Re: [DNG] dependency hell OR it should not be this hard
On Sun, 11 Aug 2019 09:05:24 +0300 Shlomo Solomon wrote: > Let me start by saying that I'm not looking for a solution - I solved > my problem. I'm just angry and letting off some steam. [snip successful attempts using a ~10 step apt/dpkg witch's brew] I feel your pain. Probably we all do. And it's likely the better people to let off steam at would be: 1) The maintainers of your distro 2) The maintainers of your "Desktop Environment", if any 3) The authors of the software concerned DISTRO: Your complaint isn't very detailed, but the fact that you needed apt to fix it suggests you're using a Debian derived distro. Most Debian extension distros, such as Ubuntu, Mint and Knoppix, add hypercomplexity in order to make them more magically "we do it all for you" and "user friendly", or just to make things look pretty. Debian itself, once a simplistic distro, has been slowly complexifying itself, first by defaulting to selecting of that ball of confusion Gnome3, which itself has been complexifying at a remarkable rate, and then by pledging allegiance to systemd: The ultimate ball of confusion. About the only apt packaged distro I could recommend today, from a dependency-sanity point of view, would be Devuan, which rejected both Gnome3 and systemd. I find it amusing that Debian's solution to substituting a non-systemd init system involves a many-step raindance where you pin this package and hold back that package. Of course, Redhat and Redhat-derived distros are worse. Tell your distro maintainers to quit making package recommends into hard requirements, and to find better solutions than secret apt meetings with secret dpkg handshakes, or else consider not packaging it at all. There are usually substitutes and equivalents. DESKTOP ENVIRONMENTS: Desktop environments, which bind a window manager and a bunch of applications together, including all sorts of interdependencies and promiscuous communications inside and outside of dbus, were obviously a bad idea from the beginning, for people who want to control their computers rather than the other way around. If you use a desktop environment, write to them and tell them to reduce promiscuous communication and dependencies. They'll laugh at you, of course: Their purpose on this earth is to create obscenely interdependent black boxes. You can avoid a lot of this by going back to a window manager and selecting your applications a-la-carte, trying mightily not to include desktop environment apps. If enough people were to do this (not very likely, most people are wedded to their "we do it all for you" environments), the "desktop environments" might catch on and put more of a priority on modularity and thin interfaces (or no interfaces where not needed). I kicked KDE and every KDE app and library off my computer in 2012-2013, and lived to tell about it. I've never used Gnome3, and slowly but surely I've been kicking its apps and libraries off my computer. Now I boss my computer around, not the other way around. THE SOFTWARE AUTHORS: True story. When using Python writing a piece of free software intended to be used by others, I needed one minor but not obvious how to code functionality. So I asked how to code it on the Python IRC channel. Not one answer, but three or four people told me to use some ginormous library, itself having lots of dependencies, that was not part of the standard Python distribution. I explained that I didn't need all that stuff, I just needed this one functionality. I didn't want my users to have to integrate this library into their systems. "No problem", one of the IRC denizens proclaimed, "that's what the Python is for: You can build your own Python interpreter for your one application, and ship the interpreter along with the app". Look at your computer's clock: This is not an April Fools joke, this happened. If course I said "no", and then the real abuse happened, with the usual "don't reinvent the wheel" and "scared to learn new things" and a new creative diss: "Real programmers try new packages just to get familiar with them, it's a real opportunity!" Unfortunately, these guys weren't unusual. Way too many programmers, in the name of avoiding reinventing the wheel, integrate somebody else's wheel, when all they needed was an easily available single spoke. You know who suffers? The distro maintainers and the users. All too many developers put absolutely zero priority on simplicity. The slightest improvement in "pretty", or the slightest "improvement" to keep the user from having to use a text editor, is perfect justification to bring in a gargantuan software library with poorly documented API, lots of child dependencies, grandchild dependencies, and who knows how far down the tree it goes. And at any given time, at least one dependency of that software dependency tree gets buggy or goes unmaintained or sets a dependency on something so modern it won't work with your distro, and you get to use a 10 step apt/dpkg
