[DNG] Init respawns - was: Be prepared for the fall of systemd
Two empire falls recorded during the last two millenia it are the fall of the mighty Roman Empire and that of the Ottoman Empire. Both were extremely powerful influencing most of the worlds of their times, but they fell. What I expect from systemd and its adoption by many distributions is to recognise its problems and work harder to implement any advantages it may have had. Like many Devuaneers (users and advocates of Devuan), I expect an init system to remain an init system and package modularity to persist. I also expect a predictable behaviour from an init system. On my Raspberry Pi, systemd occasionally lists sound cards erratically breaking their ID number. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Lennart now working for Microsoft
Let me understand... So, this excellent coder first grabs the opportunity offered to him by RedHat, and now, after the latter made him rich, he is leaving them! Please, anyone explain to me, how can anyone extend a day beyond the usual 24 hours? Systemd is not a simple game like the many one can find, it is literally a very complex piece of software with many functions that hardly can be logically imagined to be produced by the same project. This latter fact, is asking for more systemd problems. Regrettably, I have it running on my raspberry pi mini-computer because I could not find a way to let the OS recognise and use an IQAudIO DAC PRO hat (a sound card). If Devuan can do it, that would be the death knell of my installation using the blessed systemd. Thanks to all for using and supporting Devuan. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Question about the text editor named medit.
Dear All, Going to packages/debian.org I found other packages similar to medit like bluefish and jedit. I tried jedit first, but its font rendering is aggressive on my aging eyes and resorted to using bluefish which has its font rendering more comparable to medit's. That is the beauty of open source: it ultrapampers its users by a wide choice! Not only, there is no software lock-in, but it offers several other choices with more advanced features. Thanks to all developers who employ their precious time to offer this to all. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Question about the text editor named medit.
Dear All, Upgrading to chimeara removed medit, a text editor I used for writing code and any other plain text document. I could not install it and it seems it has been removed from the repository. Searching online for a recently updated source tarball, I did not find any. It seems it has been abandoned by its developer/s. Thanks for your replies. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] snetaid debs...
Quote: Aitor wrote: "Being about five years on from what was your simple-netaid project, which has substantially evolved since then hoping that the outcome will be for the good of the project, the idea of reviving both your backend and gui in free pascal, but this time drawn upon libnetaid and snetaid (in replacement of the suid bit) is a challenge that might make this work more fun :)" [End of Quote] Dear Aitor, There are no hard feelings from me, notwithstanding my project is now defunct. I would like to thank you for adopting it in your own way to modernise it so that it can be secure and enjoyed by everyone. Sincerily, thanks for all your time and dedication. Thanks to Devuan, I am using what was known as Debian without the burden of systemd. As you clearly indicate, the old version uses an SUID executable to get root privileges which is a security hole which Devuan did very well to close, even though it broke my latest version of simple-netaid-*. In my limited use case, I worked around the breakage by removing the GUI component and using only the backend as root. It works in my case, but other users may require more functionality, which thanks to people like you, they can have. Sincerily, THANKS for your time and effort. Regarding the idea of importing functionality from your libraries to let my latest version of simple-netaid-* connect without the requirement of an SUID tag, although it can be done, there is no need for Devuan, as users can already use your project. Finally, I would like to renew my appreciation and thanks for helping the Devuan Project with your precious time. Thanks goes also to all the rest of Developers and volunteers who help the project. Edward ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] snetaid debs...
Hi Golinux, If Devuan users have other alternatives to my project, it is a pleasure to know. My current pleasure is being able to still use Devuan without systemd which used to frequently crash my machines. I have learnt, and in this, you were a VERY GOOD TEACHER, that having a too fat ego, does not conduct to happiness, but most often, to endless frustration. My true satisfaction in this project, was being a little strut, albeit very weak, supporting Devuan during its faetal/gestational months. Edward ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] snetaid debs...
