Re: Network Manager wants to access default keyring

[thveillon.debian]

> On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:29:26 -0500
> Preston Boyington  wrote:
> 
>> I have Debian Testing with the Gnome environment setup on a friends'
>> laptop.  In an effort to make things easier to use I'm trying to stick
>> with Network Manager because of the PPP support for the USB cellular
>> broadband.
>>
>> Each time the computer is started (GDM auto logins to user) NM asks to
>> access the default keyring.  How do I get it to automagically work
>> without having to input the keyring password each time?
>>
>> Wicd does this automatically without this annoyance so how do I set NM
>> up to work the same way?

I think the difference is that wicd stores the networks passwords in
plain text in it's conf (/etc/wicd/), when NM is hashing them using the
keyring facility.
In the upcoming Ubuntu Karmic NM is still using the Gnome password
manager to store hashed passwords, but without the need to enter the
keyring passwd at connection time, maybe you could inquire how they are
doing it (some policykit magic I guess...).


Tom


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Re: installing mdadm breaks udev (and *lots* of other stuff!) in squeeze

[thveillon.debian]

Rick Thomas a écrit :
> Whooo boy!
> 
> When I decided to raid my home directories, I never expected this!
> 
> Anybody have any suggestions for getting udev and mdadm to coexist?
> 
> Rick
> 
> 
> squeeze:~# aptitude -Pv install mdadm
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Reading extended state information
> Initializing package states... Done
> Reading task descriptions... Done
> The following packages are BROKEN:
>   udev
> The following NEW packages will be installed:
>   mdadm
> 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> Need to get 429kB of archives. After unpacking 1126kB will be used.
> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>   udev: Breaks: mdadm (< 3.0-3) but 3.0-2 is to be installed.
> The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
> 

Hi, Squeeze isn't in good shape... I've worked around this by installing
mdadm from Sid, no problem so far but I don't reboot the machine too
often (just this morning I found out that fsck may be broken, it doesn't
find my partitions on two different Squeeze computers, still
investigating this...).

Have fun.

Tom


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Re: compiling a kernel from kernel.org [SOLVED]

[thveillon.debian]

Gregor Galwas wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> Thx everybody for your quick answers and friendly help.
> 
> You were right. I removed all Xen options from the kernel config and
> 
> linux-image-2.6.32-rc5_20091016-2_amd64.deb
> 
> has been built.
> Installing it with "dpkg -i ..." worked fine.
> The only problem to be solved was the initrd. it has NOT been generated
> by dpkg during the installation.
> so I generated it using mkinitramfs -c -k 2.6.32-rc5. worked fine.
> update-grub - worked fine as well.
> 
> Finally I can use KMS with my radeon 4670 :)
> 
> Greetings
> Gregor Galwas
> 

Hi, regarding the initrd, you need to copy over to /etc/kernel/* the
relevant scripts from /usr/share/kernel-package/examples/etc/kernel/*
(look for "initramfs" or "yaird" if you use it). It will save you the
mkinitramfs step.
Also have a look at
/usr/share/kernel-package/examples/etc/sample.kernel-img.conf to trigger
links creation and such.

Tom


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Re: Installing XBMC on testing

[thveillon.debian]

Frank McCormick wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:11:28 +0200
> "thveillon.debian"  wrote:
> 
>> Frank McCormick wrote:
>>> Does anyone know how to get XBMC ( media centre app) installed on
>>> Debian testing. Apparently at least 2 of the libraries needed are not
>>> available for Debian.
> 
>> Hi, what exactly are you trying to install, this works here (Squeeze
>> amd64):
> 
>> aptitude search ~S~i~nxbmc
>> i   xbmc
>> i A xbmc-bin
>> i A xbmc-data
>> i A xbmc-skin-pm3-hd
> 
> 
>> Installed directly from Sid.
> 
> 
>   Didn't realize it was in Sid - I don't have Sid repositories in
> my aptitude config. I'll try those.
> Thanks
> 
> 

My message is misleading, it's in debian-multimedia Sid repository:

apt-cache policy xbmc
xbmc:
  Installed : 9.04.1+svn20091002-0.0
  Candidat : 9.04.1+svn20091002-0.0
  Version :
 *** 9.04.1+svn20091002-0.0 0
101 http://www.debian-multimedia.org sid/main Packages


See http://debian-multimedia.org/

Have fun.

Tom


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Re: Installing XBMC on testing

[thveillon.debian]

Kevin Ross wrote:
>> From: thveillon.debian [mailto:thveillon.deb...@googlemail.com]
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 11:11 AM
>>
>> Frank McCormick wrote:
>>> Does anyone know how to get XBMC ( media centre app) installed on
>> Debian testing.
>>> Apparently at least 2 of the libraries needed are not available for
>> Debian.
>>> I went as far as trying to install the Ubuntu Intrepid edition (this
>> has worked
>>> for other software )but ran into the library problem.
>>>
>>> BTW , seems to me the developers have "overlooked" Debian in favor of
>> Ubuntu.
>>>
>> Hi, what exactly are you trying to install, this works here (Squeeze
>> amd64):
>>
>> aptitude search ~S~i~nxbmc
>> i   xbmc
>> i A xbmc-bin
>> i A xbmc-data
>> i A xbmc-skin-pm3-hd
>>
>>
>> Installed directly from Sid.
>>
>> Tom
> 
> That's cool that it's in debian-multimedia now, I had no idea.  However, it
>appears that the build in d-m doesn't include VDPAU support.
> 
> It's been awhile since I've installed pre-built XBMC on my Debian machine, I
>usually build it from source.  But if memory serves, it was
>pretty easy to install by pulling from the Hardy PPA repository of XBMC.  i.e.
>add this to your /etc/apt/sources.list:
> 
> deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu/ hardy main
> 
> 

It is indeed compiled with vdpau support, if you have adequate hardware
you can go to "settings > videos > player" and choose VDPAU as "render
method".

Tom


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Re: Installing XBMC on testing

[thveillon.debian]

Frank McCormick wrote:
> 
> Does anyone know how to get XBMC ( media centre app) installed on Debian 
> testing.
> Apparently at least 2 of the libraries needed are not available for Debian.
> 
> I went as far as trying to install the Ubuntu Intrepid edition (this has 
> worked
> for other software )but ran into the library problem.
> 
> BTW , seems to me the developers have "overlooked" Debian in favor of Ubuntu.
> 
> 

Hi, what exactly are you trying to install, this works here (Squeeze amd64):

aptitude search ~S~i~nxbmc
i   xbmc
i A xbmc-bin
i A xbmc-data
i A xbmc-skin-pm3-hd


Installed directly from Sid.

Tom


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Re: Firefox and sqlite mismatched.

[thveillon.debian]

>Nuno Magalhães wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> After yesterday's dist-upgrade i can't run firefox, it'll complain
> with "The application has been updated, but your version of SQLite is
> too old and the application cannot run." which, thankfully, is a very
> clean error message. The problem is i already have the newest sqlite
> version:
> ii  sqlite3.6.14-1
> sqlite3 header files
> ii  sqlite3   3.6.18-1   A
> command line interface for SQLite
> So why is firefox complaining my sqlite is old?!
> 
> TIA
> 

Hi,

which Debian version are you running, and which Iceweasel/Firefox version ?

Here all I have sqlite related is:

aptitude search ~S~i~nsqlite
i   libqt4-sql-sqlite
i   libsqlite3-0
i   python-pysqlite2

and it doesn't seem to relate to Iceweasel.

What depends on sqlite, an extension ?

Tom


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Re: When to expect a kernel commit in Debian stable's kernel?

[thveillon.debian]

Felix H. Dahlke wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-10-10 at 12:42 +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
>> gspca has been inside the kernel since 2.6.27 onward.
> 
> Ah, the missing link, thank you!
> 
>> So from 2.6.27 you don't need any other source package, just userland tools.
>> If you add debian backport to your sources.list I believe you'll have
>> access to a 2.6.30 kernel, with gspca compiled as a module most probably.
> 
> Yes, it was my mistake to assume that the 2.6.30 kernel offered to me by
> aptitude search was from the stable repositories - I already have the
> lenny backports repository.
> 
> However, I'm wondering why aptitude search and aptitude install show and
> install packages from backports when I'm not specifically using -t
> lenny-backports. That's a bit creepy.
>

You can use preferences for that purpose. Create a /etc/apt/preferences
file (it will work for aptitude too) with this inside :

Package: *
Pin: release a=lenny-backports
Pin-Priority: 1

The number you put at the "Pin-Priority" line will set the
install/update behavior for the entire backport repo. If you use
something over 991 they will have the highest priority, at 1 they won't
 be installed unless you ask for it (with aptitude -t), and they won't
be automatically updated either.
As a guideline something in between 101 and 200 should do what you want
(no auto-install, auto-update).

See "man apt_preferences" for more subtle use of this "package pinning"
feature, or http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html

(chapter 3.8 "mixed system)



> Nonetheless, I've installed linux-image-2.6.30-bpo.2-686 (I think the
> bpo stands for backport, but what does the .2 stand for? If a .3 was
> released, would I automatically get it when updating?) and the webcam is
> recognised properly - this solves my case.
> 
> In fact, it doesn't work (merely a black screen in cheese), so I'll just
> return it to the shop. Anyways, thanks for the fast help, really
> appreciated!

Sorry about that, could you share what this bad apple usb ID is (lsusb
output) ?

Tom


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Re: When to expect a kernel commit in Debian stable's kernel?

[thveillon.debian]

Felix H. Dahlke wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-10-09 at 18:25 -0500, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
>> Between releases, stable is only updated to fix RC bugs.
> 
> Does that imply that there is no kernel release within one stable life
> cycle? If so, why are there 2.6.30 packages in lenny?
> What I'm currently hoping for is that the package gspca-modules will be
> released for kernel 2.6.30 (and that it will indeed contain the commit I
> desire) - should I?
> I don't think my issue (support for a particular webcam) qualifies as an
> RC bug.
> 
> The package I'm looking for (gspca-modules) is not yet in testing or
> unstable. However, the source package it apparently originates from
> (linux-modules-extra), _is_ in testing, at version 2.6.30.
> 
> Although Stan posted a lovely guide, I'd prefer to not build my own
> kernel if I can avoid it - this is not for my own PC.
> What I could imagine is installing the linux-2.6.30 binary kernel and
> building my own linux-modules-extra. Would anything (besides gspca) be
> missing if I'm using linux-2.6.30 in lenny?

Hi,

gspca has been inside the kernel since 2.6.27 onward. This is from the
actual Squeeze stock Debian kernel :

grep -i gspca /boot/config-2.6.30-2-amd64
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_CONEX=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_ETOMS=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_FINEPIX=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_MARS=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_MR97310A=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_OV519=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_OV534=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_PAC207=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_PAC7311=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SONIXB=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SONIXJ=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA500=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA501=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA505=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA506=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA508=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SPCA561=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SQ905=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SQ905C=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_STK014=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_SUNPLUS=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_T613=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_TV8532=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_VC032X=m
CONFIG_USB_GSPCA_ZC3XX=m
modprobe -l | grep gspca
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_main.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_conex.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_etoms.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_finepix.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_mars.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_mr97310a.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_ov519.ko
kernel/drivers/media/video/gspca/gspca_ov534.ko
[...]

So from 2.6.27 you don't need any other source package, just userland tools.
If you add debian backport to your sources.list I believe you'll have
access to a 2.6.30 kernel, with gspca compiled as a module most probably.

Hope it helps.

Tom


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Re: testing system updates: how often?

[thveillon.debian]

Liviu Andronic wrote:
> On 10/7/09, thveillon.debian  wrote:
>>  It also makes the (careful) reading of "apt-listbugs" and
>>  "apt-listchanges" output easier.
>>
> Nice packages, worth being suggested for aptitude or synaptic.

They work just fine with aptitude, that's what I'm using. I don't know
much synaptic but it's just a front-end to apt, I remember there's a
console-like display mode which shows what's done, it should work for
"apt-listbugs". You can get "apt-listchanges" mails in your local mail
account, and read it afterward.

> Otherwise, thank you all for the input. I will probably settle for
> weekly system updates.
> Liviu
> 

Have fun.

Tom


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Re: OT: mutt/nano spell checking

[thveillon.debian]

Chris Jones wrote:

> Being the absolute Joe User 
> CJ
> 

[apologies for the unethical massive snip, just couldn't resist bouncing
on the "Joe User" ;-) ]

For those who actually are Joe users :

in "joe" (aptitude install joe) do

^T (calling options)

V   ("Language")

Set language

and spell check whatever you want to with "esc N" (one word) or "esc L"
(whole text), "esc" is a shortcut for "^[".

And you get "nano" user friendly on-screen help (with "^K H") if you
need, emulate "pico" behavior using "jpico" to launch "joe", but you can
get "emacs"-like behavior if you want too ("jmacs").
You can mess it all to make your own "joe", look into /etc/joe/joerc
(with comments) to insert macros, create shortcuts and such (or create a
per-user file ~/.joerc).

man joe

Tom


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Re: testing system updates: how often?

[thveillon.debian]

Liviu Andronic wrote:
> Dear all
> How often do you update your testing? I noticed that leaving your
> system as is for couple of weeks and about 200 packages would be
> available for updates. I would like to know what would be the
> "optimal" updating frequency that would minimise breakages. In the
> Gentoo world, it was often suggested not to leave your system
> out-of-date for too long.
> Thank you
> Liviu
> 
> 
Hi, I guess there will be as many different answers as testing users on
the list, but for me it's (nearly) daily on my desktop, at least once a
week on my laptop. I prefer to deal with one breakage at a time rather
than throwing 200 packages in one shot, and then wonder why this or that
is misbehaving (not saying that it happens often, but it does happen).
It also makes the (careful) reading of "apt-listbugs" and
"apt-listchanges" output easier.
On the other hand hitting the mirrors more often may not be to their
benefit...

Tom


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Re: Debian Testing and ext4 :?

[thveillon.debian]

Szymon G wrote:
> hi
> I've got question: can i install Debian Squeezy (installed from one of
> those cds 
> http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/daily/arch-latest/amd64/iso-cd/
> ) be installed properly on ext4 (with seperate /boot on ext3)? i mean:
> will it boot properly etc etc?
> just wanna ask before i'll download it and format my harddrive :)
> 
> szymon
> 
> 

Hi, my laptop has been on ext4 since kernel 2.6.30 is out (used daily),
and my main desktop too (on a raid1, no separate /boot with "grub2")
which is mostly on 24/7. No problem here (both Squeeze amd64).
Huge improvement in tasks like kernel compil time, kernel source tree
deletion, copy of large HD video files etc... and off course fsck
running time. I was using data=writeback (now kernel default) and
relatime mount option on ext3, but kept the default options on ext4
(data=ordered), despite this the improvement is quite sensible for my use.

Tom


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Re: segmentation fault with NVIDIA 32bit part

[thveillon.debian]

lee a wrote :
> On Tue, Oct 06, 2009 at 12:17:53AM +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
>> lee a wrote:
>>> On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 07:41:47PM +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
>>>
>>>>> cat:/home/lee# /emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1
>>>>> Segmentation fault
>>>>> cat:/home/lee# 
>>>> the ia32-libs got seriously reworked has I understand, you can use the
>>>> Sid version of nvidia's packages, and install the "Debian way" using
>>>> "module-assistant".
>>> You mean to install an older Debian package that has the nvidia
>>> drivers? I looked for nvidia packages, but there doesn't seem to be
>>> one that would compile things for the kernel I'm using. And I don't
>>> know what "module-assistant" is.
>> No, you said you are using testing (Squeeze), just like I do, so I am
>> not advising to install an older package but the current unstable (Sid)
>> nvidia packages set that suit your hardware.
> 
> Yeah, sorry, I don't keep track of the release names and get confused
> with them. I'm just using testing, it doesn't matter what its current
> name is ...
> 
>> The minimum you should have would be nvidia-kernel-common,
>> nvidia-kernel-source (to build the kernel module with module-assistant),
>> and after the module is built install also nvidia-glx[-ia32].
> 
> Which version of the driver do these contain? Would this compile the
> right things for the kernel I'm using?
> 

I currently have 185.18.36-2 from Sid installed, my package list look like :

aptitude search ~S~i~nnvidia

i   nvidia-glx
i   nvidia-glx-ia32
i   nvidia-kernel-2.6.31.2-vanilla64  << this is the kernel module built
with "module-assistant", you won't find this one in your package manager
i   nvidia-kernel-common
i   nvidia-kernel-source
i   nvidia-libvdpau1
i   nvidia-libvdpau1-ia32
i   nvidia-settings
i   nvidia-xconfig

Off course if you want the Sid version you need Sid "main" and
"non-free" in your sources.list, and do package (or rather level)
pinning to prevent a global switch to Sid. In simple words, create a
/etc/apt/apt.conf file (or in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/), and put in it :

APT::Default-Release "testing";

You can also do more fine-grained "pinning" in /etc/apt/preferences (to
be created) OR /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/00preferences (to be created).
Something like :

Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 101

Should give you manual control over what's installed from Sid/unstable.
Just google around for "apt package pinning"

> Why can't I just use the nvidia installer? What's the difference?
> 
>>  If you do that directly it will build the default testing version, if
>> you install Sid packages first, you can use m-a to build the Sid
>> version, that's what I am using now on my Squeeze amd64 box.
> 
> But I'm not using a Debian kernel.

Neither am I, 2.6.31.2 here.

> 
>>>> It's working here, I tried the Nvidia (beta) script and it fails even in
>>>> expert mode where you can choose install paths.
>>> Yeah, the nvidia installer seems to work just fine and puts the
>>> libraries into the right place. But the libraries are not executable
>>> anymore without yielding a segmentation fault.
>> How do you test this, so that I can reproduce the tests here ?
> 
> Well, just run the nvidia installer, it will say that some libraries
> cannot be found. When you look them up, they are available where they
> are supposed to be, but when you execute them, you get segmentation
> faults.
> 
> Then run the nvidia installer again, but choose to not install the
> 32bit libs this time. That goes through without errors, and the libs
> that caused the problem before are gone.