Re: [DNG] Identifying a file system
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 11:15:35PM +0200, Martin Steigerwald wrote: > Hendrik Boom - 11.08.19, 14:44:53 CEST: > > That may be true. You can also check with “wipefs” tool (don't worry, > > > without -a it won't wipe anything): > > > > > > wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 > > > > > > Wipefs has a big database of various filesystem metadata, it detects > > > almost anything. > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 > > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > > > Looks empty. > > > > Thanks. Now I wonder why I ever created that partition. > > To complete that, what does > > file -sk /dev/sda4 > > show? april:/farhome/hendrik# file -sk /dev/sda4 /dev/sda4: data april:/farhome/hendrik# I guess this means it didn't find anything to recognise. -- hendrik. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Identifying an installed physical hard drive without damage
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 05:17:08PM -0400, Miles Fidelman wrote: > On 8/11/19 3:10 PM, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > > On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:55:00PM +0200, Antony Stone wrote: > > > On Sunday 11 August 2019 at 14:37:09, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > > > > > > I do not know which of the hard drives on my machine is /dev/sdb/ > > > ... > > > > > > > Or is there some completely different way of accomplishing what I want? > > > # hdparm -i /dev/sdb > > > > > > It'll tell you the drive type and the serial number, which should also be > > > printed on the drive label. > > Yes, that will help! Thank you. > > > You could also execute a command that causes heavy load on /dev/sdb - be it > a test, or a search - and then see which drive's lights flash a lot (if the > drive has a light). Good idea, but no light. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] The real nessecity to have a Independent Distribution - PRIVACY
> The problem we are facing is MUCH bigger than that. This eye-opener > from Eben Moglen: > > https://19.re-publica.com/en/session/why-freedom-thought-requires-attention The diction parameters & voice pitch makes me think so hard about Richard Stallman. Thanks for sharing; Watching that now. Bernard Rosset https://rosset.net/ ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Identifying an installed physical hard drive without damage
On 8/11/19 3:10 PM, Hendrik Boom wrote: On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:55:00PM +0200, Antony Stone wrote: On Sunday 11 August 2019 at 14:37:09, Hendrik Boom wrote: I do not know which of the hard drives on my machine is /dev/sdb/ ... Or is there some completely different way of accomplishing what I want? # hdparm -i /dev/sdb It'll tell you the drive type and the serial number, which should also be printed on the drive label. Yes, that will help! Thank you. You could also execute a command that causes heavy load on /dev/sdb - be it a test, or a search - and then see which drive's lights flash a lot (if the drive has a light). Miles Fidelman ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Identifying a file system
Hendrik Boom - 11.08.19, 14:44:53 CEST: > That may be true. You can also check with “wipefs” tool (don't worry, > > without -a it won't wipe anything): > > > > wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 > > > > Wipefs has a big database of various filesystem metadata, it detects > > almost anything. > > april:/farhome/hendrik# wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > Looks empty. > > Thanks. Now I wonder why I ever created that partition. To complete that, what does file -sk /dev/sda4 show? -- Martin ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Identifying an installed physical hard drive without damage
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:55:00PM +0200, Antony Stone wrote: > On Sunday 11 August 2019 at 14:37:09, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > > I do not know which of the hard drives on my machine is /dev/sdb/ > > ... > > > Or is there some completely different way of accomplishing what I want? > > # hdparm -i /dev/sdb > > It'll tell you the drive type and the serial number, which should also be > printed on the drive label. Yes, that will help! Thank you. -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Identifying an installed physical hard drive without damage