Dear Devuan Developers and Users, First a well deserved thanks goes to all developers who dedicate their precious time to the development of Devuan. Second, my thanks goes to all users. The name "snetaid" made me remember of my now defunct project. Searching on the project's git repository I found it has been removed, so, it is dead and forgotten. I am still using my "broken" version of simple-netaid-backend. The GUI frontend required me to do some changes including giving file access to some protected directories. The use of a more stringent kernel based file security model, apparmor, broke both the backend and GUI frontend. I know I can disable apparmor, but that is not good security practice. So, I am using only the backend as root, and it works for me. The backend is something which I have written although it has flaws and was never truly completed. The main issue I see is, it assumes that to "automatically connect" means to connect with the most powerful wifi signal, which, honestly, is not always correct. Edward ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] FSF and human rights
The rise of the new inquisition as a respondent has aptly described is worrying. A person loses all their merits as a consequence of one error, controversial opinion or belief. An intellectually brilliant person like Stallman is more than one opinion or belief. The several decades they have lived for and the work they did to improve software accessibility to lower social classes can never be denied: this is a fact. Free open source software is more financially accessible to the lower classes. Besides that, software lock-ins are quite rare if not completely not present. I can only write about my particular case, in which free software has increased my ability to experience different types of applications without spending thousands of Euros. The new trend to discredit completely anyone who makes such controversial claims, is more like a modern socially accepted way of humiliation of anyone not adhering to what must be 'obvious'. There are other ways of admonishing anyone besides 'accepted' character assassinations. In my opinion, this is a move towards the past when beliefs challenging the accepted status quo were publicly chastised. The proper reaction should not be one of a complete character devaluation and assassination, but one which points out any possible problematic scenarios as a direct consequence of such an opinion or belief. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] Overlay filesystems and readonly partition mounts.
Dear All, I read the suggested shell script to provide an overlay filesystem in Raspbian and found nothing that can damage my setup. I will use that script. All file writes will directed to RAM. Edward -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) If you cannot make abstructions about details you do not understand the concepts underlying them. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Overlay filesystems and readonly partition mounts.
Dear All, I would like to harden my Raspberry Pi music player to prevent filesystem damage on power failures. Reading about how to boot the Pi in readonly mode, I found there is a script which can do the job without much bothering on my part. However, it is better to find a custom solution rather than rely on a solution which makes use assumptions which may not be true for my use case. I have moved my music directories and files to a dedicated partition on the SDCard which I mount as "ro,noatime". This means, part of the problem is solved, but there is still the root file system which is writeable and can become corrupted as a result of a power failure. I read that overlay filesystems can solve the problem by providing a base readonly file system and a top read-write filesystem. According to my understanding, I can provide the top writeable filesystem by creating a file tree which are frequently written to. I can make this as a memory resident filesystem like tmpfs. Then, the actual root filesystem would be mounted readonly with the tmpfs on top of it and merged with it. This would require me to copy the file tree to tmpfs with every system boot. This seems like a solution. Suggestions are most welcome. Thanks to all, and happy feasts to all those who are celebrating at this time of the year. Edward ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, After the modesetting issue stopped manifesting itself for some days, it started again, and now, it is almost happening with every system boot. As the sceen is completely unreadable with unaligned pixels, I tried the modprobe command without a display and paying attention not to make typing mistakes, and attempted to load the i915 kernel module. The result was, the display returned to normal, but some modules were still missing, as I couldn't connect to a wifi. My conclusion is, for some reason, these modules are failing to load. A shell script checking for i915 and r6981 and loading the missing modules can solve the issue, but others may have better solutions. Suggestions for warkarounds, are most welcome. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox and its forks are losing the power of add-ons.
Huh! Geekiness, in some circumstances, can mean lots of wealth! I has happened to some: I cannot blame them for trying their luck. Cheers. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox and its forks are losing the power of add-ons.