Nvidia installer complains, then goes on spreading bogus links all over
the place, then the program tries to use 64bits libs in place of 32bits
compat ones and fails. I am not a specialist in Nvidia driver internals,
but it looks like it's seriously out of sync with Debian amd64
development right now.

>> I am afraid it's more a problem with the proprietary nature of the
>> Nvidia driver. If it sucks big time it will always be in last resort
>> Nvidia's fault... Debian doesn't have to be tailored around proprietary
>> programs just to meet their needs.
> 
> It doesn't help users when things suddenly quit working.

Sure it's frustrating, I hate when Skype or GoogleEarth go "boom" after
an upgrade, but you've got to put the blame where it belongs. And all
the more when running Testing or Sid, development and testing are what

Re: segmentation fault with NVIDIA 32bit part

[thveillon.debian]

lee a wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 05, 2009 at 07:41:47PM +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
>>> cat:/home/lee# /emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1
>>> Segmentation fault
>>> cat:/home/lee# 
>> the ia32-libs got seriously reworked has I understand, you can use the
>> Sid version of nvidia's packages, and install the "Debian way" using
>> "module-assistant".
> 
> You mean to install an older Debian package that has the nvidia
> drivers? I looked for nvidia packages, but there doesn't seem to be
> one that would compile things for the kernel I'm using. And I don't
> know what "module-assistant" is.

No, you said you are using testing (Squeeze), just like I do, so I am
not advising to install an older package but the current unstable (Sid)
nvidia packages set that suit your hardware.
The minimum you should have would be nvidia-kernel-common,
nvidia-kernel-source (to build the kernel module with module-assistant),
and after the module is built install also nvidia-glx[-ia32].

"module-assistant" (abbreviated m-a) is an helper package that can take
care of the module build (and most thinks implied by it). Just use
(after installing the package "module-assistant" of course) :

m-a a-i nvidia-kernel

as root, or just launch the ncurse interface with:

m-a

Of course "man m-a" is the place to start.

 If you do that directly it will build the default testing version, if
you install Sid packages first, you can use m-a to build the Sid
version, that's what I am using now on my Squeeze amd64 box.

>> It's working here, I tried the Nvidia (beta) script and it fails even in
>> expert mode where you can choose install paths.
> 
> Yeah, the nvidia installer seems to work just fine and puts the
> libraries into the right place. But the libraries are not executable
> anymore without yielding a segmentation fault.

How do you test this, so that I can reproduce the tests here ?

> Since it worked before, there must have been some change made in
> Debian packages --- but against which one(s) would I file a bug
> report?

I am afraid it's more a problem with the proprietary nature of the
Nvidia driver. If it sucks big time it will always be in last resort
Nvidia's fault... Debian doesn't have to be tailored around proprietary
programs just to meet their needs.

> 
> The web browsers don't work right anymore either and tend to crash now
> :( Instead of being improved, they got worse. What happened to the
> mozilla that included the email client and irc?
> 

Well, that's another problem, iceweasel works mostly OK here, maybe
clean up your extensions/plugins ?

I think what you are looking for is the "iceape" program in Debian
jargon, not sure about this since I have never used it.

Tom


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Re: segmentation fault with NVIDIA 32bit part

[thveillon.debian]

lee wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> today I updated my testing installation. Now the 32bit part of the
> NVIDIA drivers doesn't work anymore: The installer says it cannot find
> the libraries that are supposed to be in
> /emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/. However, the libraries are there, but when
> I try to run them, I'm getting a segmentation fault:
> 
> 
> cat:/home/lee# /emul/ia32-linux/usr/lib/libGLcore.so.1
> Segmentation fault
> cat:/home/lee# 
> 
> 
> I'm using kernel 2.6.30 and have tried:
> 
> 
> NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-185.18.36-pkg2.run
> NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-190.32-pkg2.run
> 
> 
> The 64bit part seems to work fine, i. e. I can start the X server and
> everything is working, except 32bit software that needs the 32bit
> stuff.
> 
> What could be causing this problem? It was working just fine before
> the update today.
> 
> 

Hi,

the ia32-libs got seriously reworked has I understand, you can use the
Sid version of nvidia's packages, and install the "Debian way" using
"module-assistant".
It's working here, I tried the Nvidia (beta) script and it fails even in
expert mode where you can choose install paths.

Hope it helps,

Tom


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Re: how to add sound to cheese

[thveillon.debian]

abdelkader belahcene wrote:
> Hi,
> I use cheese to create photos and video, it works with my webcab correctly.
> But no sound recorded on video I get just animation photos , is it
> possible to add sound via cheese ?
> 
> thanks for help
> bela

Hi,

what's the webcam model and make, and what's the driver in use ? Is it
an integrated microphone, an external (mini jack, usb ...) ?

For uvcvideo and some gspca compatible devices I use guvcview for video
capture. It's available in Testing and Sid. There's a drop-down menu to
select the audio capture device. Make sure the microphone is not muted
in your mixer (alsamixer, kmix, ...).


Tom


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Re: Re (2): configuring xserver [Solved]

[thveillon.debian]

Paul E Condon wrote:
> On 2009-09-25_10:07:22, peasth...@shaw.ca wrote:
>> Paul,
>>
>>> Thanks. gtf gave me a plausible modeline. I editted it into xorg.conf
>>> as suggested and it worked. 
>> If you can spare a few minutes, please post a detail or two.  
>> It might solve a remotely similar problem here.
>>
>> [In-reply-to: might work with the Message-id: enclosed in < >.  
>> We'll see.]
>>
>> Thanks,... Peter E.
> 
> I want to be helpful, but I'm not sure how. Many people reading this
> know a lot more about X11 than I do, and some will jump on what I say
> because whatever I say is obviously wrong at some level of detail or
> another. But here's an attempt ---
> 
> Here is the video sections of xorg.conf on my machine as I originally
> found it:
> 
> Section "Device"
> Identifier  "Configured Video Device"
> EndSection
> 
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier  "Configured Monitor"
> EndSection
> 
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier  "Default Screen"
> Monitor "Configured Monitor"
> EndSection
> 
> That's all. Notice there is nothing about what brand of monitor or
> about horizontal or vertical sweep frequency ranges. Or anything else
> that really distinguishes one monitor or video card from another.  
> 
> According to some discussions that I found on the web, the screen
> section is supposed to link a video device to a monitor by having
> references to both a monitor and a video device in a single screen
> section. But there is no mention of the video section that is to be
> used for this screen section. Yes, I know. It's all handled
> automatically now. But it is puzzling when you haven't looked at
> xorg.conf ever before, and can't remember the name which was used to
> designate the configuration file from the last time you read about X.
> 
> I followed the suggestion of using gtf.
> $ gtf 1366 768 60  gives:
>   # 1368x768 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 47.70 kHz; pclk: 85.86 MHz
>   Modeline "1368x768_60.00"  85.86  1368 1440 1584 1800  768 769 772 795  
> -HSync +Vsync
> 
> The first line is obviously a comment. The second looks like it might
> be input to a computer program that parses the line and plants data at
> important places in RAM. The instructions from Tom are to put this
> output into the monitor section, so now my monitor section is:
> 
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier  "Configured Monitor"
>   # 1368x768 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 47.70 kHz; pclk: 85.86 MHz
>   Modeline "1368x768_60.00"  85.86  1368 1440 1584 1800  768 769 772 795  
> -HSync +Vsync
> EndSection
> 
> This section violates the specifications that I found on the web for a
> proper monitor section, but push-on. Maybe the specification is old
> and applies to an earlier version of X.

My understanding of this is no clearer than yours, just hands-on
trial-and-error experience. I understand that anything put under
/etc/X11/xorg is "old school" already, but still works for now...
I like the idea of xorg auto-configuration, but why the chosen setting
are not written to plain text in xorg.conf (or somewhere else) is beyond me.

> 
> To get this new xorg.conf to be used, I rebooted. At first there was
> no visible difference in the display. I went to Gnome Preferences
> Screen Resolution and found a new line in the resolution offerings! In
> addition to 1024x768 there was now 1280x768. I selected this now
> offering. Clicked on 'Apply'. There was some flashing of the screen
> and after a few seconds it repainted with much better shaped
> lettering. Some careful checking of html screens that are known to
> contain renditions of circles revealed that the new setting still
> rendered a circle as an ellipse, but with hardly noticeable
> eccentricity. So, good enough for me, especially after reading on the
> web all the crys for help from other tortured souls.
> 
> I ran xrandr, which displays information about what configurations of
> X are possible for the hardware on the computer on which it is run. It
> confirmed that 1280x768 was OK, which means to me that the programmer
> who wrote xrandr understands X far better than I do ;-0. (This also
> applies to the programmer who wrote gtf.)
> 
> This is pretty much how it happened. I read a lot of HowTos that were
> not useful.  Many were hopelessly out of date. (X under Potatoe?) Here
> and there I found references to hal. I have not pieced together a
> coherent idea of what hal is supposed to do. There ought to be a way
> to automate the configuring to video hardware, but it must be very
> hard to do, else it would have been done long ago. CRT monitors have
> very different internal circuitry from LCD monitors, but there appears
> to be no reliable way for the software to determine whether the monitor
> is CRT or LCD, and no way to put a user specified flag into xorg.conf
> without breaking someone's software. 
> 
> The monitor that I installed and succeeded in configuring well enough,
> was a trial run for me. It was my firs

Re: Can't boot custom compiled 2.6.30 amd64 kernel

[thveillon.debian]

Arthur Marsh wrote:
> Elimar Riesebieter wrote, on 2009-09-26 23:21:
>> * Andrew Perrin [090926 09:08 -0400]
>> [...]
>>> Of interest is that the stock 2.6.30-amd64 kernel boots fine. I am
>>> posting my /boot/grub/grub.cfg file and the .config file to
>>> http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu/stuff/grub.cfg and
>>
>> I guess you need an initrd image which isn't mentioned in grub.cfg.
>>
>> Elimar
>>
>>
> 
> In other words, one needs to run make-kpkg with the --initrd option:
> 
> make-kpkg --initrd linux-image
> 
> Arthur.
> 
> 

Hi,

...and copy necessary examples scripts from
/usr/share/kernel-package/examples/etc/kernel/postinst.d
and
/usr/share/kernel-package/examples/etc/kernel/postrm.d

(initramfs or yaird, depends on what you want to use to build the initrd )

to /etc/kernel/* .

Tom


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Re: configuring xserver

[thveillon.debian]

Paul E Condon wrote:
> On 2009-09-24_22:49:04, Adrian Levi wrote:
>> 2009/9/24 Paul E Condon :
>>> I just purchased a small LCD monitor. It is 16:9 format and 1366x768.
>>> I ran dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
>>> and that program set up the driver for 1024x768, so naturely the letters
>>> and graphics were stretched out horizontally. 1366x768 is not an option
>>> offered by Gnome preferences screen-resolution. What is the Debian way
>>> to deal with this? What should I read?
>> You might like to look into configuring yourself a modeline to tell
>> the xserver what the hardware is capable of if it's not automatically
>> detected.
>>
>> Adrian
> 
> Yes. That is what I want to do. Where are the current modelines stored?
> Somewhere in /etc I suppose, but there is a lot of stuff in /etc that
> is automatically overwritten. I'd like to put my mode line in a place
> that is considered authoritative by the Debian/GNU/Xwindows/Linux system.
> And I'd like to use correct syntax for my modelines to that they are properly
> understood by whatever is designed to read modelines.
> 
> I wouldn't mind reading some documents that explain what is going on, but
> I doubt that I will remember whatever I might learn, especially if it
> doesn't actually lead to my successfully configuring this monitor.
> 
> Thanks for the clue that what I need is 'a modeline'. Words matter, especially
> if you can't remember the ones that are used in the index to life.
> I'll go Google modeline.

Hi,

I'd use something like "gtf 1366 768 60" (for 60Hz) to get a modeline,
then put it in the "Monitor" section of xorg.conf.
Otherwise learn some "randr" magic there maybe ?

http://wiki.debian.org/XStrikeForce/HowToRandR12

and forget it as I did... :-(

Tom


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Re: Debian vs. ATI Radeon x1650

[thveillon.debian]

>Brent Clark wrote:
>> On 24/09/2009 15:12, Dominik Smatana wrote:
>> Ubuntu 9.04 kernel 2.6.27-14-generic = OK (strange)
> 
> Hiya
> 
> Close your eyes, save yourself time and effort and just use Ubuntu.
> 
> Regards
> Brent Clark
> 
> P.s. Ubuntu 9.04 is using kernel 2.6.28-15-generic.
> 
> 

Hi,
what driver are you using ? Free "ati/radeon" or "fglrx" proprietary driver?

If it's the free one, check that your card is supported somewhere here:
http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/ATIRadeon

and show us your /etc/X11/xorg.conf (maybe empty).

If it's the fglrx stuff, check on ati's website, your card may be
"legacy" and stuck with an older version of the driver (9.3 ?). And yet
again a matter of xorg.conf too.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

I don't think the kernel itself has something to do with this, except
maybe with the "KMS" (kernel mode settings) of latest kernels.

Ubuntu tends to make the use of proprietary drivers "transparent" to
users, so maybe you where using "fglrx" there and not in Debian ?

Tom


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Re: Grub 1.5 error after update

[thveillon.debian]

>Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
> On Monday 21 September 2009 09:49:39 Frank wrote:
>> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:27:09 +0200
>> "thveillon.debian"  wrote:
>>> The package "os-prober" is taking care of other OS detection, it's
>>> "recommended" but not automatically installed.
>>Does that mean maintainers assume you only have one installation ?
> 
> Since grub-pc does not *require* os-prober to be installed to function, 
> having 
> the co-installation enforced by the package manager would be inappropriate.
> 
> Recommends relationships are the strongest relationship that is not strictly 
> enforced by the package manager.  In the default configuration aptitude (the 
> recommended package manager) installs Recommends.  The relevant configuration 
> key is Aptitude::Recommends-Important.
> 
> It has been a long time since I used apt-get, but I believe the same is true 
> of it; at the very least a message is shown to the user recommending the 
> installation of os-prober.
> 
> So, the maintainers are assuming that at least one user would like to use 
> GRUB2 without os-prober, which seems a safe assumption.  (I only have one 
> installation on my home PC, so you can count me as that user if you'd like.)

Thanks for the explanation, you read minds better than I do. You're 100%
right, as I said to another person pointing in the same direction
there's really nothing to complain about then (as long it works, of
course...).

Tom


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Re: Grub 1.5 error after update

[thveillon.debian]

>Ole Toft Jensen wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 05:58:51PM +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
>>> Frank wrote:
>>> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:27:09 +0200
>>>> "thveillon.debian"  wrote:
>>>>  Obviously grub-pc is not ready for primetime yet. On the update it
>>>>> did on my machine, it failed to pick up the Ubuntu installation on another
>>>>> partition. How did it get migrated to Squeeze ?
>>>>>
>>>> The package "os-prober" is taking care of other OS detection, it's
>>>> "recommended" but not automatically installed. 
>>>Does that mean maintainers assume you only have one installation ?
>> I can't read their minds, but it sure seems that installing os-prober as
>> a dependency would do no harm to "single-booting" systems, and would
>> save some trouble to "multi-booting" users. Maybe there's already a
>> "whishlist" bug opened about it ?
> 
> The default behavior of aptitude and apt-get these days at least in sid
> and testing is to install Recommends automatically, so the user must
> have made a concious choice not to install os-prober or not to install
> Recommends packages by default.
> 

Good point, and I do remember now that during my latest Squeeze install
aptitude did drag "os-prober" with grub2.
Really nothing to complain about then, for me grub2 is doing the job and
I am not looking back to "grub-legacy" with nostalgia.

Tom


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Re: Grub 1.5 error after update

[thveillon.debian]

> Frank wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:27:09 +0200
>> "thveillon.debian"  wrote:
>> 
>>> I still fail to understand what went wrong. After the installation and
>>> reboot which went OK, I picked the chain option and that's  when it all
>>> went downhill. 
>> The chaining from grub-legacy menu to grub2 is just supposed to enable
>> testing of the grub2 install, it doesn't install anything. One has to
>> run "upgrade-from-grub-legacy" as root to finish the process, or simply
>> properly install grub2 in the mbr, and create the config.
> 
>   Sorry, but I did run "upgrade-from-grub-legacy" after the chaining boot
> went well.

Don't be, I must have misinterpreted your phrase:

"I still fail to understand what went wrong. After the installation and
reboot which went OK, I picked the chain option and that's  when it all
went downhill. My understanding is if the initial reboot goes well, then
you pick the chain option and that's supposed to finish up the install."

I assumed you thought the first boot was supposed to "finish the
process" of installing grub2. My bad.

> 
> 
>> If the boot process failed with the chainloading from grub-legacy, it
>> means that it would not have been a good idea to finish the process
>> anyway...
>   
>   The process didn't fail...which is why I ran the upgrade script.
> 
>>  Obviously grub-pc is not ready for primetime yet. On the update it
>>> did on my machine, it failed to pick up the Ubuntu installation on another
>>> partition. How did it get migrated to Squeeze ?
>>>
>> The package "os-prober" is taking care of other OS detection, it's
>> "recommended" but not automatically installed. 
> 
>Does that mean maintainers assume you only have one installation ?

I can't read their minds, but it sure seems that installing os-prober as
a dependency would do no harm to "single-booting" systems, and would
save some trouble to "multi-booting" users. Maybe there's already a
"whishlist" bug opened about it ?

> 
>> I am using grub2 since
>> Lenny was testing, now on three squeeze, and three Ubuntu, no problem
>> here. Just got lucky maybe.
> 
>   Lucky is right - google problems with Grub2.
>
>   Don't get me wrong - it **seems** Grub2 will be an improvement over its
> predecessor but, at least in my case and it seems many others it's not quite 
> ready.
> 

Well, googling "problem with grub/lilo" will probably return ten times
more entries, but that doesn't mean much. The bootloader is indeed an
important part of the system, and is expected to work. I guess that's
why grub2 was not the default with Lenny, but now is the right time for
"testing" it extensively. My understanding is that Testing and Sid are
just meant for that (even if I don't like them to be broken...). And
there's always good old SuperGrubDisk...
Hope you'll get luckier next time !