On Sunday 11 August 2019 at 14:37:09, Hendrik Boom wrote: > I do not know which of the hard drives on my machine is /dev/sdb/ ... > Or is there some completely different way of accomplishing what I want? # hdparm -i /dev/sdb It'll tell you the drive type and the serial number, which should also be printed on the drive label. Antony. -- "A person lives in the UK, but commutes to France daily for work. He belongs in the UK." - From UK Revenue & Customs notice 741, page 13, paragraph 3.5.1 - http://tinyurl.com/o7gnm4 Please reply to the list; please *don't* CC me. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] The real nessecity to have a Independent Distribution - PRIVACY
Hello, thanks for sharing, On Sat, 10 Aug 2019 17:58:27 -0500 goli...@devuan.org wrote: > On 2019-08-10 17:19, s@po wrote: > > Hello to all Galaxy Devuaners out there, > > > > Found an article, I want to share with you( If you don't mind.. ). > > I think every single Person should read it.. to understand the > > importance of Privacy. > > It has some years,( which by that means that in today reality the case > > is a lot worse.. ). > > > > The Context: Privacy - Why is so urgently important to maintain a > > distribution, outside, of what I Consider "Criminal Activities"( Lack > > of Privacy ), > >Or by Other terms, away from "dark > > contractors", and so on.. > > > > Here is the URL: > > http://techrights.org/2014/01/17/rhel-security/ > > > > > > The problem we are facing is MUCH bigger than that. This eye-opener > from Eben Moglen: > > https://19.re-publica.com/en/session/why-freedom-thought-requires-attention > > For those of you who don't recognize this name: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen > > golinux A very good, and also true refrection session, great work from Eben! Regards, -- Let the force be with you tux ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Identifying a file system
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:24:25PM +0200, Tomasz Torcz wrote: > On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 08:18:54AM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:13:48PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > > On 10.08.19 21:51, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > > > So I want to find out what's in /dev/sda4 on my hard drive. The > > > > computer has *never* had Windows on it. So I try to mount it, and am > > > > told: > > > > > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# mount /dev/sda4 /test > > > > NTFS signature is missing. > > > > Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Invalid argument > > > > The device '/dev/sda4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. > > > > Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a > > > > partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way > > > > around? > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > > > > > > > Why would it try for and NTFS file system on a Linux machine? > > > > > > To move from speculation to analysis requires information. One way to > > > read the filesystem type of an unmounted filesystem is with blkid, e.g.: > > > > > > $ blkid /dev/sdb1 > > > /dev/sdb1: LABEL="fred" UUID="7713e1b5-1bdf-41d1-9aa9" TYPE="ext2" > > > > > > As you have not specified an fstype in the mount command, it'll normally > > > use the blkid libraries to discover the fstype in just this way, so > > > let's see what it finds. > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# blkid /dev/sda4 > > /dev/sda4: PARTLABEL="Linux filesystem" > > PARTUUID="14fdecea-4672-4d03-9660-868f3fd630ec" > > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > > > And if it doesn't mention type, should I presume that it's likely a > > partition that does not have a file system installed? Or at > > least not one the current Linux system can handle? > > That may be true. You can also check with “wipefs” tool (don't worry, > without -a it won't wipe anything): > > wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 > > Wipefs has a big database of various filesystem metadata, it detects > almost anything. april:/farhome/hendrik# wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 april:/farhome/hendrik# Looks empty. Thanks. Now I wonder why I ever created that partition. -- hendrik > > -- > Tomasz TorczOnly gods can safely risk perfection, > xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.pl it's a dangerous thing for a man. -- Alia > > ___ > Dng mailing list > Dng@lists.dyne.org > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