Dear All, Lately, I am noticing Waterfox has lost the ability to display my add-ons, which are AdGuard AdBlocker and NoScript. I had about two more in the past, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to have any that work. My preferences are an ad-free internet experience, or at least, if not entirely ad-free, with intrusive adds blocked, and a font rendering with a large than normal font size. The latter, is provided by Waterfox itself, but adds are favoured to intrude and steal bandwidth and processing power which I do not have much of. I would like to ask whether a software proxy running on the same machine would be able to provide adequate ad filtering. I have iptables installed, but it is not configured and configuration requires some networking knowledge which unfortunately I do not have. I tried to find a GUI front end for iptables, but failed to find what is suitable for my very limited networking knowledge. If you have other solutions which I did not think of, please suggest them. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Edward. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, The issue seems to have been caused by the laptop's battery electronics. I removed the battery and reconfigured the kernel package to rebuild initrd.img. Rebooting did not reproduce the issue. However, I need several days to confirm the issue has truly been resolved. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Linux kernel boot causing screen to become unreadable.
Dear All, Lately, on an HP Probook 4540s, while booting Devuan Boewulf the screen becomes completely unreabled with unsynchronized lines of pixels. I will not be surprised if this is some sick joke by HP, to force their customers to buy new, but I do not know if this is the case with what I am experiencing. The hopelessly corrupted display persists even when startx is invoked, but the screen pixels indicate X fails to load. The 'joke' vanishes if I try to reboot the machine without switching off power and startx works as if nothing of the sort exists. I am asking but bearing in mind, the HP is not very Linux friendly and that this issue might be some creative joke on their part. Afterall, Aitor was right, that HP are not very Linux friendly! Those who have a solution please reply. I tried the 'nomodeset' kernel parameter but it made the issue even worse. Thanks in advance. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] 'apt-get update' fails on Devuan Boewulf.
Hi, Lately, when I attempt to update Devuan Boewulf, apt-get fails complaining that I should explicitly accept the repositories. Reading 'man apt-secure' talks about changes in Debian's security which has the aim to reinforce package security further. While this is good news, it is proving also to be a headache. What should I do to allow Devuan upgrade itself while at the same time using the new more stringent security model? Finally, a word of thanks to BOTH Debian and Devuan for working hard to improve security. Thanks for taking your time to read and answer this question. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Boewulf: at XFCE4 start, mouse ptr freezes for ~2mins.
Hi Everyone, On Boewult when XFCE4 starts, the mouse pointer remains unresponsive for about 2 minutes. This is a touchpad mouse on HP Probook 4540s. The only module that seems to be related that is loaded is psmouse. This is from dmesg: # dmesg | grep mouse [2.51] mousedev: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice [3.559859] psmouse serio4: synaptics: queried max coordinates: x [..5756], y [..4876] [3.599714] psmouse serio4: synaptics: queried min coordinates: x [1212..], y [996..] [3.672070] psmouse serio4: synaptics: Touchpad model: 1, fw: 7.5, id: 0x1e0b1, caps: 0xf00473/0x64/0xa2400/0x0, board id: 1397, fw id: 958907 Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] What an Ad hominem!
Hi, SystemD detractors may, like myself, be repelled from using it because everytime they installed a systemd based distribution, it always greeted them with a system-wide freeze. Microsoft Windows has solved that issue of system-wide freezes since almost two decades. On my music player based on Raspberry Pi 3B+ and a Pi DAC Pro from IQaudIO, I was greeted with a system-wide freeze after only a few boots. Why should this happen on a system which is based on a SDCard which may become corrupted beyond boot for most users? In my case it is not a problem, as I take the SDCard from the Pi and fix it on another Linux machine using fsck. It is not hate or irrational conservatism that draws most users away from systemd, but the fact that it is a complicated piece of software very prone to serious system-wide issues. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Video modesetting issue under Boewulf.
