructions. But if you start the settings manager, look for "session" and click on that. Then click on the tab for current applications and see if xfwm4 is listed there. If it is, then my guess is wrong and the problem is something else. If it is not, start xfwm4 by hand, and everything should be good. mike
Re: Can't install Debian to CF card in SATA adapter
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 09:33:42PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Hi, > > Mike wrote: > > I don't think that it's a bad grub binary, as I have reinstalled several > > times, with the same result. > > But if it's indeed shim which is complaining then it complains about the > content of grubx64.efi. > > I guess that the problem would show up in the output of > > objdump -x ...path.../grubx64.efi > > which with the binary from debian-11.0.0-amd64-netinst.iso shows: > > /mnt/iso/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi: file format pei-x86-64 > /mnt/iso/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi > architecture: i386:x86-64, flags 0x0103: > HAS_RELOC, EXEC_P, D_PAGED > start address 0x1000 > ... > PE File Base Relocations (interpreted .reloc section contents) > > Virtual Address: 1000 Chunk size 232 (0xe8) Number of fixups 112 > reloc0 offset 33 [1033] DIR64 > reloc1 offset 4b [104b] DIR64 > ... > reloc 115 offset0 [1000] ABSOLUTE > > Virtual Address: a017a006 Chunk size 2688524326 (0xa03fa026) Number of fixups > 1344262159 > reloc0 offset 58 [a017a05e] DIR64 > ...many.more... > reloc 1923 offset0 [a017a006] ABSOLUTE > > Sections: > Idx Name Size VMA LMA File off Algn > 0 .text b000 1000 1000 1000 2**4 > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, CODE > 1 .data 0001 c000 c000 c000 2**4 > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA > 2 mods 0017a000 0001c000 0001c000 0001c000 2**2 > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, DATA > 3 .sbat 1000 00196000 00196000 00196000 2**2 > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA > 4 .reloc1000 00197000 00197000 00197000 2**2 > CONTENTS, ALLOC, LOAD, READONLY, DATA > SYMBOL TABLE: > no symbols > > > I'm not familiar with the nomenclature of objdump and shim. > Maybe objdump's "Chunk size" is what shim is complaining about. > (The numbers of the second occurence of that term look unhealthy.) I must confess to having not come across objdump before. I'm not sure what to make of it's findings. > > > I'm a bit perplexed as to the difference between a SATA > CF adapter and > > any other drive. I thought one would send instructions along the lines > > of "give me block x" and receieve "". > > I think the same. > > > > I was equally perplexed that I > > got the exact same error when using a USB drive. > > Given the rare occurence of the problem in the internet i'd say it is not > about something as systematic as SATA versus USB. It does appear to be rather niech. I have a very similar board in another machine that works just fine. I too have searched the Interwebs for ideas but to no avail. Given that I've reinstalled seveal times with the same results, I'm sure it's not an issue with a corrupt file. I've just checked the SHA 512 of the grubx64.efi from the non working USB stick and the working SSD and they are alike. I think the real irritation is that I can't even put together a plausible hypothesis to test :-( > > > Have a nice day :) > > Thomas > signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Can't install Debian to CF card in SATA adapter
On Sun, Jan 22, 2023 at 12:45:12PM +0100, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Hi, > > Mike wrote: > > booting to the EFI Shell, I > > can access the EFI parition, cd to EFI/debian and manaully call > > shimx64.efi, giving the following output: > > > > Reloc 0 block size 0 is invalid > > Relocation failed: Unsupported > > The web has remarkably few info on that problem. > The best i found is > https://www.mail-archive.com/edk2-devel@lists.01.org/msg39858.html > "These messages are printed by the "shim" UEFI application: > https://github.com/rhboot/shim/blob/master/shim.c > probably when it attempts to load "grub"." > leading to > > https://github.com/rhboot/shim/commit/956717e2b375d7c7f0faafec8f12a7692708eb9awhich > meanwhile wandered from shim.c to pe.c, line 108: > > https://github.com/rhboot/shim/blob/17f02339ed1be9e90738603fe3c95ae7dc300061/pe.c > The function is named "relocate_coff". The web explains in detail what > COFF is and what relocation means in that context. > > All in all i get the impression that shimx64.efi complains about grubx64.efi > being a bad binary. > (Next i would try to compare that grubx64.efi with a grubx64.efi that is > known to work.) > Hi Thomas, Thanks for taking the time to look into this. I too found details on Google to be somewhat lacking. I had assumed the error was with loading the shim, so you're feedback gives something to think about. I have checked the sha512 of the shim and believe it to be working (By believe, I mean it's a running server but apt-get may have replaced stuff since it last rebooted) and it appears to be the same. The grub efi is different. I have tried copying the grub efi from the known working system but this did not help. I don't think that it's a bad grub binary, as I have reinstalled several times, with the same result. I have tried installing with EFI and /boot on a 6TB HDD and that worked fine, as did a 120GB SSD. I had failures, with the aforementioned error using a 256MB, 1GB and 2GB CF card in a SATA adapter, as well as when using a 8GB USB flash drive in the on-board USB port. I'm a bit perplexed as to the difference between a SATA > CF adapter and any other drive. I thought one would send instructions along the lines of "give me block x" and receieve "". Surely the host would not be able to tell a difference. I was equally perplexed that I got the exact same error when using a USB drive. Regards, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Can't install Debian to CF card in SATA adapter