Tom


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Re: Grub 1.5 error after update

[thveillon.debian]

Charles wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 09:47:48 +0100
> Joe  wrote:
> 
[snip...]
> 
> 
> 
>   Well as I said in earlier mail, the Supergrub disk saved my...err..bacon.
>   It allowed me to reinstall Grub, then I purged Grub-pc (grub2) and was
> back in business.
> I still fail to understand what went wrong. After the installation and reboot
> which went OK, I picked the chain option and that's  when it all went 
> downhill.
> My understanding is if the initial reboot goes well, then you pick the chain 
> option
> and that's supposed to finish up the install. Instead what it did was finish 
> my 
> boot process:)

The chaining from grub-legacy menu to grub2 is just supposed to enable
testing of the grub2 install, it doesn't install anything. One has to
run "upgrade-from-grub-legacy" as root to finish the process, or simply
properly install grub2 in the mbr, and create the config.
If the boot process failed with the chainloading from grub-legacy, it
means that it would not have been a good idea to finish the process
anyway...

 Obviously grub-pc is not ready for primetime yet. On the update it
> did on my machine, it failed to pick up the Ubuntu installation on another 
> partition.
> How did it get migrated to Squeeze ?
> 

The package "os-prober" is taking care of other OS detection, it's
"recommended" but not automatically installed. I am using grub2 since
Lenny was testing, now on three squeeze, and three Ubuntu, no problem
here. Just got lucky maybe.

Tom


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Re: Raid disk delimma

[thveillon.debian]

Jack Schneider wrote:
> Hi, All
> 
> Somewhere (about 9/15) in my enthusiasm for Debian, Testing up2date
>  & kernel 2.6.30-1-amd64,--updating I said (y) where I should have said
> (q). My system will not boot correctly. It halts with: fsck died with
> exit status 8 
> 
> I have  4 disks, 2 in raid1, ie. 2 in use - 2 unused
> 
> Disks are setup as /dev/md0 --/root (small-ish) partition and /dev/md1
> much  bigger containing /tmp /opt /var and several VirtualBox DVI
> partitions all under lvm2.
> 
> I get to the "Give root password for maintenance etc." place and when I
> do it will not allow me to find any logs.  I can run dmesg which looks
> normal.  Anything that that tries to use /var -locks. etc. fails, so
> it's unable to find /dev/md1 and contents..it seems to me... df -h
> finds /md0 but not /md1
> 
> I have tried to google/linux and man on mdadm etc.  but  ... nothing
> close... I don't know where to go from here...  HELP! or directions,
> Please!
> 
> TIA  Jack 
> 
> 

Hi,

really don't know if it's relevant in your situation, but I was once
stuck with such a situation on a raid1 system (which worked correctly
for a while). Turned out that the filesystem size was incorrect, and was
overlapping with the superblocks (don't know how it happened, must have
been at the raid creation time).
I ran a e2fsck -cc (from a live-cd, takes a while), then resize2fs and
finally fsck on every raid group.

It does the trick, and the system has been running fine ever since (was
± one year ago.)

Hope it helps,

Tom


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Re: Why can't I install skype on debian?

[thveillon.debian]

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. a écrit :
> In , Emanoil Kotsev wrote:
>> thveillon.debian wrote:
>>> Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
>>>> On Qui, 17 Set 2009, Andrei Popescu wrote:
>>>>> I'm curious, why are you indicating use of sudo? It's not even
>>>>> installed/configured by default in Debian...
>>>> Ubuntu influence, I'd bet.
>>> It's offered as an install option, at least it was the last time I
>>> installed from a testing netinstall image.
>>> Of course Ubuntu did a neat job advertising sudo, it's spreading all
>>> over (and it's great, it's a nice tool in a multiuser environment, just
>>> doesn't make sens the way Ubuntu uses it...).
>> guys ubuntu did not introduce sudo.
>>
>> It's normal way to run commands as root.
> 
> Maybe today.  However, "su" existed long before "sudo" and is the canonical 
> way to execute commands as root.
> 
> I don't use "su"; my root user account is locked and I use "sudo" 
> exclusively, 
> on Debian.  I used it on Gentoo first (not installed by default), then Debian 
> (not installed by default), then Ubuntu (installed by default, but I still 
> had 
> to configure it), then openSUSE (not installed by default, and my root 
> account 
> can't be locked because my YaST don't know how to ask for root permissions 
> via 
> sudo).
> 
> While calling the use of "sudo" an Ubuntu influence is jumping to 
> conclusions, 
> many "old-skool" UNIX and Linux users are surprised at the mention of "sudo" 
> since they expect commands needing root to "simply" be executed at a root 
> prompt.
> 
> This is all off-topic anyway; it's not helping get skype installed.  IIRC, it 
> should be available from either non-free or debian-multimedia repositories 
> and 
> installable via aptitude.

Since we are talking Ubuntu, this is **NOT** good practice, but if for
some reasons the static package from skype doesn't work for you, you can
grab the medibuntu x86-64 packages. They've been working fine here for ages.

Use Hardy packages if on Lenny, Jaunty on anything else.

http://packages.medibuntu.org/

I use "skype-common" and "skype-static" or "skype" packages, they both
work for me. On amd64 you'll need ia32libs and lib32nss-mdns.


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Re: Why can't I install skype on debian?

[thveillon.debian]

Eduardo M KALINOWSKI wrote:
> On Qui, 17 Set 2009, Andrei Popescu wrote:
>> I'm curious, why are you indicating use of sudo? It's not even
>> installed/configured by default in Debian...
> 
> Ubuntu influence, I'd bet.
> 
> 

It's offered as an install option, at least it was the last time I
installed from a testing netinstall image.
Of course Ubuntu did a neat job advertising sudo, it's spreading all
over (and it's great, it's a nice tool in a multiuser environment, just
doesn't make sens the way Ubuntu uses it...).


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Re: local linux (debian) support

[thveillon.debian]

Patrick Holthuizen wrote :
> Hello,
> 
> Since a few weeks I am thinking about the idea to provide support for
> Linux in my local neighborhood for people who do not have much
> experience with mailing lists, only speak their native language
> (non-english) and/or prefer the physical appearance of a person for some
> other reason. Besides participating in a local Linux user group I
> thought of the idea to fill a google map with my contact details and
> information about which physical area I am willing to provide support
> for, for example:
> 
> http://maps.google.nl/maps/ms?hl=nl&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=101371347574559367262.0004733f5a52cceeb5c90&z=12
> 
> Now I wonder, does something like this already exist? What do you think
> about this idea? I for a person think this could be a good idea for
> providing something like a physical support network for Linux.
> 
> Thanks for your critique in advance!
> 
> Sincerely,
> Patrick Holthuizen
> 
> 

Hi,

very good idea, for French speaking people there's "parrain Linux"
(Linux stepfather) where volunteers leave their contact, wherever they
live, so that French speaking folks can email/ring them to help
troubleshooting, find linux friendly places, wifi hotspots, or just
share a few fine pubs addresses and Linux tell-talk in front of a beer.

http://www.parrain-linux.com/

The good thing with this system is that it minimizes annoyances from
spam and such, since the first message is mediated by "parrain-linux".
If the "parrain" doesn't respond, the person asking will never get a
real email or contact.
Maybe it would be great to extend the principle to other languages, or
set up a more debian-centric website like this one ?


Tom


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Re: [SOT] Installing additional Wesnoth campaigns

[thveillon.debian]

Celejar wrote:
> On Sun, 06 Sep 2009 18:33:56 +0200
> "thveillon.debian"  wrote:
> 
>> AG wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
>> Download add-ons (campaigns but not only) from:
>>
>> http://www.wesnoth.org/addons/1.6/
>>
>> (again for 1.6)
>>
>>
>> Unpack the archives, copy the whole campaign folder into:
>>
>> /usr/share/games/wesnoth/data/campaigns
>>
>> (this is for full campaigns, for other add-ons you'll have to look
>> around).
>>
>> (Re)start wesnoth, the new campaigns should be available from the
>> campaigns selector.
> 
> Or just go to "Add-ons" from the main menu, hit the connect button, and
> away you go ...
> 
> Celejar

Oh yes ! It's true, I forgot that games usually have a gui... Thanks
Celejar.


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Re: [SOT] Installing additional Wesnoth campaigns

[thveillon.debian]

AG wrote:
> Hello
> 
> Sorry if this is too far OT, but I was hoping for some Debian-specific
> advice on obtaining and using Battle for Wesnoth campaigns.  The
> website/ forum provides some linkages to additional campaigns, but after
> following their instructions I just can't seem to call the supposedly
> installed Wesnoth files.
> 
> Has anyone had any success in this, and if so, care to share the trick
> please?
> 
> Cheers verily.
> 
> AG
> 
> 

Good question about Sunday mission-critical apps ;-)


Read about the user made campaigns here:

http://www.wesnoth.org/wiki/List_Of_Campaigns#1.6_Campaign_ListDownload

(this is for wesnoth 1.6, pick the right one for you, i.e. 1.7 is in
experimental).

Download add-ons (campaigns but not only) from:

http://www.wesnoth.org/addons/1.6/

(again for 1.6)


Unpack the archives, copy the whole campaign folder into:

/usr/share/games/wesnoth/data/campaigns

(this is for full campaigns, for other add-ons you'll have to look around).

(Re)start wesnoth, the new campaigns should be available from the
campaigns selector.

Remember to look at the campaign development status, if it's rated "WIP"
(Work In Progress) or "broken", you'll likely be disappointed as a
player, or thrilled as custom campaign developer...

Enjoy.


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Re: Nvidia binary driver installation

[thveillon.debian]

>o...@larstennstedt.de wrote:
>
>Hello,
>
>I have a question about the installation of the binary nvidia driver.
>It is a time ago that I used Debian and at that time you could install
>the driver with apt-get directly from the non-free repository. I
>installed testing/squeeze and sid in virtual machines and was surprised
>that I was force to use module-assistant and so on. It is no problem at
>all.
>1.) Is that the new default way of installing the nvidia driver coming
>with Squeeze or is this a temporary situation because Squeeze is still
>in testing state?
>2.) Is it possible to install the nvidia driver from Sid with
>module-assistant? Apt-pinning is already configured.
>
>Thank you for your help!
>
>Greetings,
>Lars Tennstedt

Hello,
did just that, installing nvidia from Sid in Squeeze, without trouble.
Just used module-assistant to compile (but not install yet)
"nvidia-kernel-source" (manually choosen from Sid with aptitude), then
switch to a console. Uninstall old driver if necessary, install
nvidia-common and the newly compiled nvidia module. Then install all the
rest (nvidia-glx etc...) from Sid as desired.

Here it's:

aptitude search ~S~i~nnvidia
i   nvidia-glx
i   nvidia-glx-ia32
i   nvidia-kernel-2.6.30.5-vanilla64
i   nvidia-kernel-common
i   nvidia-kernel-source
i A nvidia-libvdpau1
i   nvidia-libvdpau1-ia32
i   nvidia-settings
i   nvidia-xconfig

Make sure xorg.conf is properly configured (driver "nvidia" in section
"Device"), and that's all.
If you want the -ia32 packages too, you'll have to play with aptitude to
prevent upgrade of your libc6, but nothing complicated.
I needed to reboot, reloading x wasn't enough (maybe because I was still
running on the previously half-installed nvidia from the infamous ".run").

Runs nicely, kde4 effects are on, Googleearth which wasn't working for
me lately is up and running too.

Tom


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Re: Linksys USB200M adapter failing under wicd

[thveillon.debian]

Peter Crawford wrote:
> Tom,
> 
>> Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:19:40 +0200
>> From: thveillon.deb...@googlemail.com wrote,
>> relates to the default "lastused = True" in wired-settings.conf, if
>> there is no "lastused" settings it fails instead of using default
>> profile (would look like a bug...). Did you try setting [lastused =] False ?
> 
> Promising but no improvement.  
> 
> DN servers are specified in wired-settings.conf 
> but wicd failed to set them. Here is 
> /etc/wicd/wired-settings.conf and /var/log/wicd/wicd.log.
> 
> [wired-default]
> afterscript = None
> broadcast = 142.n.107.254
> dns3 = None
> postdisconnectscript = None
> search_domain = pathology.ubc.ca
> dns_domain = None
> lastused = False
> use_static_dns = True
> default = 1
> netmask = 255.255.255.128
> gateway = 142.n.107.254
> dns2 = 142.n.1.1
> beforescript = None
> predisconnectscript = None
> ip = 142.n.107.139
> dns1 = 137.82.1.1
> use_global_dns = False
> 

[snip logs]

> 
> When eth2 is reinstated in /etc/network/interfaces, the 
> Linksys USB200M works again.
> newton:/var/log/wicd# ifconfig eth2
> eth2  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:gd:7e:00:ff:98
>   inet addr:142.n.107.139  Bcast:142.n.107.255  Mask:255.255.255.128
>   inet6 addr: fe80::gd:7eff:fe00:ff98/64 Scope:Link
>   UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
>   RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
>   TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>   collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
>   RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
>   
> Incidentally, I've heard of "search domain".  What 
> is dns_domain?
> 
> Any further ideas for tips?
> 
> Thanks,... p. crawford
> 

Sorry your last messages slipped through my filters.

AT this point I am running out of ideas regarding your problem, I never
had to set in such details WICD conf files, including now that I have
one laptop juggling with four wlans and one lan...

You should definitely try the wicd forum, so far I have always found the
devs helpful and reactive.

http://wicd.net/punbb/

Hope you'll find more help there.

Tom


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Re: Linksys USB200M adapter failing under wicd

[thveillon.debian]

>Peter Crawford wrote:
>> Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:12:28 +0200
>> From: thveillon.deb...@googlemail.com
>> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
>> Subject: Re: Linksys USB200M adapter failing under wicd
> 
>> for wicd to work you need an empty /etc/network/interfaces file (except lo).
> 
> Yes; as specified in http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#OtherGUI
> and my original message.
> 
>> Then in wicd preferences you can choose to (or not):
> 
> Well, the phenomenon is observed as the 
> system reaches the console in multi-user mode.
> No GUI is running yet.
OK
> 
>> Connection profiles are kept under
>> /etc/wicd/wire[d][less]-settings.conf, modify at will.
> 
> Yes, /etc/wicd/wired-settings.conf is adapted to the 
> static parameters which work properly when using 
> /etc/network/interfaces .
> 
>> But anyhow remember wicd is just a gui, 
> 
> Also a daemon.  Ref. wicd.man.
> "STRUCTURE
>Wicd  has two major parts: the daemon, which runs with root 
>privileges; and the user interface, which runs with normal  
>user  privileges.   The two  parts  run as separate processes 
>and make use of D-Bus to communicate."
Yes, what I meant is if the interface isn't properly supported, wicd
won't make it work. But in your case it seems fully functional.

Since the last update on Squeeze I use the "ioctl" backend, the
"external" default one was becoming really slow, sometimes not
connecting at all. But the three computers I use wicd on at the moment
are all wireless.

> 
>> your hardware need to be fully
>> recognized first (does it shows up with "ifconfig -a" ?).
> 
> Yes.  ifconfig reports both lo and eth2.  But eth2 does 
> not have the address & etc. specified in wired-settings.conf.
> 
> The machine has no wireless device attached.
> When eth2 is not configured according to /etc/network/interfaces, 
> wicd should configure according to the default in 
> /etc/wicd/wired-settings.conf ... shouldn't it?

It definitely should ;-)
Maybe this:
"Using wired interface...eth2
No previous wired profile available, wired autoconnect failed."

relates to the default "lastused = True" in wired-settings.conf, if
there is no "lastused" settings it fails instead of using default
profile (would look like a bug...). Did you try setting it to False ?

Puzzled Tom.


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Re: Converting Flac to MP3

[thveillon.debian]

Mark wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 01:16:19PM +0100, Gav wrote:
> > Does anybody know of a program that will convert Flac files to MP3.
> > Preferably taking all the tag information from the flac file and
> setting it
> > in the MP3 file. I converted my CD collection to Flac a while back
> but could
> > now do with MP3's too. :o|
> >
> 
> 
> 
> I've read that foobar2000 can run under
> Wine: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=54933
> 
> foobar2000 is one of the few reasons I keep an XP box running at home;
> with 10,000+ songs I just don't want to mess with something I spent lots
> of time customizing to get working just like I want.  It's a phenomenal
> program and can handle basically any codec on the planet; if you haven't
> given a go at it before, it's worth a look.  I don't know if anything in
> Linux is quite to the point where foobar2000 is yet, since there is so
> much discussion about getting it to run under Wine.  I'm sure someone
> will let me know if there is.  :)
> 
> Mark


XCFA will do a lot too, available in debian-multimedia. You can always
run the windows version in wine if you like ;-) .

Tom


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Re: Linksys USB200M adapter failing under wicd

[thveillon.debian]

Peter Crawford wrote:
> Squeeze is recently updated.
> 
> Using /etc/network/interfaces, a Linksys USB200M 
> works as expected.
> 
> To use wicd, the instructions in 
> http://wiki.debian.org/WiFi/HowToUse#OtherGUI
> were followed; yet the connection failed.
> After "/etc/init.d/wicd restart" these lines appear 
> in /var/log/wicd/wicd.log.
> 
> Wired configuration file found
>   ...
> Using wired interface...eth2
> No previous wired profile available, wired autoconnect failed.
> 
> What is a "previous wired profile"?
> 
> Thanks,... p. crawford
> 

Hi,

for wicd to work you need an empty /etc/network/interfaces file (except lo).

Then in wicd preferences you can choose to (or not):


"always switch to a wired connection when available" (no) and
"prompt for wired network profile" (instead of "use default wired
network profile").

Connection profiles are kept under
/etc/wicd/wire[d][less]-settings.conf, modify at will.

But anyhow remember wicd is just a gui, your hardware need to be fully
recognized first (does it shows up with "ifconfig -a" ?).