Hi, While trying to boot Boewulf I encountered two or three occasions of a serious video modesetting malfunction the result of which is a completely garbaged display. The display is completely unreadable, although unreadable is not the appropriate term to use as there is nothing that remotely resembles text. The problem is so severe it persists until even when xdm loads. Please note, I cannot ascertain readers xdm was actually loaded as I could read nothing and the display remained the same kind of garbage displayed as soon as the kernel took over from grub. Rebooting resolved the issues in all three cases. The GPU is the infamous: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) And the driver in use is: video 45056 1 i915 I am posting hoping this feedback is helpful for the betterment of Devuan. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Waterfox issues under Devuan ASCII
Hi, I upgraded Ascii to Beowulf and successfully used the new version of Waterfox. However, there are certain issues like a missing copy of dpkg-reconfigure. I also noticed that Beowulf now comes with more stringent security. A side effect of the increased security caused my version of simple-netaid-gui, the one coded under Lazarus, to fail in accessing certain directories. The SUID backend is also denied access to these directories with the effect of failing to connect to any connection. I had run the SUID backend as root to be able to establish a connection. Please note, I am only describing the consequences of an increased more stringent security. I am NOT pleading the distribution to change to please my whims. Manually, I am still able to connect as root with the backend. However, suggestions as to how I can access files with the frontend are most welcome. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Waterfox issues under Devuan ASCII
Hi, I will upgrade to Beowulf. As usual, I will upgrade dpkg, apt, aptitude and the kernel first and then reboot with the new versions. Then, I will do an "apt-get dist-upgrade". If there are more critical packages which need to be upgraded first, please post. The above worked in Debian when there were dist-upgrade issues. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Waterfox issues under Devuan ASCII
Hi, I tried to extract the contents of the current .tar.gz2 archive in /opt as suggested but failed with the following error: -ERROR- # tar xjf waterfox-current-2020.04.en-US.linux-x86_64.tar.bz2 . tar: .: Not found in archive tar: Exiting with failure status due to previous errors - Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Waterfox issues under Devuan ASCII
Hi, I would like to ask whether Devuan and Waterfox are still compatible. Updates of Waterfox are not working. I tried the classic version as the new one may have more issues. The 'old' version of waterfox I am using freezes the mouse pointer on startup. The error is the following: ERROR--- $ ./waterfox XPCOMGlueLoad error for file /home/edbarx/waterfox-classic/liblgpllibs.so: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.27' not found (required by /home/edbarx/waterfox-classic/liblgpllibs.so) Couldn't load XPCOM. -- Thanks for your replies. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Tried Debian Stretch with systemd out of constrainsts
Hi, Thanks for the links. The https://github.com/Ho-Ro/Hantek6022API is a promising resource. My USB oscilloscope is the version succeeding Hantek6022. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Tried Debian Stretch with systemd out of constrainsts
Hi, First of all thanks for replying. It seems the driver is installed according to usb-devices. The interesting stanza is the following: T: Bus=07 Lev=01 Prnt=01 Port=00 Cnt=01 Dev#= 6 Spd=480 MxCh= 0 D: Ver= 2.00 Cls=00(>ifc ) Sub=00 Prot=00 MxPS=64 #Cfgs= 1 P: Vendor=04b5 ProdID=6cde Rev=00.00 S: Manufacturer=ODM S: Product=DSO Device C: #Ifs= 1 Cfg#= 1 Atr=a0 MxPwr=500mA I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 2 Cls=ff(vend.) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=(none) Running both the manufacturer's graphical frontend for the oscilloscope under wine and openhantek fail to detect the oscilloscope. For both of them the oscilloscope does not exist. The firmware and its loader have been extracted from the Windows drivers. Knowing the vendor ID and the Product ID I should be able to communicate with the oscilloscope. Any ideas how this can be done? ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Tried Debian Stretch with systemd out of constrainsts