On Sat, Jan 21, 2023 at 09:11:56AM -0500, songbird wrote: > Mike wrote: > > > > "near identical" is perhaps not identical enough. :( > > to be practical IMO the SSD works, go with that. > the cost of time and effort to figure out the problem > is probably already larger than the cost of the SSD. > > > songbird > That seems a little bit overkill, extravagant and uneligant but then I hear what your saying. I just checked the price of SSDs and how I LOL'd. How times have changed! On reflection not a bad idea! That said, if anyone can offer any hypothesis, I would be intellectually curious to figure out what is going on here. I would have though one SATA drive would look like another, regardless of a actual media behind it? Regards and thanks, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Can't install Debian to CF card in SATA adapter
Folks, I'm building a new NAS box which has five HDDs in a RAID 5 configuration, using Linux software RAID. Historically this has caused some challenges when dealing with /boot. Some time back I set upon the idea of using an IDE > CF adapter and putting a small CF card in there for /boot, with the logic that one could dd an image of the drive and store it in a safe place, should the CF card die. As time progressed I moved on to SATA > CF adapters. For my latest incarnation, I find myself with a UEFI machine. I've follwoed my usual practice. Debian seemed to install just fine and I rebooted at the end of the installation but the Debian was not listed as a boot option in the EFI NVRAM. Further, booting to the EFI Shell, I can access the EFI parition, cd to EFI/debian and manaully call shimx64.efi, giving the following output: Reloc 0 block size 0 is invalid Relocation failed: Unsupported Failed to load imagE: Unsupported start_image() returned Unsupported I have tried changing the CF card twice, as well as changing the CF adapter but no dice. I tried swapping out the adaper with a spare SSD I had to hand and everything worked just fine this time. I do have a near identitcal motherboard in another server, where I have successfully used the SATA > CF trick, so I'm a bit perplexed as to what may be going on here. Please could anyone suggest any words of wisdom? Thanks, Mike. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: /boot size and kernel updates
Hi Stefan! Stefan Monnier wrote: > I use `MODULES=dep` and my kernel+initrd uses less than 20MB still so my > 250MB /boot partition is currently 21% full with 2 kernels installed. Ah, thanks for the tip. I'll give that a try, as well as trying more aggressive compression (thanks, Peter!). > This said, my newer installs just don't bother with a separate > /boot partition. My understanding is that for LUKS-encrypted disks, /boot needs to be separate so that it can remain unencrypted. > PS: FWIW, my first HDD had a capacity of 50MB. I didn't consider it "large" > but it was quite sufficient for the system I used back then (MiNT). > The 500MB disk in the Alpha workstations in my university's lab seemed > quite large (all the home directories were on an NFS server, so most of > the 500MB lay unused since the OS itself used a lot less than that, > even that included a full X11 environment, Emacs, etc...). > I suspect your experience is not very different, right? I suppose so. The first computer hardware that I purchased for myself was a 1GB drive to supplement the storage on the sun4c system that my employer let me take home. I didn't need something that big, but it was cheap enough, and I liked not having to think much about how much storage I had available. My current desktop has a 1TB drive and is about half full, with most of the occupied storage consisting of VirtualBox virtual disks and snapshots. mike
Re: /boot size and kernel updates
Peter von Kaehne wrote: > It now appears that the automatic installer does not get size of /boot > right - even with only one new kernel update wanting to install itself > it often fails with lack of space. I have had this problem, too, so thank you for bringing it up on the list. > One solution I found is to change the initramfs compression algorithm, > which gives me space for two full kernels and initramfses. Can you (or someone) point me at the documentation that says how to change the compression algorithm? > Are there other solutions other than reinstall with a larger boot > partition? I've had the problem with /boot being too small on 2 systems. I tried reinstalling one of them so that I could get a larger /boot. And the installer did make /boot larger, but not as much as I wanted. IIRC, it went from 250M to 500M, whereas I wanted to give it at least 1 GB. I tried adjusting the sizes with the installer's partition manager, but I got stuck. Unfortunately, I don't have adequate notes about how I got stuck. I'm suspecting it had something to do with the fact that I had asked for a LUKS-encrypted disk. best wishes, mike
Re: /boot size and kernel updates
Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > Ideally, you shouldn't need more than the current kernel and, perhaps, the > previous version. If the current kernel works on the reboot, then you should > be able to remove all previous variants with the same major version number. It used to be that I could leave the old kernel installed. After a third kernel got installed, an "apt autoremove" would remove the old one. I found that much more convenient than what I currently have to do, which is (remember to) manually delete the old kernel before installing the third one. But it requires space in /boot for 3 images. best wishes, mike
exim4 vs. frontier.com
I've struggled off and on for months to get outbound mail via exim4 through frontier.com with no joy. I'm on a single user system using mutt and exim4 plus fetchmail. Inbound is no problem. Outbound I see this in /var/log/exim4/mainlog: 554 5.7.1 <>: Sender address rejected: Access denied /etc/email-addresses has the proper frontier email address in it. >From web search I created /etc/exim4/conf.d/rewrite/10_from_rewrite containing >this line: * "$header_from:" F This supposedly tells exim4 to set the Envelope header the same as the From header. I think Sent = Envelope headers, admittedly not sure about that. If there is anyone on the list who has exim4 talking to Frontier.com please help. Thanks, Mike