Tom


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Re: restarting X fails and generates kernel panic on halt (was Re: Magic SysRq reboot (was Re: switching to proprietary ati radeon driver))

[thveillon.debian]

Liviu Andronic a écrit :
> Hello,
> 
> On 8/18/09, thveillon.debian  wrote:
>>  I recently bought a HP 6730s with a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 graphic
>>  chip. I run Squeeze/Sid AMD64 just like you, and with 2.6.26* kernel and
>>  the associated fglrx I ran into all kind of troubles: impossibility to
>>  switch between virtual consoles, acpi going havoc with computer sometime
>>  not halting, bunch of weird errors in dmesg and Xorg.o.log, screen never
>>  coming up after kdm restart... I upgraded the kernel to 2.6.30*, xorg
>>  and fglrx from Sid, and it's working like a charm. It's working great
>>  with the radeon driver too, with full 2D acceleration, but 3D
>>  performances are still really poor. I can restart kdm without problem
>>  and switch back and forth virtual consoles.
>>
>>  Maybe the kernel/fglrx couple is just too old, and pre 9.5 fglrx are
>>  known to have all kind of issues with virtual consoles switching.
>>
> In a previous e-mail you mentioned this:
> "if you are running a 2.6.30 kernel the testing fglrx
> won't build, you have to upgrade xorg and fglrx stuff to Sid."
> 
> Does the sid xorg still apply? I would not be ready at the moment to
> experiment with a sid X. Moreover, I found out that issuing
> halt/reboot from a console within X would more or less shut the system
> cleanly (at least no kernel panics and stuff), which would mean that
> my immediate issue is solved.
> 
> Thank you for the suggestions
> Liviu
> 

apt-cache policy xserver-xorg
xserver-xorg:
  Installé : 1:7.4+4
  Candidat : 1:7.4+4
 Table de version :
 *** 1:7.4+4 0
500 http://ftp.fr.debian.org sid/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
 1:7.3+19 0
990 http://ftp.fr.debian.org squeeze/main Packages

apt-cache policy fglrx-source
fglrx-source:
  Installé : 1:9-7-2
  Candidat : 1:9-7-2
 Table de version :
 *** 1:9-7-2 0
500 http://ftp.fr.debian.org sid/non-free Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
 1:9-2-2 0
990 http://ftp.fr.debian.org squeeze/non-free Packages

Yes, still apply, but AMD/ATI just released a 9.8 driver that should
build on 2.6.30.*, avoiding the need to use Sid's xorg if you fear that.
It has been running daily for a week and half here without any issue
though. fglrx is lousy anyway so expect a few glitches when using
compositing and video or "googleearth" for instance, and maybe some
other hardware specific issues. I use it only because I share the laptop
with my son who use Xmoto, foobilliard and the like which doesn't run
with the radeon driver.

Tom


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Re: restarting X fails and generates kernel panic on halt (was Re: Magic SysRq reboot (was Re: switching to proprietary ati radeon driver))

[thveillon.debian]

Liviu Andronic wrote:
> (Sorry for the long re-naming, but I fell the thread should get its
> proper name as the issue evolves)
> 
> On 8/17/09, Wolodja Wentland  wrote:
>>  and voilà the system reboots and your data is as safe as possible.
>>
> Thank you, I completely forgot about this one. Two issues though:
> 1. In an older discussion on Gentoo ML, it was suggested that the
> SysRq procedure was normally designed for emergency situations only,
> and not for regular usage. Currently my laptop would qualify for SysRq
> shutdowns/reboots, but I would prefer to avoid using it for months.
> 
> 2. Restarting X, such as when I log off Xfce and gdm restarts, will
> fail. This is almost certainly caused by the fglrx driver/setup, to
> which I switched these days. I also believe that this failure causes
> the kernel panic on shutdowns/reboots after X failed to restart
> (although panics can sometimes not happen).
> 
> On gdm restart, X will complain of "ddm" module already built in.
> There are no such complaints during regular system boot, and initial
> start-up of X.
> 
> Would anyone have ideas on how to get to the bottom of this issue?
> Thank you
> Liviu
> 
> ## Sys info ##
> -Computer-
> Processor : 2x AMD Turion(tm) X2 Dual-Core Mobile RM-72
> Memory: 3804MB (1014MB used)
> Operating System  : Debian GNU/Linux squeeze/sid
> User Name : liviu (Liviu)
> Date/Time : Tue 18 Aug 2009 11:50:14 BST
> -Display-
> Resolution: 1280x800 pixels
> OpenGL Renderer   : ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
> X11 Vendor: The X.Org Foundation
[...snip]
> -Version-
> Kernel: Linux 2.6.26-2-amd64 (x86_64)
> Compiled  : #1 SMP Sun Jun 21 04:47:08 UTC 2009
> C Library : GNU C Library version 2.9 (stable)
> Default C Compiler: GNU C Compiler version 4.3.3 (Debian 4.3.3-14)
> Distribution  : Debian GNU/Linux squeeze/sid

Hi,
I recently bought a HP 6730s with a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3430 graphic
chip. I run Squeeze/Sid AMD64 just like you, and with 2.6.26* kernel and
the associated fglrx I ran into all kind of troubles: impossibility to
switch between virtual consoles, acpi going havoc with computer sometime
not halting, bunch of weird errors in dmesg and Xorg.o.log, screen never
coming up after kdm restart... I upgraded the kernel to 2.6.30*, xorg
and fglrx from Sid, and it's working like a charm. It's working great
with the radeon driver too, with full 2D acceleration, but 3D
performances are still really poor. I can restart kdm without problem
and switch back and forth virtual consoles.

Maybe the kernel/fglrx couple is just too old, and pre 9.5 fglrx are
known to have all kind of issues with virtual consoles switching.

Hope it helps.


Tom


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Re: switching to proprietary ati radeon driver (was Re: Laptop dv6650br is getting so warm)

[thveillon.debian]

Liviu Andronic wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> On 8/16/09, Klistvud  wrote:
>>  P.S. I've also noticed that the laptop runs hotter when the free
>>  graphics driver is used, as opposed to the proprietary ATI one.
>>
> I also have an HP Dual core 2.1GHz, and it gets kinda to warm during
> "idle" work (hovers around 65-67 C); my Debian testing is using the
> default drivers for this. On Ubuntu, however, with the proprietary
> drivers installed, temp will stay below 60 for idle usage. (All this
> with "ondemand" cpufreq governor. With "performance" temp is steadily
> 75C, and the fan goes loud.)
> 
> I tried to switch Debian to use the fglrx driver following the steps
> suggested on the wiki [1], but I get into trouble. I'm unable to
> perform step 5,
> # modprobe -r radeon drm
> 
> since I don't have the drivers loaded:
> debian-liv:/home/liviu# lsmod | grep -i radeon
> debian-liv:/home/liviu# lsmod | grep -i drm
> 
> Could anyone suggest how to determine the driver currently used by the system?
> Thank you
> Liviu
> 
> [1] http://wiki.debian.org/ATIProprietary
> 
> 


Hi,

I didn't read the previous thread ("Laptop dv6650br...") so I don't know
the details of your setup. Regarding the current driver in use, you can
find it in xorg logs :

grep -i driver /var/log/Xorg.0.log


But no matter what driver you are using now, you just have to setup
correctly fglrx and reboot, and you'll be using fglrx.

Basically what I do is install the necessary fglrx-* packages, don't
forget fglrx-source and "module-assistant", you'll need it later. I have
on my working Squeeze amd64 system :

aptitude search ~S~i~nfglrx
i   fglrx-amdcccle
i A fglrx-atieventsd
i A fglrx-control
i   fglrx-driver
i   fglrx-glx
i   fglrx-source
i   fglrx-kernel-2.6.30.4-perso64  <<< don't look for that one, that's
  the module built by
module-assistant


When everything is installed, switch to a virtual console (keys
[alt][ctrl][F1] ) and stop your desktop environment with

# /etc/init.d/gdm stop
or
# invoke-rc.d gdm stop

replace "gdm" with "kdm" if you are using kde instead of Gnome, or the
equivalent for your DE (xfce, Lxde, whatever...).

Build the module with "module-assistant":

# m-a a-i fglrx

or use it's ncurse interface with:

# m-a


When it's done, initialize you xorg.conf with:

# aticonfig --initial


and reboot.


A piece of advice, if you are running a 2.6.30 kernel the testing fglrx
won't build, you have to upgrade xorg and fglrx stuff to Sid. That's
what I am running right now and it works fine. Read about "package
pinning", "/etc/apt/preferences" to keep a mixed system clean.

Ati 9.7 fglrx installer won't build either, and (gentoo) patches
floating around are no good with this version (might work with 9.6).


Good luck ;-)

Tom


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Re: --initrd

[thveillon.debian]

Hugo Vanwoerkom wrote:

Johann Spies wrote:

According to the kernel-package README.gz one can use the following
command to compile a kernel with an initrd.img:

$Get_Root make-kpkg --initrd --revision=3:custom.2.0 kernel_image

In the past I could compile a kernel like that and when I install the
package an initrd image would be generated in /boot.  It is no longer
the case.  I had to do it by hand recently and I cannot remember now
which command I have used to generate it.

Why this change?  Or what am I missing?



This has been discussed:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=40081

and it's progress :-(

Now you have to tweak make-kpkg and add your own initrd script.

Hugo



Hi,

you can just copy example initramfs or yaird scripts from 
/usr/share/kernel-package/examples/etc/kernel/ , it's good enough for a 
start.


The line you are referring to works if you already compiled a kernel 
without initrd, but you can just "rm -r" the source /debian directory, 
and run make-kpkg again with the --initrd option, it won't compile the 
whole kernel again.


Everything is explained in the READ ME file.

/usr/share/kernel-package/docs/

Tom


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Re: Grub2 made my systeum unbootable

[thveillon.debian]

Anthony Campbell wrote:
> On 21 Jul 2009, thveillon.debian wrote:
>> Anthony Campbell wrote:
>>> Rashly, after today's upgrade I followed the exhortation in the grub
>>> legacy package to move to grub2. I now cannot boot at all; I just get
>>> the message "Grub" and nothing more.
>>>
>>> Looking at /boot/grub with my rescue disk I see all sorts of files I
>>> don't recognize but no menu.lst. 
>>>
>>> Is there any way to restore things? Please don't tell me I have to
>>> reinstall!
>>>
>>> Anthony
>>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> when you end up with the "grub" message, what does it look like ? Is it
>> a succession of "grub" word or something like a prompt where you can
>> type something (try "ls" and "set" if you can type something) ?
>>
>> Most live-cd or installation disks will allow you to "boot from hard
>> drive" from their menu, maybe you can try that if you have such a disk
>> at hand.
>>
>> Tom
> 
> It just says GRUB and I can't type anything. 
> 
> 

grub hasn't been installed properly, you have to reinstall it from a
live-cd or use a tool like SGD (SuperGrubDisk)

http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

No live-cd that I know of has grub2 support, only Ubuntu "Karmic Koala"
betas, and since your /boot/grub/menu.lst is missing even tools like SGD
may not be able to boot the system. You may have to mount your system
partition (or /boot) from the live-cd, and either recreate a menu.lst or
chroot to reinstall grub properly.

Tom


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Re: Grub2 made my systeum unbootable

[thveillon.debian]

Anthony Campbell wrote:
> Rashly, after today's upgrade I followed the exhortation in the grub
> legacy package to move to grub2. I now cannot boot at all; I just get
> the message "Grub" and nothing more.
> 
> Looking at /boot/grub with my rescue disk I see all sorts of files I
> don't recognize but no menu.lst. 
> 
> Is there any way to restore things? Please don't tell me I have to
> reinstall!
> 
> Anthony
> 

Hi,

when you end up with the "grub" message, what does it look like ? Is it
a succession of "grub" word or something like a prompt where you can
type something (try "ls" and "set" if you can type something) ?

Most live-cd or installation disks will allow you to "boot from hard
drive" from their menu, maybe you can try that if you have such a disk
at hand.

Tom


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Re: Iceweasel, Icedove and KDE4

[thveillon.debian]

Γιώργος Πάλλας a écrit :
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>> Γιώργος Πάλλας wrote:
>>  
>>> Hi everyone!
>>>
>>> Since ever, as a KDE user, I was distracted by the obvious quality
>>> mismatch between fonts for thunderbird and firefox in gnome and KDE.
>>> That is, in Gnome, thunderbird and firefox's usage of fonts seems to be
>>> near perfect. In KDE the fonts of these apps look completely alien. As
>>> far as I understand from searching google, it has something to do with
>>> gtk, Qt and KDE. I tried various things that various blogs/how to
>>> suggest but I can't get a result resembling gnome. How can I achieve
>>> good font antialiasing in iceweasel/icedove, and how can I config these
>>> apps to use the fonts that I select from System Settings -> Look and
>>> Feel -> Appearance -> Fonts ?
>>>
>>> Thanks...
>>> Giorgos
>>>
>>> 
>>
>> Hi, I "solved" the problem by installing "gtk-qt-engine-kde4" from Sid,
>> and in KDE4 "systemsettings" "appearance" > "GTK style and fonts"
>> (translations approx., my system is not in English) you will be able to
>> choose to "use my kde themes and fonts in GTK apps" or not, and
>> customize fonts used by GTK apps. It looks OK here using Bitstream-vera
>> system-wide).
>>
>> Hope it can work for you too.
>>
>> Tom
>>   
> 
> I use testing and I found: gtk-qt-engine. This is obviously another
> thing, no? Because this packet also has 'use my KDE themes ... ' etc...
> I tried this with no luck. I will try gtk-qt-engine-kde4.
> 
> Giorgos
> 

I am running testing too, that why I mentioned the needed package was in
Sid only for now, I think the one in testing is for KDE3, but I may very
well be wrong (I just went for the unstable package that says "kde4" on
the tin ;-) ). You can download it or add Sid to your sources.list and
do some "pinning" to install this one package.

http://packages.debian.org/sid/gtk-qt-engine-kde4

http://wiki.debian.org/AptPinning

Cheers,

Tom


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Re: Iceweasel, Icedove and KDE4

[thveillon.debian]

Γιώργος Πάλλας wrote:
> Hi everyone!
> 
> Since ever, as a KDE user, I was distracted by the obvious quality
> mismatch between fonts for thunderbird and firefox in gnome and KDE.
> That is, in Gnome, thunderbird and firefox's usage of fonts seems to be
> near perfect. In KDE the fonts of these apps look completely alien. As
> far as I understand from searching google, it has something to do with
> gtk, Qt and KDE. I tried various things that various blogs/how to
> suggest but I can't get a result resembling gnome. How can I achieve
> good font antialiasing in iceweasel/icedove, and how can I config these
> apps to use the fonts that I select from System Settings -> Look and
> Feel -> Appearance -> Fonts ?
> 
> Thanks...
> Giorgos
> 

Hi, I "solved" the problem by installing "gtk-qt-engine-kde4" from Sid,
and in KDE4 "systemsettings" "appearance" > "GTK style and fonts"
(translations approx., my system is not in English) you will be able to
choose to "use my kde themes and fonts in GTK apps" or not, and
customize fonts used by GTK apps. It looks OK here using Bitstream-vera
system-wide).

Hope it can work for you too.

Tom


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Re: grub won't but XP

[thveillon.debian]

Bernard Fay wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 1:01 AM, Masood  > wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 8:46 AM, Steve Reilly
> mailto:sfrei...@roadrunner.com>> wrote:
> 
> Bernard Fay wrote:
> 
> > title   Windows XP
> > rootnoverify(hd2,0)
> > chainloader +1
> > makeactive
> 
> 
> if im not mistaken the rootnoverify line should be (hd0.1)  not
> (hd2,0),
> at least thats what mine is that works fine.
> 
> 
> As Steve pointed out, (hd2,0) seems unusual unless you have 3 hard
> drives of which the third has Windows XP on it. If you can boot into
> Lenny try running the following as root to find out where your XP
> installation is located:
> 
> # fdisk -l
> 
> Regrads,
> Masood
> 
> 
> 
> Oh sorry!  I should have told you.  Yes, I have 3 disks: 2 SATA for
> Linux and 1 EIDE for Windows.  This is why I have (hd2,0).  This is
> correct, yes?
> I use to have ubuntu which use lilo and that was working fine.  Maybe, I
> should go back to lilo but I rather stay with grub being more
> powerful usually!
> 
> Thanks again
> 
> 
> strontium:~# fdisk -l
> 
> Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x00042142
> 
>Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *   1  20  160618+  83  Linux
> /dev/sda2  21972977987542+  8e  Linux LVM
> 
> Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x4bcf667c
> 
>Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sdb1   1   60801   488384001   8e  Linux LVM
> 
> Disk /dev/hdc: 61.4 GB, 61492838400 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7476 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x000cf2ea
> 
>Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/hdc1   *   17475600429067  HPFS/NTFS
> 
> 
> 

Hi, you could try to use the grup "map" command to make winxp happy by
"thinking" is on the first partition of the first disk :

title   Windows XP
map (hd0,0) (hd2,0)
map (hd2,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify(hd2,0)
chainloader +1


If it doesn't work, double check in your bios the disks boot order, as I
have seen strange behaviors when sata and (p)ata disks are mixed on the
same motherboard.

Tom


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Re: Best Video Editor?

[thveillon.debian]

>Thomas H. George wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 02:32:38PM +0100, thveillon.debian wrote:
>>> Thomas H. George wrote:
>>> A year ago I did a little video editing using cinelerra.  When I tried
>>> again yesterday it wasn't working properly, running about a single frame
>>> per second.  
>>>
>>> I checked the web site but saw no reference to a users group.  My memory
>>> is that when I used it previously a fork was developing to an alternate
>>> version.  If so, I found no reference to it now.
>>>
>>> My system now is Lenny with an Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor.  The
>>> last time I used cinelerra it was with a 32 bit processor.
>>>
>>> Is the 32 to 64 bit shift the problem with cinelerra?  Is there a better
>>> choice for a video editor? 
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Hello Thomas,
>>
[...]
> Cinelerra is certainly adequate for my current needs if I can get it to
> work correctly.  Everything seems to work OK except that it runs at
> about one frame per second.  I downloaded a demo file, Burning Coals,
> from the Cinelerra web site and it too ran at about one frame per
> second.

Don't get mad over Cinelerra poor performances, following your messages
I reinstalled it from debian-multimedia (testing in my case), and it
seems utterly broken at the time. It crashed on me a couple of times
(well, that's not unusual in my experience), and trying to work with
anything resembling to HD video results in 100% cpu usage just for video
playback, regular freezes, monstrous lag, and a whole bunch of errors
from Cinelerra internal libquicktimehv (of course on the same system
Blender works fine with the same file)... I'll try to dig in the bug
reports, the preferences and maybe try to compile another version over
the week-end, but it seems that shifting to Blender a while ago was a
sound move.