These last few days I tried Debian Stretch with systemd on a piece of 'old' hardware. I used Stretch to allow snapd and then openhantek to be installed. The following is my experience: I do not intend to negatively criticise systemd just for the sake of it. I would like to recount my experience, which is the experience of someone, who had to try systemd out of constraints, but was set back for various reasons. During boot Stretch faltered several times. The first falter was, trying to resume from swap. This wasted about one minute of boot time. The second was udev complaining pcspkr was already detected or something like that. Then udev faltered at least twice wasting more than 90 seconds. The reason was Broadcomm wifi driver not being successfully loaded. As if these grave hiccups were not enough, there was yet another delay when the boot 'MTA' line was displayed. After this long unnecessary wait and rising exaspiration, the login manager screen appeared. When the desktop, xfce4, was displayed I was yet another time dismayed to notice the time lag graphics were being rendered and I remembered someone on this mailing list discussed Debian's decision to use the main CPU as a graphics renderer when a proper powerful GPU is apsent. Needless to state this was a blow under the belt for me: I could not use a computer with so much sluggishness. This made me think about those who cannot afford to frequently replace their computers and yet they are being constrained to replace their old hardware, because newer software expects to use a proper GPU, and this under Linux! So, I decided to remove systemd and point to Devuan's ASCII repository. I did the usual dist-upgrade command with Debian's repository still included in /etc/apt/sources.list. Then, I installed sysvinit and removed systemd. At the end, I removed the link to Debian's repository and only used Devuan's. When I booted the system, there was an initial delay caused by the swap partition's UUID being mismatched. Udev continued to misbehave and waste boot time, pcspkr also caused another delay, dhclient yet another delay and finally, the MTA line, whatever that may be. These problems were corrected by making sure to reinstall the kernel, udev and the Broadcomm firmware. I also made sure the right UUID for swap is used. Now, the OS boots nicely without systemd which is supposed to surpass sysvinit regarding boot speed. I still have yet not figured out how to avoid having to use snapd and install the firmware for the oscilloscope, Hantek 6000B (USB). I have successfully extracted .hex files from the MS Windows drivers but have no idea what to do with these hex files which are supposed to contain the oscilloscope's firmware. The openhantek package has a .rules udev file to enable detection of the oscilloscope. However, the kernel still wants to know where to look for the oscilloscope's firmware, and that particular information is missing. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Conversion script: was Formail for managing digests
Dear All, Inits need to understand unit files, give them that functionality. That is far more efficient compared to what you are doing. Pseudo Code: 1) check for the presence of a unit file 2) if it exists a) branch to function to read unit file and run daemon b) if NOT execute shell script to run daemon Programming allows to create a configuration text file which tells an init to be aware of the existence of unit files. This can be used to minimize the incidence of bugs for cases where no unit files are used. The extra functionality can be debugged in separate functions. -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) If you cannot make abstructions about details you do not understand the concepts underlying them. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss
Quote from Bruce Ferrel: "There are actually a couple of ways around the SD wear issue, even though people seem to dearly LOVE SSDs with the exact same issue; 1.) Use a USB drive. 2.) Somewhat more esoteric, PXE boot and run from an NFS image." [/Quote] You are right, people love SD Cards, not for their limitations, but for their great convenience. A tiny SD Card can hold gigabytes of files and it fits neatly in the the Raspberry Pi itself. No need of combersome USB external drives dangling around, and more importantly, no need of extra expenses. Remember, money makes a lot of sense to many people, and I dare say, a lot of people do not have much to spare. Quote from Simon Hobson: Ah yes, to think that many of us routinely carry around in our pockets more storage, RAM, and CPU capacity than we could have dreamed of having access to back when I got into IT. Cue obligatory Four Yorkshiremen sketch :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k [/Quote] In the old days people used to die from bacterial infections often after a long painful illness. Today, thanks to great people working in medicine, we have no idea of these terrible experiences. Progress is nice when done properly. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss
Hi all, The Raspberry Pi is very frequency used with an SD Card which is highly intolerant of frequent writes as these are limited. My first SD Card became read only after about six weeks with Devuan running. Using Raspbian, this issue did not repeat itself. Needless to state, although it seems, it is actually needed for some people, the Raspberry Pi is not a full blown server, although it can be used by the hobbyist adolescent who wants to experiment and learn. The suggested defaults in this thread will make Devuan even more unuseable for the vast majority of use cases concerning the Raspberry Pi. For those who cannot affort brand new hardware, they can always opt to use second hand hardware. If one wants a cheap computer/server, there is absolutely no need to buy new or to buy the best of brands. In short, trying defaults which assume an infinite number of disk writes, is contrary to what a Raspberry Pi is. Please, promote defaults that respect what a Raspberry Pi is. Finally, Devuan's Image for Raspberry Pi did NOT DETECT my sound card by IQaudIO atlhough the kernel modules were included in the image. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Insane defaults on Raspberry Pi images - How to fix corruption/dataloss
Hi, I have been using the Raspberry Pi for a music player with an IQaudIO DAC PRO card. First, I used Devuan, which very sadly, did not recognize the DAC. After about 2 months of using Devuan, my SDCard, was burnt: no more write cycles were allowed and it become read-only. To correct this, and at the same time, to continue using Devuan, I used 'noatime', and this resulted in the SDCard remaining useable without issues. However, not being able to use the DAC, and after being advised from the DAC's manufacturer, I had to switch to Raspbian. The latter, readily recognised the DAC and I could use it. The audio difference betweent the Pi's built in sound chip and the DAC, is outstanding, to say the least. So, needless to state, I am now on Raspbian, but with an init other than systemd. Pi users normally use an SDCard for their OS. I would have imagined a read-only bootable installation with file writes restricted to when an OS is shutdown, or better, on user requests. This to protect the SDCard. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
Re: [DNG] ..the D in Systemd is for Directories: Poettering says his creation will phone /home in future ... albeit with broken SSH login
Since, some mentioned KDE, I would like to recount my latest experience with it. I was having difficulty with XFCE as its touch pad configuration is very poor. Moving the mouse pointer around was like dragging 100Kg across rough ground! The displacement of the mouse pointer across the screen was less than the actual displacement of my finger on the touch pad! Currently, I am running KDE without having issues of bloat, and my system, is definitely not state of the art. With Waterfox, medit and simple-netaid (Lazarus version) running this is my memory use: totalusedfree shared buff/cache available Mem: 3835 8201966 11310482658 Swap: 0 0 0 Needless to state, I did not install the complete KDE desktop. KDE is not burdening my poor integrated GPU as it defaulted to a very basic rendering mode. I do not know whether this is a direct consequence of KDE itself, or the fact, the kernel is having problems with the i915 graphics driver. In fact, the kernel is reporting a buffer underrun at startup. This is a bug that existed several years ago, but recently, and because I use Devuan, it has shown it ugly head again. On 28/09/2019, Dan Purgert wrote: > On Sep 27, 2019, goli...@devuan.org wrote: >> Sigh . . . If only Devuan development could generate the participation >> and >> enthusiasm that the silliness of systemd bashing does . . . > > I gotta get less bad at a lot of things before I can help there :(. > > -- > |_|O|_| > |_|_|O| Github: https://github.com/dpurgert > |O|O|O| PGP: 05CA 9A50 3F2E 1335 4DC5 4AEE 8E11 DDF3 1279 A281 > -- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) If you cannot make abstructions about details you do not understand the concepts underlying them. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Help to install LiLo to a GPT HDD.