On 11.08.19 08:18, Hendrik Boom wrote: > On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:13:48PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > $ blkid /dev/sdb1 > > /dev/sdb1: LABEL="fred" UUID="7713e1b5-1bdf-41d1-9aa9" TYPE="ext2" > > > > As you have not specified an fstype in the mount command, it'll normally > > use the blkid libraries to discover the fstype in just this way, so > > let's see what it finds. > > april:/farhome/hendrik# blkid /dev/sda4 > /dev/sda4: PARTLABEL="Linux filesystem" > PARTUUID="14fdecea-4672-4d03-9660-868f3fd630ec" > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > And if it doesn't mention type, should I presume that it's likely a > partition that does not have a file system installed? Or at > least not one the current Linux system can handle? That seems a fairly safe bet. I don't have a partition here that hasn't had mkfs run on it, to confirm, but you'd expect some sort of "unrecognised filesystem" error if there's something alien there. You could try an explicit probe: $ blkid -p -n ntfs,vfat,ext3,ext4 /dev/sdb1 That gives more information if there's a hit, else silent return. But it looks like you're about ready to run mkfs on it, as there's no sign of life there. (At least a form you can communicate with. :-) Erik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Identifying an installed physical hard drive without damage
I have a failing hard drive (/dev/sdb). It still works most of the time. I'd like to pull it from my system and replace it. Unfortunately, I do not know which of the hard drives on my machine is /dev/sdb/ I can rule out two of them because they have a different capacity. I have physically labeled all these drives with stickers on the outside. Once upon a time each of these drives also had a partition on them containing a file that identified the sticker that was on the drive. But these partitions no longer seem to have a a file system in them. Something happened over the last ten years or so. Now I could make new partitions and put files in them with identifying information. And then I could unplug them one at a time, reboot and see which ones were still there. Then edit the identifying files to make them correspont to the outside labels. Trouble is, they contains partitions for a RAID-1. And when I disconnect one of them the RAID becomes defective, havint only one of its two drives. The computer of course will still work with one drive, but I'd like to avoid having one of the RAID partitions be effectively discarded or becoming desynchronised by this test. So is there a way of booting without trying to assemble a RAID? Or will its defectiveness be ignored it I don't try to read or write it? Is there a way of reassembling a RAID after it has temporarily been made defective? Would booting from an installation disk help? (assuming I can still use the machine's USB drives) If so, how do I stop it from messing with the existing paritions, since instalers seem to like wiping partitions clean? (Yes, the computer may need to be replaced. But then I'll have the same problem identifying my old hard drives when installed on the new machine.) Or is there some completely different way of accomplishing what I want? For example, removing the disk drive and connecting it to my laptop (a different computer) using a SATA-USB interface? Would it try to assemble the RAID if I just plug it in that way and have the same problems? -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 08:18:54AM -0400, Hendrik Boom wrote: > On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:13:48PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > On 10.08.19 21:51, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > > So I want to find out what's in /dev/sda4 on my hard drive. The > > > computer has *never* had Windows on it. So I try to mount it, and am > > > told: > > > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# mount /dev/sda4 /test > > > NTFS signature is missing. > > > Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Invalid argument > > > The device '/dev/sda4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. > > > Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a > > > partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way > > > around? > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > > > > > Why would it try for and NTFS file system on a Linux machine? > > > > To move from speculation to analysis requires information. One way to > > read the filesystem type of an unmounted filesystem is with blkid, e.g.: > > > > $ blkid /dev/sdb1 > > /dev/sdb1: LABEL="fred" UUID="7713e1b5-1bdf-41d1-9aa9" TYPE="ext2" > > > > As you have not specified an fstype in the mount command, it'll normally > > use the blkid libraries to discover the fstype in just this way, so > > let's see what it finds. > > april:/farhome/hendrik# blkid /dev/sda4 > /dev/sda4: PARTLABEL="Linux filesystem" > PARTUUID="14fdecea-4672-4d03-9660-868f3fd630ec" > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > And if it doesn't mention type, should I presume that it's likely a > partition that does not have a file system installed? Or at > least not one the current Linux system can handle? That may be true. You can also check with “wipefs” tool (don't worry, without -a it won't wipe anything): wipefs --no-act /dev/sda4 Wipefs has a big database of various filesystem metadata, it detects almost anything. -- Tomasz TorczOnly gods can safely risk perfection, xmpp: zdzich...@chrome.pl it's a dangerous thing for a man. -- Alia ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