Tom


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Re: Best Video Editor?

[thveillon.debian]

Thomas H. George wrote:
> A year ago I did a little video editing using cinelerra.  When I tried
> again yesterday it wasn't working properly, running about a single frame
> per second.  
> 
> I checked the web site but saw no reference to a users group.  My memory
> is that when I used it previously a fork was developing to an alternate
> version.  If so, I found no reference to it now.
> 
> My system now is Lenny with an Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor.  The
> last time I used cinelerra it was with a 32 bit processor.
> 
> Is the 32 to 64 bit shift the problem with cinelerra?  Is there a better
> choice for a video editor? 
> 
> 
> 

Hello Thomas,

how did you get your Cinelerra, mine comes from debian-multimedia and
works as fine as Cinelerra can (Cinelerra has never been a model of
stability for me...) on my amd64 Debian Squeeze system.

I don't know what "fork" you are talking about, the program available at
debian-multimedia is the so-called "community version", as opposed to
plain Cinelerra from HeroïnVirtual. In my experience the "community
version" has always been far less buggy than the original product.

There is a totally new software being developed by the same people
behind the Cinelerra "community edition" called "Lumiera", but it's not
yet usable. http://lumiera.org/

Depending on your needs, there's a whole range of alternatives for
non-linear video editing, like OpenMovieEditor, Kdenlive, Kino, pitivi
(don't know if it's usable now), Avidemux, Lives, EKD... For heavy work
on HD videos I rely on Blender, it has a steep learning curve due to the
original user interface, but once mastered the program is rock solid,
which gives it a great lead over Cinelerra in my opinion.

Try them, but do give Blender some time before giving up on the user
interface, it is well worth the effort.

To get you started :

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/04/20/video-editing-with-blender/

http://www.blender.org/documentation/htmlII/x3184.html


Cheers,

Tom



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Re: Debian+LVM+RAID

[thveillon.debian]

Roger Leigh wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 10:45:08PM +0200, martin f krafft wrote:
>> also sprach thveillon.debian  
>> [2009.07.09.2215 +0200]:
>>> It is possible to boot from mdadm software raid1 with grub2, in Lenny
>>> and Squeeze. But I would worry about the lvm, I don't think this is as
>>> straightforward, maybe not even possible at this point (to be
>>> double-checked anyway).
>> grub2 can boot LVM just as well as it can boot RAID1 or RAID5.
> 
> Is this stable for production use, or still in the experimental
> stage?
> 
> 
Hi,
>From my little experience, I have been using it since before the Lenny
release (on Lenny testing), and I am now on Squeeze. I have been using
it too on Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty, only had a few problem on Hardy
(had to backport a newer version). All machines on some kind of raid,
some on ext4, but no lvm. Most machines are workstations rebooted daily,
 and have no separate /boot, everything is on raid. So yes it's quite
stable for me.
I found that even when there is a problem, it easier to quickly recover
without even leaving the grub2 shell-like environment, I like the
modularity of the /etc/grub.d/ templates.

I recently set grub2 up a Fedora11 machine, it's really not well
integrated in the system yet, and require some manual work, but after
that it just works (on ext4). Debian has done a great job integrating it.

Only down sides are:
_The lack of recovery live-cd that support grub2 out of the box (but a
live Ubuntu/Debian does the job).
_Some disk imaging tools (Clonezilla) default to (re)installing grub on
the imaged disk, you have to be careful and disable it.
_The "os-prober" helper package is working somewhat randomly for me, it
is only supposed to auto-detect other installed systems, so no big deal.
_I don't know how grub2 behaves outside of x86 machines, or with non dos
disk labels.
_There is no support currently for partition label in grub.cfg, I miss
that, but uuid are arguably more reliable anyway.

That's all for my little experience of grub2, I wouldn't go back at this
point, and can't complain about stability, especially on Debian.


Give it a try,

Tom


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Re: Debian+LVM+RAID

[thveillon.debian]

lee wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 09, 2009 at 07:47:36PM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
> 
>>In the partitioner, set /dev/sda1 as /boot.  /boot needs to be
>>separate from the RAID+LVM setup in order to be accessible by the
>>bootloader, though it's possible grub2 will fix this at some point.
>>Keeping it separate is safe and recommended.
> 
> Are you saying it's impossible to install on (boot from) a software
> RAID?
> 
> 

It is possible to boot from mdadm software raid1 with grub2, in Lenny
and Squeeze. But I would worry about the lvm, I don't think this is as
straightforward, maybe not even possible at this point (to be
double-checked anyway).

Tom


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Re: Configuring wine.

[thveillon.debian]

Sthu Deus wrote :
> Good day.
> 
> I have no sound in wine-1.0.1-2 running game "Heroes of Might and Magic III".
> About 2 years ago on another installation I had sound in the same game under
> wine.
> 
> Of wine packages I have installed:
> 
> libwine-1.0.1-2
> wine-bin-1.0.1-2
> 
> Do You have an idea how it can be fixed?
> 
> Thank You for Your time.
> 
> 

Hi, maybe you need sound related wine packages, like "libwine-alsa" or
"libwine-oss". Then run "winecfg" in a terminal to pop up wine
configuration panel and set up sound options.

Tom


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Re: KDE, openoffice bug

[thveillon.debian]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
> 2009/7/7 Red Hen :
>> Sirs--
>>
>> I have designated Firefox my Debian Lenny system's MAIN web browser, as
>> stipulated in the KDE Control Center.
>>
> 
> Which version of KDE? Did you type in "/usr/bin/firefox" or "firefox"
> or select Firefox from the list? Note that Firefox is called Iceweasel
> in Debian due to restrictive Mozilla licensing.
> 
> 
>> HOWEVER, I CANNOT open links in openoffice.org writer documents with
>> firefox. No matter how many times I have reset the KDE Control component to
>> stipulate firefox as the default web browser on my system, opening links in
>> open office documents ALWAYS results in a Konqueror browser opening.
>>
>> If I then attempt to switch to a firefox browser, the system first downloads
>> a file of the page in question and then opens the FILE with firefox. This is
>> unacceptable. I want to be able to browse the web with firefox 3.5  located
>> in my home  directory without Konqueror as an intermediary. I do not want
>> Konqui to open from inside openoffice documents AT ALL.
>>
> 
> This is a Firefox setting, but Firefox cannot open ODT documents
> anyway so I find this unusual. What types of files, specifically, are
> we talking about here?
> 

Ooo doesn't follow kde settings, you have to set alternatives:

update-alternatives --config x-www-browser



If you want iceweasel to open Ooo files, use package
"mozilla-openoffice.org" which installs a plugin.

Tom


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Re: New Dell netbook,Ubuntu,Debian and factory su password.

[thveillon.debian]

Luis Maceira wrote:
> As a Debian user since 2005 last week I bought a Dell netbook running Ubuntu
> (since it is Debian based),but I am unable to do administrative tasks:
> upgrading,become su etc. because I cannot find the su password in the docs
> that come with the netbook.Is there any standard password that we use 
> in these cases,so after we can choose our own su password?
> 
> 
>   
> 
> 

Hi, Ubuntu works with "sudo" only (and your user password), the root
password isn't configured. You can use the "passwd" command to set it I
believe.

Tom


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Re: Debian 5.0.2 network manager not working?

[thveillon.debian]

Teemu Likonen wrote:
> On 2009-06-29 08:17 (+0200), Raffaele Morelli wrote:
> 
>> 2009/6/28 Mark Marcacci :
>>> I've been installing Debian 5.0.1 via a downloaded jigdo DVD image
>>> from the official site.  [...] One of the packages missing after
>>> booting into Gnome was Network Manager
>> Use wicd instead of network-manager.
> 
> There's no wicd in Debian 5.0 (Lenny).
> 
> 
It's in backport.

http://backports.org/dokuwiki/doku.php

Cheers,

Tom


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Re: Anyone has VDPAU working?

[thveillon.debian]

Andrei Popescu wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I'm trying to get VDPAU working on my laptop (Dual Core t2...@1.6 GHz, 
> nVidia Quadro NVS 140M, 2 GiB RAM) as this would be the only way to 
> watch 1080p movies, but no success so far. I tried:
> 
> - mplayer from www.debian-multimedia.org (also recompiled)
> - official Debian mplayer
> - compiling latest SVN mplayer
> - compiling mplayer with the script provided by nVidia (which uses a 
>   specific rev from SVN)
> - XBMC Live
> 
> If anybody has VDPAU working on Debian (not necessarily with mplayer) 
> I'd be interested what hardware/software was used.
> 
> Regards,
> Andrei

Hi, I am using the latest Nvidia proprietary drivers on a relatively old
and modest Geforce 8600gt, I have vdpau support compiled only for
Mplayer and Mencoder as far as I can tell (debian-multimedia Squeeze).

mplayer -vo help

will tell you what's available.

If I play an h264 video straight with vlc, xine or Mplayer I can see
clearly my cpu going up and down (c2duo 2.7Ghz), very high throughout,
near 100% on one core and 50% on the other. Video is choppy at time if I
use other programs (namely Icedove, Iceweasel with ±10 tabs, Blender).

If I use :

mplayer -vc ffh264vdpau myvideo

cpu usage is very moderate, stays perfectly flat (about 30%, symmetric
on both cores), and still the video plays perfectly, fluid, even KDE4
desktop effects doesn't make it choppy (sending it to another workspace,
semi-transparency behind another window ...).
So I think I can say that vdpau is working here, but even though it's
compiled in Mplayer it's not used if not explicitly asked for. It should
be put first in Mplayer config file.
Available output modules on my system are ffmpeg12vdpau, ffwmv3vdpau,
ffvc1vdpau and ffh264vdpau.

>From mplayer output playing HD 1080 :

[...]
Forced video codec: ffh264vdpau
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
Selected video codec: [ffh264vdpau] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264 (VDPAU))
==
[...skipping audio part]
Starting playback...
[VD_FFMPEG] XVMC-accelerated MPEG-2.
VDec: vo config request - 1920 x 1080 (preferred colorspace: H.264 VDPAU
acceleration)
VDec: using H.264 VDPAU acceleration as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is undefined - no prescaling applied.
VO: [vdpau] 1920x1080 => 1920x1080 H.264 VDPAU acceleration
[...]


Happy testing.

Tom


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Re: Version mismatch between kqemu module and qemu

[thveillon.debian]

Sthu Deus wrote:
> Thank You for Your time and answer, me:
> 
>> NOTE: kvm is based on qemu and uses the same command syntax, so it's easy to
>> confuse between KVM and QEMU.
> 
> While qemu hangs, kvm just works! - Excellent! Now, You say kvm is based on
> qemu, but I do not want to have the same thing twice - therefore I have tried
> to purge the qemu* w/ apt-get - interesting that it requires no dependency w/
> kvm. As I have no more install packages, therefore would not get not working
> VM, can You tell me if it is safe to purge the qemu yet kvm remain still
> working?
> 
> Thank You, again.
> 
> 

Hi,
No need for qemu, "kvm" package ships a modified version already. I use
kvm and I don't have qemu package installed.

Cheers.

Tom


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Re: is it possible to install a desktop-manager without python and perl?

[thveillon.debian]

>明覺 wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 4:11 PM,
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>>> Sebastian Günther wrote:
>>> * 明覺 (shi.min...@gmail.com) [22.06.09 03:18]:
>>>> I want to keep the programs in my system all written in c/c++, no
>>>> python or perl or any other programming languages, is it possible to
>>>> reach it? I removed the 2 packages, python and perl, from my system,
>>>> and of cause, I losed my desktop, is it possible to install a desktop
>>>> manager without perl and python? which is the proper desktop manager?
>>>> thanks
>>>>
>>>>
>>> # apt-cache --installed rdepends (perl|python)
>>>
>>> should show you which packages depend on perl resp. python. Then you can
>>> decide wether you can live without them.
>>>
>>> Sebastian
>>>
>> But aren't "perl" or "python" packages just metapackages acting like
>> glue for all the others in the section ? I don't know if removing them
>> will have any effect on the libs already installed.
>> And doesn't the package configuration system needs python and/or perl
>> stuff ?
> yes, i hate it so much! if i remove python, the whole gnome
> environment are removed; if i remove perl, the whole xorg system is
> removed. I don't think it's a good design to make python or perl so
> bottom, especially for people who do not like python and perl, like
> me.
>> aptitude search ~S~i~s'(perl|python)'  returns packages that look pretty
>> low-level stuff to me, most of which I have never installed manually but
>> were dragged in as dependencies.
>>
>> Looks like a strange idea to me to run a "one programming language only"
>> system, it would hint that there's a "one fits all" language and other
>> are just for decoration purpose... (Well, some may agree I guess ;-) )
> yes, currently, I'm almost a "one programming language only" people, I
> can accept the existence of other languages, but I think they should
> be optional, not necessory!
>> Tom
>>

Well, there's always Mike OS, it's assembly language only, with C
library and api to write C code for it... If that's minimalistic enough
for you, at least you won't be bothered by Perl or Python ! (but the guy
doing Mike OS, Mike Saunders, is also writing Python columns for
LinuxFormat magazine... There's tools for every job).

http://mikeos.berlios.de/

Cheers,

Tom


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Re: java

[thveillon.debian]

Todd A. Jacobs wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 08:50:36AM +0100, thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
>> I don't remember if I had to update the alternatives manually, I don't
>> think so.
>> [...]
>> update-alternatives --config iceweasel-javaplugin.so
> 
> That's what I'm saying: there's no option for it.
> 
> $ sudo update-alternatives --config iceweasel-javaplugin.so
> There is only one alternative in link group iceweasel-javaplugin.so: 
> /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/gcjwebplugin.so
> Nothing to configure.
> 
> $ apt-show-versions sun-java6-plugin
> sun-java6-plugin/testing uptodate 6-14-1
> 
> So, the Sun plugin is installed, but it isn't part of the alternatives system 
> for some reason.
> 

Ok, so maybe just manually link to the desired one in /etc/alternatives?

Tom


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Re: Debian workstation (desktop) solution

[thveillon.debian]

Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Mon,22.Jun.09, 09:24:59, Γιώργος Πάλλας wrote:
>  
>> As for the games, a question: Has anybody tried playing such a game
>> (Unreal, etc) under a virtualization engine? Virtualbox for example?
> 
> AFAICT virtualization doesn't do any 3d acceleration.
> 
> Regards,
> Andrei
Hi,
In fact it does (or will), Sun VirtualBox started to introduce it in the
2.* for Windows, and later on for some Linux, and it should be available
for all guest systems in version 3 according to the beta already available.
Of course I don't know what it will look like performance wise, and of
course the host system must have effective video hardware acceleration,
and a pretty good video card I guess.

Tom


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Re: is it possible to install a desktop-manager without python and perl?

[thveillon.debian]

>Sebastian Günther wrote:
> * 明覺 (shi.min...@gmail.com) [22.06.09 03:18]:
>> I want to keep the programs in my system all written in c/c++, no
>> python or perl or any other programming languages, is it possible to
>> reach it? I removed the 2 packages, python and perl, from my system,
>> and of cause, I losed my desktop, is it possible to install a desktop
>> manager without perl and python? which is the proper desktop manager?
>> thanks
>>
>>
> 
> # apt-cache --installed rdepends (perl|python)
> 
> should show you which packages depend on perl resp. python. Then you can 
> decide wether you can live without them.
> 
> Sebastian
> 

But aren't "perl" or "python" packages just metapackages acting like
glue for all the others in the section ? I don't know if removing them
will have any effect on the libs already installed.
And doesn't the package configuration system needs python and/or perl
stuff ?

aptitude search ~S~i~s'(perl|python)'  returns packages that look pretty
low-level stuff to me, most of which I have never installed manually but
were dragged in as dependencies.

Looks like a strange idea to me to run a "one programming language only"
system, it would hint that there's a "one fits all" language and other
are just for decoration purpose... (Well, some may agree I guess ;-) )

Tom


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Re: java

[thveillon.debian]

>Todd A. Jacobs wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 05:36:15PM +0100, thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
>> sun-java is now fully 64 bit, including the plugin, starting with 6-12
>> maybe, or even one release earlier. But the icedtea one runs just as
>> well on my machine, it's just seen as an older version by some
>> websites and Sun java testing page.
> 
> Thanks for pointing out that sun-java6-plugin is now in the repositories
> for 64-bit. I didn't know that.
> 
> However, installing it doesn't seem to update the plugins, or create an
> option in update-alternatives for selecting sun-java6-plugin over gcjweb
> or icedtea. How exactly did you get it to work with iceweasel?
> 

I don't remember if I had to update the alternatives manually, I don't
think so. This is what I got :

ls -l /etc/alternatives/ | grep javaplugin
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 firefox-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 iceape-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 iceweasel-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 midbrowser-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 mozilla-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  49 mai 22 19:06 xulrunner-javaplugin.so ->
/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre/lib/amd64/libnpjp2.so


If you don't have that, just do a:

update-alternatives --config iceweasel-javaplugin.so

and choose the one you want to be the default.

I don't have any link in my ~/.mozilla/plugin folder.

Tom


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Re: Debian workstation (desktop) solution

[thveillon.debian]

Eike Lantzsch a écrit :
> On Sunday 21 June 2009, Fred Zinsli wrote:
>> Hello all
>>
>> I have been usind Debian for some years now, but exclusively as a server
>> platform.
>>
>> My partner has a VISTA machine
> [snip]
>>
>> I am wanting to offer her a Debian solution in pace of her windowz
>> solution but I thought I would ask some questions first.
>>
>> Apart from the basic web surfing and email stuff I asked her what else she
>> really must be able to do.
>>
>> They are:
>> 1. Rip (copy) DVD movies. We copy every single movie we own and only play
>> the copied movie. This includes copywright movies. I won't get into the
>> discussion over copying our movies.
>>
> [snip]
> 
> 
> After trying dvdrip for DVD ripping I'm now using k9copy.
> 
> 
> Cheers, Eike
> 
> 
And "handbrake" is a neat tool too for dvd ripping. But whatever the
software you will need libdvdcss2 for commercial dvd's.