As far as I remember, you have to make sure the bootloader's kernel is at a sector that LILO can access. GPT is too new for LILO. You also have to provide space where the bootloader saves its second stage, always if my assumption that it uses the same mechanism used by legacy GRUB, is correct. So, according to me, you should leave the very first partition next to the initial GPT headers free and unformatted. Use a very small partition space. All this if from memory which often is wrong with the passage of so many years since I last used LILO and installed GRUB. GRUB works on GPT formatted disks under a UEFI system. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] dependency hell OR it should not be this hard
Steve Litt wrote: "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." That is precisely my programming philosophy. Like you, I ask, 'Why would anyone include a huge mess of libraries just to use a few functions?' I have been using my version of simple-netaid since Devuan's inception. If someone produces a competitor that is simpler and lighter on resources, it will definitely be the end of my creation. In fact, before learning about Firefox, more than ten years ago, I used a web-browser I wrote based on an activeX object exporting Microsoft Internet Explorer web-browser engine. Firefox was far better than trying to tame Internet Explorer in disguise, so I switched without regrets. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox-esr freezes ASCII
To pay my bills online I use Chromium as I have no other choice. Websites are becoming dictators as to which browser one uses. To do normal browsing, I am using Waterfox which is Firefox without the late many 'cool' additions. This experience is making me nostalgic of the times when I was using Debian Sarge and Debian Etch! ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox-esr freezes ASCII
For the information of everyone: I would like to inform all those concerned that firefox-esr is causing ASCII to freeze. Getting access to a terminal is almost impossible. Yesterday, I had to power off the machine. I did not investigate why the issue is happening as the system became extremely unresponsive. Recalling when I used MS Windows 95/98/Millenium, this is worse than those. Please note, this post is not intended as a complaint against the Devuan distribution. Firefox is not written by Devuan. My post should be viewed as an advice to anyone still using firefox who would not like to get their OS crashing. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] backups from ext4 to ntfs - extended attributes and access control lists
I use fsarchiver. The backup is a single very large file that can be restored using the same program. You can even restore a partition to a larger one. Do not backup mounted partitions. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] simple-netaid from scratch
Aitor wrote: "We must think on the devuan project, we hate narcissism :)" Narcissism is a delusion; there is nothing to like about it. During youth it prevents sufferers from identifying their weaknesses lowering their chances of success. I am using my version not to stroke my ego; that need to be disciplined, reality is far more important than living in an unreal world with far less chances of success. Embrace reality. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox Quantum 60.6.2esr freezes XFCE on ASCII
Firefox ESR is freezing XFCE on ASCII. Getting to Ctrl+Alt+F1 takes many seconds and logging in a terminal also takes very long. I am reluctantly posting this from within Chromium. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] simple-netaid from scratch
Hi Aitor, I, like many other Devuan users, hope that the last crises is over and that it will never happen again. The purpose of replying to your thread is to ask why you are rewriting the backend from the very beginning. Needless to state, I am still using my version of simple-netaid with its simple graphical interface. However, this does not mean I will not consider better competitors. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Is Beowulf useable?
Hi all, I have a CLI based music player based on Raspberry Pi 3B+ with ASCII installed. Is Beowulf stable enough to be used with a terminal, mpg123 and mplayer? There is no GUI installed. The major problem I am finding with ASCII is not having my Pi DAC PRO recognised notwithstanding all kernel modules are installed. I tried the 'dtoverlay' intruction in /boot/config.txt in vain. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Firefox does not recognize extensions.
The ad-blocking Firefox extensions uBlock Origin, NoScript and the page zooming extension Zoom Page WE no longer work. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Thanks to all.
Today, I updated my nephew's computer with Devuan ASCII installed. The update was successful without issues. I think, it is only deserved for all those who work hard to host and set up Devuan mirror servers to be thanked. Thanks a lot. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] [devuan-dev] Of confidence and support and the future of Devuan.