On Sun, Aug 11, 2019 at 02:13:48PM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > On 10.08.19 21:51, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > So I want to find out what's in /dev/sda4 on my hard drive. The > > computer has *never* had Windows on it. So I try to mount it, and am > > told: > > > > april:/farhome/hendrik# mount /dev/sda4 /test > > NTFS signature is missing. > > Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Invalid argument > > The device '/dev/sda4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. > > Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a > > partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way > > around? > > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > > > Why would it try for and NTFS file system on a Linux machine? > > To move from speculation to analysis requires information. One way to > read the filesystem type of an unmounted filesystem is with blkid, e.g.: > > $ blkid /dev/sdb1 > /dev/sdb1: LABEL="fred" UUID="7713e1b5-1bdf-41d1-9aa9" TYPE="ext2" > > As you have not specified an fstype in the mount command, it'll normally > use the blkid libraries to discover the fstype in just this way, so > let's see what it finds. april:/farhome/hendrik# blkid /dev/sda4 /dev/sda4: PARTLABEL="Linux filesystem" PARTUUID="14fdecea-4672-4d03-9660-868f3fd630ec" april:/farhome/hendrik# And if it doesn't mention type, should I presume that it's likely a partition that does not have a file system installed? Or at least not one the current Linux system can handle? -- hendrik ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
Hey, On dg., ag. 11 2019, Hendrik Boom wrote: So I want to find out what's in /dev/sda4 on my hard drive. The computer has *never* had Windows on it. So I try to mount it, and am told: april:/farhome/hendrik# mount /dev/sda4 /test NTFS signature is missing. Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Invalid argument The device '/dev/sda4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. Just adding two things to what marc wrote: partition number 4 (sda4) is very often used as the extended partition in DOS partition tables. Regardless of its type, you should check the partition table; it will have the type byte set for each partition which says which use it's supposed to have, though it can actually not match the partition contents. I recall gparted and IIRC parted show this quite nicely. man parted was useful (at the very least the help command was). If it is an extended partition, then it's not supposed to be mountable, but you should check the 5th partition instead. Another fun thing that will work even if you are not using a DOS partition table is: just hexdump it! dd if=/dev/sda4 bs=1M count=1 | hd | less File systems usually have some kind of readable ASCII information at the beginning and amongst others an NTFS partition will be obvious there. -- Evilham ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
> Why would it try for and NTFS file system on a Linux machine? The way I understand it is that without a filesystem type, mount will try all (disk-based) filesystem drivers that you have currently loaded. And the ntfs driver generates some debug output when it fails. So nothing to worry about. It does make sense - sensibly enough the kernel has no other[1] facility to work out what filesystem is really on a given partition - it has to invoke the filesystem driver to find out. regards marc [1] partition ids, etc may provide a clue but consider the case of your magic new filesystem that you have just written a kernel driver for... ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] why does mount expect NTFS?
Could it be exfat? I sometimes see NTFS messages appear in syslog when I try to mount exfat drives using pmount. > On 11 Aug 2019, at 11:51, Hendrik Boom wrote: > > So I want to find out what's in /dev/sda4 on my hard drive. The > computer has *never* had Windows on it. So I try to mount it, and am > told: > > april:/farhome/hendrik# mount /dev/sda4 /test > NTFS signature is missing. > Failed to mount '/dev/sda4': Invalid argument > The device '/dev/sda4' doesn't seem to have a valid NTFS. > Maybe the wrong device is used? Or the whole disk instead of a > partition (e.g. /dev/sda, not /dev/sda1)? Or the other way > around? > april:/farhome/hendrik# > > Why would it try for and NTFS file system on a Linux machine? > > -- hendrik > > ___ > Dng mailing list > Dng@lists.dyne.org > https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