Tom


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Re: Debian workstation (desktop) solution

[thveillon.debian]

Fred Zinsli a écrit :
> Hello all
> 
> I have been usind Debian for some years now, but exclusively as a server
> platform.
> 
> My partner has a VISTA machine and she is always having problems with it.
> No surprises there I guess.
> 
> I am wanting to offer her a Debian solution in pace of her windowz
> solution but I thought I would ask some questions first.
> 
> Apart from the basic web surfing and email stuff I asked her what else she
> really must be able to do.
> 
> They are:
> 1. Rip (copy) DVD movies. We copy every single movie we own and only play
> the copied movie. This includes copywright movies. I won't get into the
> discussion over copying our movies.
> 
> 2. Play her games. They are all windowz based games like call of duty and
> the like.
> 
> Can I meet the above requirements in either etch or lenny and if so can
> someone please point me to where I can get the information to allow me to
> setup the new platform to meet those requirements for her.
> 
> Many thanks in advance for any comments.
> 
> Regards
> 
> Fred
> 
> 
> 
Hi, very good idea to switch, even better for Debian. There will be no
problem/limitation regarding multimedia stuff, I use heavily my Debian
workstation for multimedia processing: video editing, digital
photography, music ripping and the like and I have never really suffered
from using Debian (with debian-multimedia.org repository that is).

Regarding windows games, I am not an expert at all, but I have used the
"playonlinux" package (available in "contrib") with is a Wine
"facilitator" (scripts to installed required dll's and such), it could help.

As said by another poster there's commercial solutions especially
dedicated to windows games on Linux, and of course quality games
available directly on Linux. I think www.phoronix.com could be a good
starting point for those matters.

Happy switching !

Tom


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Re: java

[thveillon.debian]

>Todd A. Jacobs wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 02:16:10PM +0200, Jan Willem Stumpel wrote:
> 
>> I just want to install a Java runtime environment which will allow me
>> to see Java applets in action. It seems I have the choice of (at
> 
> If you're running 64-bit, your choice of plugin is rather restricted. On
> my system, I use the icedtea6-plugin. On the other hand, if you want to
> run Java applications (e.g. not as a plugin), the sun-java6-jre works
> well.
> 
[snip...]

sun-java is now fully 64 bit, including the plugin, starting with 6-12
maybe, or even one release earlier.
But the icedtea one runs just as well on my machine, it's just seen as
an older version by some websites and Sun java testing page.

Tom


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Re: SATA CD- drive not picked up by system

[thveillon.debian]

AG wrote:
> Matthew Moore wrote:
>> On Monday June 15 2009 2:32:18 pm AG wrote:
>>   
>>> Default DVD/CD-drive that plays media.  Sorry - my poor wording. I mean
>>> the device doesn't seem to be automounted when I load an optical disk.
>>>
>>> The applications that play DVD (mplayer, kmplayer, totem) and audio CDs
>>> (kscd, goobox) cannot find the media.  In one bizarre twist, kscd can
>>> read track names, but when prompted to press play claims there's no disk.
>>> 
>>
>> Does it mount correctly for data-only discs? Are you a member of the cdrom 
>> and 
>> plugdev groups (I am not sure if this is still required)? Do you have HAL 
>> installed? Does anything (e.g. usb drives) automount in your DE?
>>
>> MM
>>
>>
>>   
> Hi Matthew & Thierry
> 
> Yes - it loads data disks just fine and also DVD disks that I have burnt
> myself.  When testing it using k3b to burn a DVD, k3b locates the disk
> immediately and burns successfully.  All other USB drives show up fine. 
> As the sole user, I have permissions to load CD-ROMs and as far as I can
> tell I am a member of all of the relevant groups.
> 
> Gnome has an easier time than Xfce4 in picking up that a disk has been
> loaded (i.e. an icon pops up on my desktop in Gnome, but nada in Xfce4).
> 
> It is because of this inconsistency that I am confused: if it was
> completely dead - I'd be looking for a damaged drive/ disconnection.  If
> no audio-CD player found it, I'd be wondering about permissions; if
> nothing worked (i.e. no data disks, etc.) then it may be related to
> something else.  But, because it can automount data CDs and home-made
> DVDs, burn disks fine and that Gnome not Xfce4 picks up the icon, and
> that only Rhythmbox can play the disk that I am so confused by this.  I
> mean, what is with kscd reading the track info but then telling me that
> it cannot play the disk because there is no disk loaded in the player -
> how does it read track info then?
> 
> I am completely at sea with this ... last time I started hacking away at
> my /etc/fstab, changing symlinks and just generally getting myself into
> a mess without accomplishing anything.  This time, after a fresh
> install, I want to leave well enough alone until I can gather some input
> from this community that may help deal with this in a more systematic
> manner.
> 
> So ... any ideas, because I am clean out of any myself and Google is not
> throwing back anything of use and there is nothing in the Debian
> literature nor from user fora that I can see that is helpful.
> 
> Thanks in anticipation.
> 
> AG

Hi, I too have a sata dvd/cd drive, I had trouble installing Etch, but
since then all never versions worked fine. But on another machine, with
the same model I had to do a firmware upgrade before the drive could be
used reliably. Before the upgrade the drive would work for reading, but
any burning attempt was failing.
FWIW, but maybe your drive is having such a problem too.
The bad bad part is I wasn't able to upgrade the firmware on Debian, had
to remove the drive and take it to a computer with a well known
proprietary OS installed. I don't know where "flashrom" is standing on
that matter now.

Hope it helps,

Tom


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Re: what user and password for cups

[thveillon.debian]

>> On 13 Jun 2009, gcr...@vcn.bc.ca wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I've just installed cups to manage an HP Laserjet 6P.  It web 
>> interface finds the printer everything is peachy until I select 
>> a driver and click on "Add Printer".  At that point I am 
>> prompted for a username and a password.
>>
> [snip]

If you have a root account set it's user "root" and it's password that
cups is asking for. If root account is not set (if you are using sudo
only), try your user name and password.

Hope it helps.

Tom


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Re: Are there any major issues with Debian testing?

[thveillon.debian]

ZephyrQ wrote:
> Just picked up a BBuy cheapo that I will lather/rinse/repeat and put Deb
>  on...just wondering if testing has any major issues that I should be
> aware of before I make the jump (my main system runs stable).
> 
> 

Hi, I have been running testing since Etch, and if most of the time
everything is running just fine (watch apt-listbugs and
apt-listchanges), I did occasionally run into some tricky breakage (xorg
related mostly, multimedia packages too).
Right now I have "mktemp" package obsolete in Squeeze, and labeled
"dummy" in Unstable, but if I remove it the system is broken since the
coreutils package that should bring a mktemp replacement isn't yet in
Testing... (see mktemp bugs tracker)
That's the kind of things you might encounter, be ready to diagnose/fix
it and you'll be a happy Testing user as I am.

Cheers,

Tom


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Re: Why does a webcam MT6225 not work with Debian?

[thveillon.debian]

Michelle Konzack wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have a Webcam MT6225 which woks with ReHat, Fedora and  SuSE  but  not
> with Debian, even if it is detected through v4l.
> 
> Bus 001 Device 017: ID 0e8d:0004 MediaTek Inc.
> 
> and VLC/Ekiga identified it as MT6225.
> 
> Any suggestions WHY it does not work?
> 
> Thanks, Greetings and nice Day/Evening
> Michelle Konzack
> Systemadministrator
> 25.9V Electronic Engineer
> Tamay Dogan Network
> Debian GNU/Linux Consultant
> 

Hi,

given the usb ID the camera should work with uvcvideo, included in
kernels newer than 2.6.26 (external module before that), you can see the
list of compatible devices here http://linux-uvc.berlios.de/ .

The latest sources repository (mercurial) is hosted there :
http://linuxtv.org/hg/~pinchartl/uvcvideo/

with a wiki if v4l compilation is required too
http://www.linuxtv.org/wiki/index.php/How_to_Obtain,_Build_and_Install_V4L-DVB_Device_Drivers

But that's a pain in the neck, fortunately not necessary with recent
kernels.


I also found a thread speaking of connect/disconnect cycles with such a
camera on uvcvideo mailing list :

http://lists.berlios.de/pipermail/linux-uvc-devel/2008-October/004084.html

Maybe you've just hit a bad uvcvideo version on Debian.

Tom


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[going OT] Re: 64Bit installation on a 500 GB Sata DRIVE

[thveillon.debian]

Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>> Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
>>> Frank Lin PIAT wrote:
>>>> But unless you have a specific need to use stick to 32bit kernel
>>>> (driver, old application [in]compatibility), it is wise to move to
>>>> 64bits.
>>> Why?
>>>
>>> I know that 64bit is the future. I have the feeling, however, that many
>>> applications are still better supported on 32bit than on 64bit. This
>>> applies especially for multimedia, web pages and viewing certain
>>> restricted pdfs, but I have often regretted the decision to move one of
>>> my workstations to 64bit, just because it adds more hassle than it gains
>>> in performance.
>>>
>>> Of course this is just my humble opinion. It may work for others.
>>>
>>> So, again: What is the advantage of running 64bit that warrants the
>>> extra hassle?
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Johannes
>>>
>>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have all the systems I use/admin in 64bits (amd64), it's mainly Debian
>> and Ubuntu, I don't feel any "hassle" anymore. It used to be a problem
>> for a few web pluggins and a few semi-deprecated programs, but not
>> anymore. Most systems are multimedia workstations, everything works very
>> well, including flash (native 64bits), Java (native 64bits), all
>> possible codecs (w64codecs and more), Mplayer, Xine, Blender...
> 
> I'm glad it works for you. I maintain that there are some sites and some
> plugins that won't work correctly on amd64, while they work fine on x86.
> 
> Last time I tried virtualbox, would not start that proprietary OS on
> amd64, either.
> 

I have Sun/Oracle VirtualBox amd64 (the proprietary one) running both XP
and Win7-rc, XP vm are 32bits, Win7 is 64bit, no problem here (Debian
Squeeze amd64).

>> Regarding performances, it's sometimes just the same, often much faster,
>> never slower, so no reason to look back to i386 for me. There's many
>> comparison floating around, especially on www.phoronix.com, you can have
>> a look at this Ubuntu vs Fedora roundup
>> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_810_vs_fedora_10&num=4
> 
> Are you sure, that the x86 tests were carried out with the amd64-kernel
> for x86? I am sure that 686-kernels will be outperformed by
> amd64-kernels. My golden compromise between performance and usability is
> a amd64 kernel with 32-bit userland.
> 
> If it's really the amd64-kernel on x86 that's outperformed, I'd start to
> reconsider...

I am pretty sure it's 64bits kernel and libs, it would be really
interesting to see the phoronix test tool (it's free, opensource, and
gratis) results on such a setting, if you have spare time and/or a test
machine...

http://www.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=downloads

phoronix ran test on Ubuntu vs Mac os, both x86 and x86_64 Ubuntu (the
later being a bit better, but still lagging behind the Mac). Which is
interesting is that they say Mac OS kernel is 32bits, but with support
for 64bits apps, which sounded strange to me:
"With the OS X kernel currently being 32-bit but with support for 64-bit
applications,[...]"

source :
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_osx_64bit&num=1


>> I imagine the performance gain should be even more sensible with some
>> databases or intensive scientific number-crushing apps.
> 
> After the recent change of German copyright (Urheberrecht), libraries
> started to send copy-protected pdf's that require a closed source
> DRM-plugin, which is only available for i386. So, what you gain in speed
> by improved number-crunching, might be lost by not being able to study
> the scientific literature :-(
> 
> [Of course, I would prefer to read the literature without the need of
> non-free software! ]
> 
> Cheers,
> Johannes
> 
> 

Yep, it's strange to see that the so called "competition" in the
proprietary software market doesn't drive editors to keep up with
technical evolutions...
It might changes with MS pushing 64bits OS versions forward. For such
cases it's always possible to keep a 32bits vm, or a chroot.

Cheers,

Tom


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Re: 64Bit installation on a 500 GB Sata DRIVE

[thveillon.debian]

Klaus Jantzen wrote:
> On 06/03/2009 09:05 AM, Rod James Bio wrote:
>> Its a Seagate HD. I dont have the exact model number. Now I am
>> checking if this is a hardware problem. One thing that bothers me is
>> why does 32bit works?
>>
>> Klaus Jantzen wrote:
>>> On 06/03/2009 07:46 AM, Rod James Bio wrote:
 We've been doing an installation on this LTSP Server we are trying to
 build. While formatting the 500 GB HD the partitioning
 process is stock at 33%. Can anyone suggest if there are limitations or
 problems or past experiences?

 Anyway just for additional information:
 I tried using lenny 64bit installer to no avail and 32bit
 installation is successful but we want to use 64bit because the
 machine has 5GB of memory so as to maximize the memory.
 Processor is Intel QUAD Q9550.

 --Rod James


>>> Who is the manufacturer of your HD? What is the type?
>>> I installed Debian Lenny 5.0 amd64 on two 500 GB HDs with no problem.
>>>
>>> -- 
>>>
>>> K. Jantzen
>>>
>>
>>
> If it is a Seagate ST3500320AS (Barracuda ?)  you might have a firmware
> problem.
> For this reason I had to exchange my two drives (which was done with no
> problems).
> The firmware for this HD _must_ be version SD1A. You could download and
> install the new firmware
> yourself (refer to the Seagate website) but that is of any use only if 
> you load the new firmware _before_ you
> do any formatting otherwise you should return it to your dealer or to
> Seagate.
> 
> If you have any questions, let me know.
> 
> -- 
> 
> K. Jantzen
> 
I got bitten by the firmware bug on Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives,
but it was supposed to kill the drive upon reboot, not to prevent
partitioning ?
I have Debian amd64 installed on such Seagates 500GB, and WS 500GB
(WD5001AALS-00L3B2) too (raid1) with no problem.

Tom


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Re: 64Bit installation on a 500 GB Sata DRIVE

[thveillon.debian]

Johannes Wiedersich wrote:
> Frank Lin PIAT wrote:
>> But unless you have a specific need to use stick to 32bit kernel
>> (driver, old application [in]compatibility), it is wise to move to
>> 64bits.
> 
> Why?
> 
> I know that 64bit is the future. I have the feeling, however, that many
> applications are still better supported on 32bit than on 64bit. This
> applies especially for multimedia, web pages and viewing certain
> restricted pdfs, but I have often regretted the decision to move one of
> my workstations to 64bit, just because it adds more hassle than it gains
> in performance.
> 
> Of course this is just my humble opinion. It may work for others.
> 
> So, again: What is the advantage of running 64bit that warrants the
> extra hassle?
> 
> Cheers,
> Johannes
> 
> 

Hi,

I have all the systems I use/admin in 64bits (amd64), it's mainly Debian
and Ubuntu, I don't feel any "hassle" anymore. It used to be a problem
for a few web pluggins and a few semi-deprecated programs, but not
anymore. Most systems are multimedia workstations, everything works very
well, including flash (native 64bits), Java (native 64bits), all
possible codecs (w64codecs and more), Mplayer, Xine, Blender...
The only downsides are Cinelerra, well it doesn't work better on 64bits
than on 32bits, just keeps crashing (dropped it in favor of Blender,
which as a simple but powerful/stable video editing mode) , and
Cinepaint which is not easy to find, but Gimp with GEGL as been catching
up on features so no longer a problem.

Regarding performances, it's sometimes just the same, often much faster,
never slower, so no reason to look back to i386 for me. There's many
comparison floating around, especially on www.phoronix.com, you can have
a look at this Ubuntu vs Fedora roundup
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_810_vs_fedora_10&num=4

Skip the first tests which are about games (tells smore about the video
driver performances), both distributions have been tested in x86 and
x86_64 in the exact same conditions.
I imagine the performance gain should be even more sensible with some
databases or intensive scientific number-crushing apps.

Tom


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Re: replacing hard disk

[thveillon.debian]

Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> Are there any tips on moving the whole system from the old disk to
>> the new one? Or do I just have to re-install ubuntu, re-install
>> any updates and extra programs which are installed, find and copy
>> modified config files, mails, bookmarks, etc?
> 
> If you can connect both disks at the same time, and boot off of a Live
> CD (or a USB key), then the simplest option is:
> 
> - connect both disks
> - boot off of your rescue USB/CD.
> - dd if=/dev/[olddisk] of=/dev/[newdisk]
> - wait
> 
> 
> Stefan
> 
> 
> PS: This presumes the new disk is at least as large as the old one.
> And it will leave the additional space free: you can later on change
> your partitioning (resize the last partition, or add another one) to
> make use of the extra space.
> 
> 

I use "Clonezilla" for such things, saves a lot of time (dd is slow),
more flexible with disk size, and takes care (if appropriate) of MBR,
grub installation on the target, and more.

http://clonezilla.org/

Handy tool.

Tom


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Re: How do you get iceweasel (or another browser) to save what otherwise the flashplayer plays?

[thveillon.debian]

lee wrote:
[big snip]
>> Use Firefox
>> "better privacy" extension, it can wipe the .macromedia content
>> automatically.
> 
> Does that work with iceweasel? Even if it does, I keep the browser
> running until the flashplayer crashes.
> 

"better privacy" can wipe out the .macromedia folder content on a
time-based interval, even if you don't close the browser.

Tom


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Re: How do you get iceweasel (or another browser) to save what otherwise the flashplayer plays?

[thveillon.debian]

Rich Griffiths wrote:
> On Sun, 31 May 2009 12:50:11 +0200, thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
> 
>>  Use Firefox "better privacy"
>> extension, it can wipe the .macromedia content automatically.
>>
> 
>> Tom
> 
> Thanks for this tip.  I've been doing it manually once in a while.
> 
> I should spend more time looking over the available add-ons and plug-ins  
> .
> 
>  Rich
> 
> 

Always happy to share, it's definitely a time-consuming pain to browse
the gazillion extensions at mozilla.com, fortunately for us the Debian
team is doing a great job cherry-picking some and packaging them.
"flashblock" and "noscript" are already there, maybe "better privacy"
will be one of the next load.

Tom


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Re: Ctrl-Alt-Backspace disabled?

[thveillon.debian]

Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 02:03:06PM +0100, thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
>> Note to self : disabling "rm" 
> 
> The default of both KDE and GNOME is to use the trashcan. There's also
> safe-rm. The literal 'rm -rf /' has also been disabled.
> 
>> and "fdisk" commands, catching "shutdown"
>> and "reboot" commands to 
> 
> Check out molly-guard.
> 

Yep, I know about that, it was the point, and a joke too... The
"DontZap" case isn't an isolated one, it's a trend. Those changes are
pushed in order to get GNU-Linux ready for the desktop of Mr. & Mrs.
everybody I guess, say it's the Ubuntu law of Linux desktop evolution.

Thanks for the answer though, I read of the "rm -rf /" thing but was
never curious (foolish?) enough to try it on my system.

Jokefully yours,

Tom


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Re: Ctrl-Alt-Backspace disabled?

[thveillon.debian]

marc wrote:
> Jan Willem Stumpel said:
> 
>> IMHO disabling an old and trusted functionality is simply introducing a
>> bug, made worse by keeping silent about it (no word about it in
>> changelog.gz or NEWS.Debian.gz).
>>
>> It must surely be a tiny minority of users who press
>> control-alt-backspace "by mistake"; I find it hard to imagine even.  But
>> for users who suffer from this syndrome there has always been the
>> possibility of specifying DontZap. Forcing it on all users is a Bad
>> Thing.
> 
> 
> +1
> 
+1

Note to self : disabling "rm" and "fdisk" commands, catching "shutdown"
and "reboot" commands to make them fail silently unless they are issued
five times in a row in less than 1 minute, dumbing down all system
settings and removing root access in KDE4 "systemsettings" (oh! it's
already been done, good...), don't let myself install "dangerous"
packages (nmap, parted, ...). Remove root account (oh! not again! It's
already been done too.). To be continued.
Don't try to protect people from their ignorance, enlighten them.

Happy Sunday.

Tom


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Re: How do you get iceweasel (or another browser) to save what otherwise the flashplayer plays?

[thveillon.debian]

lee wrote:
> On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 06:10:58PM +0100, thveillon.debian wrote:
>> If you tweak you flashplayer not to cache content locally, just tweak it
>> back using the setting panel from Adobe there :
>>
>> http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html
>>
>> the image in the upper right part of the page is a setting panel, what
>> you set there is set locally on your computer in ~/.macromedia/.
> 
> That is interesting, I haven't given them permission to access that
> information. How do I protect myself against that kind of spying?
> 
> 

Change your settings and don't allow storage of any data locally (of
course the /tmp trick won't work anymore), write a script to "rm -r"
~/.macromedia when you close your browser, or every 15mn, whatever. Use
something like "bleachbit" (available in repo).
Do your browsing from a live-cd, or a virtual machine and wipe the
snapshot afterward. Bind-mount a flash disk partition on "~/.macromedia"
on startup, this way there's nothing left on you disk. Use Firefox
"better privacy" extension, it can wipe the .macromedia content
automatically.

Use "flashblock", "noscript", or don't use flash altogether...

On the wild wild web privacy is a lost word, security an illusion.

Tom


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Re: [Ilugc] Re: Recover data from formatted ext3 partition

[thveillon.debian]

Azhagu selvan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I don't think that post is for **formatted** partition. IMO, A formatted
> partition is suppose to be clean(no meaningful data).
> 
> Regards,
> Mohan R.
> 
> Yes it has been formatted to ext3. So,does it mean that there is _no
> way_ of recovering my data :(
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Azhaguselvan

Hi,

if your data really are extremely important to you, it's usually
possible to retrieve some of it, but it's a very long and complicated
process. It's also expensive, as you'll probably want to rely on a
specialist of data retrieving.

If you can save the disk, and are willing to learn how to use data
forensic tools by yourself, you might be able to retrieve some data with
tools like the duo "sleuthkit" and "autopsy".

Of course the results depends on how you "formatted" the drive, if it
was a simple change of partition table you might recover most data, if
it involved writing zeros or random data to the disk your chances are
really slim...

My advice would be to go with a pro if it's worth it, or forget and
learn the backup lesson the hard way... :-(

Tom


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Re: How do you get iceweasel (or another browser) to save what otherwise the flashplayer plays?

[thveillon.debian]

JoeHill wrote:
> lee wrote: 
> 
>> the subject says it all: How do you get iceweasel (or another browser)
>> to save what otherwise the flashplayer plays?
>>
>> Some sites feed the data too slow to watch while it's being fed, so I
>> want to download what's being send instead and save it to a file that
>> I can play later when all the data has arrived.
>>
>> Can this somehow be done with wget, maybe?
> 
> Try this:
> 
> http://clive.sourceforge.net/
> 

Hi,

if you didn't tweak your flasplayer settings the video should appear in
/tmp while it's streamed. Usually it's a random name with letters and
numbers. When you see the size stabilizing, or the progress bar in the
player full (pause the video, but leave it open), you just have to copy
that file from /tmp, rename it with extension ".flv". VLC will happily
play those.

If you tweak you flashplayer not to cache content locally, just tweak it
back using the setting panel from Adobe there :

http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

the image in the upper right part of the page is a setting panel, what
you set there is set locally on your computer in ~/.macromedia/.

Tom


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Re: KDE is now broken (Fwd: Heads-up: KDE4 hitting testing tonight (UTC) )

[thveillon.debian]

Sjoerd Hardeman wrote:
> lee wrote:
>> For the second time in this thread: Is there another way to start kde
>> than using kdm (or gdm)? Though they can be nice to have, I don't want
>> to have to use either of them.
> 
> Isn't startx or startkde supposed to do that? Login at the console and
> try that.
> FYI, I have kde 4.2 and kdm working, without any tampering with config
> files, but then I do have a mysql server installed. Yet, that can hardly
> be the reason for kdm to fail. Are you sure all libraries used by kdm
> are installed?
> 
> Sjoerd
> 
> 
Hi,

FWIW I had problems with kdm when I migrated from kde3.5 to kde4
(Squeeze), and used gdm or "startx" to launch kde sessions. For some
reason "startkde" never did what I expected, never launched a kde4
session for me.

I just removed mysql-server from my system, and the few kde4 parts that
depends on it and I don't use. Everything is working fine here, even
after a reboot.

I'm sorry to say that I never found what was causing me trouble with kdm
at first. After a lot of experiments I ended up reinstalling a new
Squeeze system, copying just my config files and other stuff I needed
(doing the "dpkg --get-selections" magic, and keeping the same /home),
and kde4 now works as expected, including kdm, and without mysql-server.
What I have left on the system is :

aptitude search ~S~i~nmysql
i A libmysqlclient15off
i A mysql-common


There's a few discussions going on about similar problems on the
debian-kde list.

http://lists.debian.org/debian-kde/



Tom


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Re: startx and KDE 4.2.2

[thveillon.debian]

GRotfl wrote:
> Hi all!
> 
> After upgrade to KDE 4.2.2 I could not start X windows with startx (it 
> complained that startkde in .xinitrc is not there). I have located startkde 
> in package ksmserver, which is both in stable and unstable, but not testing. 
> Also, it is version 3.5.9, not 4.2.2. I have changed sources.list to point 
> to stable and reinstalled ksmserver, but I would like to have 4.2.2-only 
> system (there are some bugs that are probably a consequence of the mixed 
> system, for instance, walk through desktop shortcuts do not work and 
> similar).
> 
> Does anyone else have this problem or do you all start through kdm? I would 
> like to avoid that if possible. 
> 
> Any suggestion would be much appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 

Hi,

regarding startkde:

dpkg -S startkde
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/share/man/man1/startkde.1.gz
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/bin/safestartkde
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/bin/startkde

apt-file search startkde
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/bin/safestartkde
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/bin/startkde
kdebase-workspace-bin: /usr/share/man/man1/startkde.1.gz


it's in "kdebase-workspace-bin", available in Squeeze.

Due to problems with kdm when I migrated from kde 3.5 I used gdm and
lxsession to start kdm sessions for a while (but kdm was installed), I
needed not do anything special outside of reconfiguring the good login
manager as the default:

dpkg-reconfigure 

Tom


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Re: [Fwd: Re: Correct sudoers file configuration]

[thveillon.debian]

steef wrote:
> 
> 
>  Original Message 
> Subject: Re: Correct sudoers file configuration
> Resent-Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 08:32:39 + (UTC)
> Resent-From: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 09:32:14 +0100
> From: thveillon.debian 
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> References: <886fa7aa0905260042kdfa863au8c2f44a4f0be...@mail.gmail.com>
> 
> 
> 
> Jason Filippou wrote:
> <.>
> 
> You need to use the command "visudo" to edit the sudo configuration file
> (/etc/sudoers).
> 
> 
> Tom
> 
> why??  why not  (to start with)  # nano /etc/sudoers  ??
> 
> regards,
> 
> steef

If you want to use nano with visudo, just use:

export VISUAL=nano

and later put in /etc/sudoers

Defaults editor = /usr/bin/nano:/usr/bin/vi


This works on Debian currently, not on every distribution.


"visudo" store the file in a buffer for edition, makes sure there is no
concurrent access to it, and perform syntax check before writing the
changes.
You can if you must use any editor with root privileges instead of
visudo, it's just not the safe way.


Tom


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Re: Correct sudoers file configuration

[thveillon.debian]

Jason Filippou wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> When I first installed squeeze on my system, and being oblivious as to
> the presence of any sudoers file in general, I asked a friend to help me
> with the setting up of the sudoers file. I have a sneaking suspicion,
> however, that the configuration applied might be flawed, since whenever
> I'm required to input my password by sudo (to download and install
> software, for instance), the password required is my account password,
> and not the sudo password. Here is my sudoers file:
> 
> # Host alias specification
> 
> # User alias specification
> 
> # Cmnd alias specification
> 
> # User privilege specification
> rootALL=(ALL) ALL
> jason   ALL=(ALL) ALL
> # Uncomment to allow members of group sudo to not need a password
> # (Note that later entries override this, so you might need to move
> # it further down)
> # %sudo ALL=NOPASSWD: ALL
> 
> I suspect that something may be wrong at line
> 
>  jason   ALL=(ALL) ALL
> 
> Anybody can help me with this?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jason

Hi,

this is standard sudo behavior if you don't have a root account on your
machine. The line you refers to means that "jason" can use sudo from
anywhere (locally or remotely), to acquire any identity, and run any
command.
If you use the default:

Defaults  targetpw

sudo will ask for the targeted user's password, if you just use "sudo"
which implies obtaining root privileges, then the root passwd will be
asked for. To always ask for the root password use:

Defaultsrootpw


You need to use the command "visudo" to edit the sudo configuration file
(/etc/sudoers).


Tom


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Re: KDE is now broken (Fwd: Heads-up: KDE4 hitting testing tonight (UTC) )

[thveillon.debian]

Magnus Pedersen a écrit :
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>> H.S. wrote:
>>> H.S. wrote:
>>>> Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
>>>>> In <20090521174259.ga7...@cat.rubenette.is-a-geek.com>, lee wrote:
>>>>>> I refuse to run a
>>>>>> mysql-server just to get KDE installed. It's already bloated more
>>>>>> than
>>>>>> enough. I'm not using the applications that would require the
>>>>>> mysql-server anyway.
>>>>> Then don't install those applications.  Problem solved.
>>>> Which ones are those? I also got mysql with my KDE upgrade but would
>>>> like to get rid of it.
>>>
>>> I removed mysql-server-5.0 and KDE appears to be working fine so far.
>>> Here is what aptitude actually did:
>>>
>>> $> sudo aptitude purge mysql-server-5.0 kontact libkcal2b
>>>
>> [...]
>>> and then I continued by pressing Y.
>>>
>>> Regards.
>>>
>> Hi,
>> I installed Amarok2 from experimental, and it depends on mysql only it
>> seems, so if you are using Amarok you are likely to see mysql coming
>> back soon...
>>
>> Tom
>>
>>
> Please show me how amarok depends on mysql, as I can see it depends on
> libqt4-sql and that recommends:
> 
> libqt4-sql-mysql
> Qt 4 MySQL database driver
> or libqt4-sql-odbc
> Qt 4 ODBC database driver
> or libqt4-sql-psql
> Qt 4 PostgreSQL database driver
> or libqt4-sql-sqlite
> Qt 4 SQLite 3 database driver
> or libqt4-sql-sqlite2
> Qt 4 SQLite 2 database driver
> from
> http://packages.debian.org/experimental/amarok and
> http://packages.debian.org/sid/libqt4-sql
> 
> 
My mistake, it's mysql embedded as quoted from apt-listchanges :

"amarok (1.92-1) experimental; urgency=low

* Now Amarok uses MySQL Embedded (MySQLe) as its default collection
database engine. However, as of 2.0 Beta 2 (this release), there is no
migration path provided from the old SQLite based database to the new
MySQLe basedone although this feature is planned for later Amarok 2
(pre)releases. This effectively means that you will have to rebuild your
collection losing all ratings and other additional information about
tracks you have collectedwith 2.0 Beta 1 (1.90).

* It is very likely that the MySQLe backend used by Amarok will change
in the next releases. Therefore, you might be forced to rebuild your
collection again in the near future.

Tom


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Re: KDE is now broken (Fwd: Heads-up: KDE4 hitting testing tonight (UTC) )

[thveillon.debian]

H.S. wrote:
> H.S. wrote:
>> Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
>>> In <20090521174259.ga7...@cat.rubenette.is-a-geek.com>, lee wrote:
 I refuse to run a
 mysql-server just to get KDE installed. It's already bloated more than
 enough. I'm not using the applications that would require the
 mysql-server anyway.
>>> Then don't install those applications.  Problem solved.
>> Which ones are those? I also got mysql with my KDE upgrade but would
>> like to get rid of it.
> 
> 
> I removed mysql-server-5.0 and KDE appears to be working fine so far.
> Here is what aptitude actually did:
> 
> $> sudo aptitude purge mysql-server-5.0 kontact libkcal2b
> 
[...]
> 
> and then I continued by pressing Y.
> 
> Regards.
> 
Hi,
I installed Amarok2 from experimental, and it depends on mysql only it
seems, so if you are using Amarok you are likely to see mysql coming
back soon...

Tom


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Re: Skype in Squeeze

[thveillon.debian]

Peter Crawford wrote:
> Tom,
> 
>> might be a problem specific to the webcam driver, because here Skype
>> works all right on Squeeze (amd64) with an uvcvideo webcam.
> 
> The system here has no camera. Skype crashes as it
> tries to open the video coming from the other Skype.
> In a developer list there was discussion about rearranging
> video libraries.
> 
>> Ekiga works too.
> 
> Right oh. Two others mentioned failure of Ekiga within the
> last week. Is this problem confined to Intel based machines?
> 
> Regards, ... p. crawford
> 
> 

Guess what, after reading your mail I updated my system, and now Ekiga
is segfaulting "nicely" on me too...

Skype is working nicely though, tested with an audio/video conversation
(with an Ubuntu user).

Tom


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Re: Skype in Squeeze

[thveillon.debian]

Peter Crawford wrote:
> After updating Squeeze on 2009-05-19 Skype 
> crashed when it tried to open the video viewer.
> Disabling the video option allows use of audio.  
> 
> With any luck this will be resolved or Ekiga will 
> work again soon.
> 
> Regards,   ... p. crawford
> 

Hi,

might be a problem specific to the webcam driver, because here Skype
works all right on Squeeze (amd64) with an uvcvideo webcam.
Ekiga works too.

Tom


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Re: Help with Flash

[thveillon.debian]

Marc Shapiro wrote:
> Mark Allums wrote:
>> Marc Shapiro wrote:
>>> Mark Allums wrote:
 flashplugin-nonfree in Sid is working again.  I don't think it has
 any other Sid dependencies.  Remember, if your internet connection
 is not always-on, that it is just an installer, and it still needs
 to download the player from Adobe.
>>>
>>> I've already installed Flash directly from the Adobe site, so the
>>> installer won't do anything for me.  I thought that, with true
>>> Mozilla and Flash direct from Adobe, that Flash should work.  I
>>> shouldn't need anything else.  Unfortunately, it does not.  Does
>>> anyone else have Flash working with Mozilla Firefox (not Iceweasel)?
>>>
>>
>> Try uninstalling everything flash-related, even swfdec, and so forth,
>> then installing Sid's flashplugin-nonfree.
>>
>> However, you may need to copy the plugin .so manually into the Firefox
>> plugin directory.  If Iceweasel is installed, you can find it there.
>>
>> Installing the Adobe way has never worked for me.  I have always
>> needed the Debian way.
> 
> All the installer does is download and unpack the file from adobe and
> copy it to the appropriate directories.  I already have the new
> libflashplayer.so and I have it in /usr/local/lib/firefox/plugins/
> Firefox recognizes that it is installed and starts to load the flash
> video.  Then it hangs.  Using the installer from Sid will simply
> download another copy of the file and place it in a directory that is
> incorrect for me, so that I can copy it to where it already is.  I have
> already downloaded the .deb for Ubuntu from the Adobe site, thinking
> that maybe there was a problem with the .tar.gz file, but I get the same
> results.  I don't see where having the Sid installer download the same
> ..tar.gz file that I already have is going to make a difference.
> 
Hi,

maybe have a look at /etc/alternatives to see if you have a link that
can confuse things, and look at flashplayer-mozilla dependencies to see
if you're missing something.

Tom

(sorry if I sent an empty message earlier, clumsy fingers doing to many
things at one time for a Sunday...)


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Re: Help with Flash

[thveillon.debian]

Marc Shapiro a écrit :
> Mark Allums wrote:
>> Marc Shapiro wrote:
>>> Mark Allums wrote:
 flashplugin-nonfree in Sid is working again.  I don't think it has
 any other Sid dependencies.  Remember, if your internet connection
 is not always-on, that it is just an installer, and it still needs
 to download the player from Adobe.
>>>
>>> I've already installed Flash directly from the Adobe site, so the
>>> installer won't do anything for me.  I thought that, with true
>>> Mozilla and Flash direct from Adobe, that Flash should work.  I
>>> shouldn't need anything else.  Unfortunately, it does not.  Does
>>> anyone else have Flash working with Mozilla Firefox (not Iceweasel)?
>>>
>>
>> Try uninstalling everything flash-related, even swfdec, and so forth,
>> then installing Sid's flashplugin-nonfree.
>>
>> However, you may need to copy the plugin .so manually into the Firefox
>> plugin directory.  If Iceweasel is installed, you can find it there.
>>
>> Installing the Adobe way has never worked for me.  I have always
>> needed the Debian way.
> 
> All the installer does is download and unpack the file from adobe and
> copy it to the appropriate directories.  I already have the new
> libflashplayer.so and I have it in /usr/local/lib/firefox/plugins/
> Firefox recognizes that it is installed and starts to load the flash
> video.  Then it hangs.  Using the installer from Sid will simply
> download another copy of the file and place it in a directory that is
> incorrect for me, so that I can copy it to where it already is.  I have
> already downloaded the .deb for Ubuntu from the Adobe site, thinking
> that maybe there was a problem with the .tar.gz file, but I get the same
> results.  I don't see where having the Sid installer download the same
> ..tar.gz file that I already have is going to make a difference.
> 


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Re: Why is the kernel in testing so far behind what's current?

[thveillon.debian]

Raffaele Morelli wrote:
> 
> 
> 2009/5/14 Daryl Styrk mailto:darylst...@gmail.com>>
> 
> -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 06:15:42AM -0500, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> >
> > I dumped Network Manager and went with WiCD.  No regrets for doing so.
> >
> > - Nate >>
> 
> Same here much better.
> 
> - --
> 
> 
> +1
> 

Just for the records, +1.
nm keeps freezing my system.

Tom


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Re: Why is the kernel in testing so far behind what's current?

[thveillon.debian]

Patrick Wiseman wrote:
> On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM, Raffaele Morelli
>  wrote:
>> +1
>> I build kernel from vanilla sources every time a new RT patch is released.
>>
>> It's really easy, just take care to the latest changes in kernel-package
>> regarding --initrd option.
> 
> Thanks, guys, for suggesting that - I used to build a custom kernel
> the "Debian way" all the time, but am out of the habit.  I'll get back
> into it.
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 

Hi,

there's also plenty of shiny new kernels at this addresses:

deb http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel/ trunk main
deb-src http://kernel-archive.buildserver.net/debian-kernel/ trunk main

In case you want to do quick tests. This is official Debian kernel repo,
but for testing only.

If you build from source and use the new kernel-package, do read the doc
carefully or you are in for surprises, the package has changed a great
deal. Personally I have reverted back to the old manual way of building
the kernel...

Tom


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Re: Is Network-Manager freezing my system?

[thveillon.debian]

gn643202 wrote:
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>> Patrick Wiseman wrote:
>>> ... Yesterday, my
>>> system froze twice, i.e. became completely unresponsive, the caps lock
>>> LED flashing, as it does on this machine when it's frozen.  (A quick
>>> Google search suggests that's a sign of kernel panic.)  The only
>>> remedy is to hold down the power button until it powers down.  The
>>> reason I suspect Network-Manager is twofold: (1) the freeze only
>>> happened when I had the machine hard-wired to my network, and (2)
>>> syslog showed lots of wlan0 activity - trying to connect, being denied
>>> a DHCP address - just before the freeze occurs.  Has anyone else had a
>>> similar experience?  I don't want to file a bug report against
>>> Network-Manager unless I'm pretty sure it's the culprit.
>>
>> it was happening to me with an atheros chip and ath5k module. Removing
>> NetworkManager in favor of WICD solved the issue, so I am pretty sure it
>> was the trouble maker.   ...
>> Tom
> 
>I have had the same problem.
>Searched Synaptic but could not find the WICD package in Lenny.
> 

I used to grab it from the upstream website while I was on Lenny:

http://wicd.sourceforge.net/

never had any problem as long as I put NetworkManager out of the way
properly. It's a pity it's not in stable.
Alternatively you may pick it from testing or sid, it's really light on
dependencies.

Tom


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Re: Is Network-Manager freezing my system?

[thveillon.debian]

Patrick Wiseman wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> I have a Lenovo T61p running an amd64 testing system.  Yesterday, my
> system froze twice, i.e. became completely unresponsive, the caps lock
> LED flashing, as it does on this machine when it's frozen.  (A quick
> Google search suggests that's a sign of kernel panic.)  The only
> remedy is to hold down the power button until it powers down.  The
> reason I suspect Network-Manager is twofold: (1) the freeze only
> happened when I had the machine hard-wired to my network, and (2)
> syslog showed lots of wlan0 activity - trying to connect, being denied
> a DHCP address - just before the freeze occurs.  Has anyone else had a
> similar experience?  I don't want to file a bug report against
> Network-Manager unless I'm pretty sure it's the culprit.
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 
Hi,

it was happening to me with an atheros chip and ath5k module. Removing
NetworkManager in favor of WICD solved the issue, so I am pretty sure it
was the trouble maker.
Before the freezes I used to see a lot of rapid disconnect/connect
cycles in the logs.
This first happened on an Ubuntu Intrepid box (wife's box), and the
issue is still there in "Jaunty", so it would be no surprise that it
shows up in Debian too. At the time Ub forums were full of likewise
experiences with various wifi chips, in almost every case shifting to
WICD solved the problem...

Hope it helps,

Tom


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Re: Wine and itunes

[thveillon.debian]

Christopher Judd wrote :
> Hi,
> 
>   My son is fed up with Windows and wants to purge it from his system, 
> and run ubuntu or debian.  The only thing holding him back at this time 
> is itunes.  Like most teenagers, he uses it regularly and has a rather 
> large itunes library.  Does anyone have experience running a recent 
> version of itunes (preferably 8.something) in wine on a debian box?
> I've done some looking online, but haven't found a definite answer.  I 
> tried it with the package in experimental on my box at work (which is 
> amd64), but was not successful.  I have a 32 bit system at home that I 
> can try it on.
> 
> -Chris
> 

Hi,

if your son is fed up with proprietary systems, then he should consider
moving away from proprietary music too... Now the Apple music store is
selling unprotected music (without drms, those tunes are known as "+" on
the store), but most older songs you own must be protected. What I did
for my mother, who was an Itunes addict and moved to Ubuntu, is spending
a lot of time burning the tunes in audio format to cdrw, then importing
it again in Ubuntu to free them from drms. It is possible to "upgrade"
the drmised songs to "+" non drmised ones from Itunes, but it is expensive.
There is legal music available on-line that doesn't come with drm.

Regarding Itunes, if it's absolutely necessary to use it, the only way
to do so would be to use the windows license to setup a minimal virtual
system in kvm or Virtualbox (to name a few of the many available
solutions). The host computer will have to be powerful enough, and all
annoyances of windows will still "virtually" be there. But if it's the
only thing keeping him away from free operating systems...

Tom


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Re: testing update today hosed aptitude!

[thveillon.debian]

Patrick Wiseman wrote :
> I did my daily testing update this morning, and aptitude has
> disappeared.  Attempts to apt-get install aptitude are so far
> unsuccessful, because of unmet dependencies.  Attempts to install
> those missing dependencies also fail, in particular the following:
> 
> # apt-get install libapt-pkg-libc6.7-6-4.6
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> Note, selecting apt instead of libapt-pkg-libc6.7-6-4.6
> apt is already the newest version.
> The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer 
> required:
>   texlive-common update-notifier-common preview-latex-style texlive lmodern
>   texpower-manual texlive-pstricks texlive-base-bin texpower
>   texlive-extra-utils texlive-latex-base texlive-fonts-recommended
>   texlive-humanities-doc texlive-generic-recommended texlive-latex-recommended
>   texlive-latex-recommended-doc dvipdfmx latex-beamer prosper tipa
>   texlive-latex-base-doc latex-xcolor python-vte texlive-fonts-recommended-doc
>   pgf texlive-humanities texlive-base ps2eps texlive-doc-base
>   texlive-latex-extra texlive-latex-extra-doc texlive-pictures
>   texlive-base-bin-doc texlive-math-extra texlive-pictures-doc
>   texlive-pstricks-doc texlive-generic-extra tex-common lacheck
> Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
> 
> Note that in the middle of all that texlive stuff is
> update-notifier-common, which I would think is critical to system
> updates.  Should I do as suggested, and autoremove all this stuff?
> And against what package should I file a bug?
> 
> Patrick
> 
> 

Hi, I went through this yesterday, I had "aptitude-gtk" installed for
testing purpose, but it went "boom" with dependency problems so I
removed it during the upgrade. After that, also aptitude was marked
installed, it wasn't available, even not to the "which" or "whereis"
programs.
I removed aptitude with apt-get, installed it again from testing, and
now it works fine again.

Tom


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Re: gimp use

[thveillon.debian]

steef wrote :
> hi folks,
> 
> i am in africa now with a sometimes not optimal internet-connection in
> this region. i cannot properly google: so i put my question hopefully on
> the list:
> 
> is it possible with the 'gimp' to scale 160 photographic pictures down
> *in one time*?
> 
> thank you ,
> 
> regards,
> 
> steef
> 
> 
> 

Hi,

as stated there is a set of tools that might do a more straightforward
job for resizing a bunch of pictures. With Gimp however you can install
the "gimp-plugin-registry" package, which will give you access under the
"filters > Batch" menu to a batch processing tool, which includes
resizing/cropping facilities for a bunch of files. You will have to set
up a few options, so it will take time and it's not worth bothering if
you don't have many pictures to process (160 should qualify...).
If you want to work from a graphical user interface, you can also use
most pictures manager program like Digikam or Gwenview, they usually
include an easy to use resizing tool.

Tom


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Re: virtualbox-2.2 uninstallable on lenny/amd64?

[thveillon.debian]

Adrian Levi a écrit :
> When trying to install the latest virtualbox-2.2 from the virtualbox
> repo I get the following error:
> 
> Cloud9:~# aptitude install virtualbox-2.2
> Reading package lists... Done
[...]
>   302 Moved Temporarily
> E: Failed to fetch
> http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/pool/non-free/v/virtualbox-2.2/virtualbox-2.2_2.2.2-46594_Debian_lenny_amd64.deb:
> 302 Moved Temporarily
> 
> And when trying to download the package from the virtualbox website I
> get redirected to a page with a single full stop.
> 
> http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.2.2/virtualbox-2.2_2.2.2-46594_Debian_lenny_amd64.deb
> 
> Are others experiencing this as well?
> Has anyone come across a solution?
> 
> Adrian
> 

Looks like there is no more repository, everything as to come from their
download page, which also links to the other services and versions for
sale...

http://www.sun.com/software/products/virtualbox/get.jsp

Maybe it's one of the new owner's policy ? (Oracle bought Sun recently)

Tom


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Re: xorg (fglrx, radeon, radeonhd, vesa) not working after upgrade

[thveillon.debian]

Stefan Bellon wrote :
> thveillon.debian wrote:
> 
>> So maybe you have another problem on top of that,
> 
> Yes, of course, that's the reason for my posting.
> 
>> some leftovers from fglrx installation that don't go well with free
>> drivers, like proprietary libGL maybe ?
> 
> Unlikely. In the past I have switched between fglrx, radeon and vesa
> quite some times if one or the other did have some issue. And switching
> to another one always worked without having to change more than the
> driver line in the xorg.conf file.
> 
> It looks like the new Xorg has some very fundamental change which I am
> not aware of.
> 
> So, if anybody has any comments wrt. to the configuration and log files
> I presented in my initial posting, I'm very grateful for hearing them.
> 
> Greetings,
> Stefan
> 

I don't know if I am the only one, but the attachment you sent in the
first message has been messed up, to the point that it's impossible to
understand anything:

begin 644 xorg.conf
M"B,@>&]R9RYC;VYF("A8;W)G(%@@5VEN9&]W(%-Y&]R
[...]
and:

RiscOS filetype : FFF


begin 644 Xorg.0.log.fglrx
M7UA315)65')A;G-3;V-K971/<&5N0T]44U-E

Re: xorg (fglrx, radeon, radeonhd, vesa) not working after upgrade

[thveillon.debian]

Stefan Bellon wrote :
> thveillon.debian wrote:
>> you'll be sorry to hear that your card is now a "legacy" one
>> according to AMD/ATI. They dropped support for a bunch of card with
>> the 9.4 release.
> 
>> http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/legacy/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.2&product=2.4.2.3.9&lang=English
> 
> No, if you have a close look at this page, you'll notice that a lot of
> cards are legacy, but not the X1400 one which my ThinkPad T60 has.

Yep, it's not named on the page, which I guess is a mistake, but you
will be redirected on the "legacy" page if you try to select a driver
from the AMD/ATI drivers selection page, so...

>> So I guess the Sid version is too new for you, you can install an
>> older fglrx (9.3) or stick with the free driver.
> 
> But nevertheless, even if my X1400 was legacy and not supported in
> fglrx anymore (which is not the case), then the main problem is that
> neither radeonhd, nor radeon, nor plain vesa seem to work right now.
> THIS is my problem.

So maybe you have another problem on top of that, some leftovers from
fglrx installation that don't go well with free drivers, like
proprietary libGL maybe ?

> Still being very grateful for hints.
> 
> Greetings,
> Stefan
> 

Good luck,

Tom


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Re: xorg (fglrx, radeon, radeonhd, vesa) not working after upgrade

[thveillon.debian]

Stefan Bellon engraved :
> Hi all,
> 
> I've been running Debian unstable on my IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T60 for
> more than two years with the proprietary fglrx driver to drive the ATI
> Radeon Mobility X1400.
> 
> With a recent upgrade a few weeks ago the fglrx driver didn't work
> anymore, so I fell back to the radeon driver which worked (although not
> as fast as the fglrx one).
> 
> Yesterday I thought to upgrade again in order to see whether fglrx now
> works again, but I ended up with a completely dysfunctional xorg right
> now. The effect is, that for fglrx there seems to be some ABI
> incompatibility such that X does not start (ABI 2.0 of fglrx vs. ABI
> 5.0 of Xorg) and when falling back to other drivers like radeon,
> radeonhd or even vesa, then the display goes black as soon as X starts
> and nothing happens anymore, switching back to the console is not
> possible, and the machine can only be operated via remote login.
> 
> The installed (and relevant AFAICS) xorg packages are as follows:
> 
> xserver-xorg   1:7.4+1
> xserver-xorg-core  2:1.6.1-1
> xserver-xorg-input-evdev   1:2.2.1-1
> xserver-xorg-input-kbd 1:1.3.2-3
> xserver-xorg-input-mouse   1:1.4.0-2
> xserver-xorg-input-synaptics   1.1.0-1
> xserver-xorg-video-radeon  1:6.12.2-1
> xserver-xorg-video-radeonhd1.2.5-1
> xserver-xorg-video-vesa1:2.2.0-1
> fglrx-*1:9-4-1
> 
> As an example I'll attach the xorg.conf file for fglrx together with
> the Xorg.0.log output for fglrx as well as the Xorg.0.log output when I
> just replace Driver "fglrx" with Driver "radeonhd". I can also provide
> the logs for drivers radeon and vesa, but I doubt they shed any more
> light onto this issue than the radeonhd log already does.
> 
> I would be very grateful for any help regarding this issue!
> 
> Greetings,
> Stefan
> 
Hi,

you'll be sorry to hear that your card is now a "legacy" one according
to AMD/ATI. They dropped support for a bunch of card with the 9.4 release.

http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/linux/legacy/Pages/radeon_linux.aspx?type=2.4.2&product=2.4.2.3.9&lang=English

So I guess the Sid version is too new for you, you can install an older
fglrx (9.3) or stick with the free driver.

Tom


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Re: kernel-package??

[thveillon.debian]

Randy Patterson wrote :
> On Thursday 30 April 2009 09:51:54 Michael Pobega wrote:
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 09:24:43AM -0500, Randy Patterson wrote:
>>> I'm looking to start using my own custom kernels for various reasons. At
>>> this point I'm just researching the various options or ways in going
>>> about this and in the process installed kernel-package. I learned the
>>> hard way a couple years ago when I first started using Linux that before
>>> diving into documentation I first need to try to determine it's age. So
>>> after installing kernel-package the first thing I did was go to the
>>> bottom of the man page and looked at the date, May 25, 1999! Now I
>>> realize that is not necessarily the date of the last update but this
>>> doesn't give me a good feeling about diving into it's details that could
>>> be 10 years old. So is it better to just use an upstream source from
>>> kernel.org and build that or will that only create more work trying to
>>> get that running with a current Debian distro? I'm certainly not looking
>>> for a detailed howto on this list, but looking for advise on the road to
>>> take to get there. Or at least the road with more pros than cons. Thanks,
>>> Randy
>> Just fyi, kernel-package isn't a kernel itself; it's the tools used to
>> build a vanilla kernel (like the ones from kernel.org) into a deb file.
>>
> 
> I guess I assumed that kernel-package was to build the kernel from the source 
> used by the current Debian distro installed. So if that's not the case and I 
> decided to use the latest stable from kernel.org, is it advantageous to use 
> kernel-package or find a good howto and learn to build and install using a 
> more 
> low level approach. I'm mainly looking at just optimizing the config file for 
> a 
> particular systems to building a leaner meaner kernel. I have some older 
> systems that don't do anything but grid computing. I thought if I removed a 
> lot of the stuff that wasn't being used in the kernel I could speed these up 
> a 
> little.
> 
> Randy
> 
> 
Kernel-package really speeds up the process of building a kernel, but
the bulk of what you want to do will occur during the configuration.
Basically kernel-package allows you to build a kernel, all modules, an
initrd (if desired), pack it up in .deb in one shot. Then you just have
to install the created .deb with "dpkg -i". The basic command, once the
configuration is done, is:

make-kpkg --initrd --append-to-version -custom_name --revision 1 \
kernel-image kernel-headers

initrd and headers are non-essential.

Installing the created .deb will take care of all the linking (/initrd,
/vmlinuz, build dir...), boot-loader update (with grub at least), initrd
 creation/update and such.

Without it you'll have to go with the "make - make modules_install -
make install" routine, no such thing as a .deb, and take care of the
rest yourself (initrd, links, boot-loader update...).

So in my opinion it's worth looking into kernel-package, that's one of
the feature I most appreciated when trying to Debian. (I usually build
my kernels from vanilla kernel.org sources, out of habit and curiosity
more than technical need.).

Tom


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