As a Devuan user I suggest the Devuan Administrative Team to consider the thinking of a detailed contingency plan in case of a crises that should include how to deal with internal conflicts and what to do when important servers fail. I would also suggest setting up emergency supplimentary servers that should stay dormant when there are no problems. By servers I do not mean those extremely expensive servers but also normal home computers. Furthermore, why not use virtualisation for these all important servers? In case a virtual machine breaks another instance should spring into life to replace it. These are my suggestions: I admit I am not at all versed where servers are involved let alone their adminstration. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] New application ready to test: hopman
Making it a Debian package should be easy. Use dh_make to create a 'debian' subdirectory with the necessary Debian control files. Then, when that is ready build the debian packages using 'gbp buildpackage'. Both commands should be run in the source's top directory. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Please, inform users about the current 'health' of Devuan.
Following the last crises in the Administration of Devuan, as a user of Devuan who appreciates init freedom, I am worried. Is the crises over or not? What about the void created by katolaZ? The fact that there are business entities who want init freedom is something of a blessing. I congratulate Jaromil for having the charisma of recognizing decisional errors: that is a quality of good leaders. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Way forward
It was surprising to me to read what Jaromil wrote in one of his replies regarding the April Fools prank. In short, the statement was that Devuan takes no responsibility whatever the outcome of its use. Any invester will definitely make a lot of effort to avoid such a possibility that can ruin one's business, as confidence is a very determinant variable in economics. This simple principle does not need a degree in economics to understand. Although, I was not present in the conferences, I can imagine what was the problem. That prank was completely misplaced: as someone replied, one does not joke with security. The latter can mean lost business. Why is it so hard to understand this? ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] The 1st Devuan conference kicks off tomorrow afternoon!
Would like to read news about the conference. Did it make a difference in the world of Linux or not? Was the message about the advantages of modularity understood/accepted? What about init choice freedom? ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Update on the Green Hat Hackers attack
On 01/04/2019, info at smallinnovations dot nl wrote: > On 01-04-19 09:03, KatolaZ wrote: >> Dear D1rs, >> >> we have analysed in depth the attack from the "Green Hat Hackers" that >> compromised the Devuan infrastructure in the last hours, and we >> concluded that you all are: >> >>* APRIL FOOLS * >> >> :P >> >> Hope you enjoyed the new Devuan gopherholes, as they are most probably >> going to stay. Everything will be back to "normal" on: >> >>* Mon 01 Apr 2019 01:04:19 PM UTC * >> >> if you are wondering, unfortunately 1554123859 is not a prime number :\ >> >> >> See you at the 1st Devuan Conference on 5,6,7 April 2019. For more info: >> >> gopher://www.devuan.org/0/os/debian-fork/d1conf-announce-20190119.txt >> >> Never forget to Live, Love, Linux, and have a good Laugh! >> >> LLoLL >> > > I do not mind being a fool but i expected the Dev1 team to be wiser then > joking about security. Another such joke and you have a mirror site less > in the future. > > Grtz. > > Nick > Yes, hit them where it hurts. This is a 'joke' from some self inflated egos who think playing with 'customers' trust is a joke! How shall such naivity be described? Is it a sign of great intellectual ability? From someone who holds a PhD, users expect better. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Devuan on Raspberry Pi 3B+. Sound card driver installation.
Searching for installed kernel modules using locate I found the actual modules for the DAC are installed. However, using modprobe did not result in the modules being loaded. Modprobe complained with the error: modprobe: FATAL: module name not found in directory /lib/modules/4.16.12-v8+ After that I used depmod to create the necessary module dependencies, but failed again to successfully load the modules. To arrive at the this point I consulted the IQaudIO manual for the DACs. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Devuan on Raspberry Pi 3B+. Sound card driver installation.
I have a raspberry Pi with a Pi DAC Pro sound for which there is no driver installed. Searching online takes me to readily prepared operating system images that I do not want to use as I am using Devuan. Does anyone know what I should do to be able to use the Pi DAC Pro sound card under Devuan? VolumeIO, a strongly suggested OS, badly smells of a software lock-in, something I really want to avoid as I have already experienced it when I used Delphi under MS Windows. Thanks. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Devuan on Raspberry Pi
-- If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. (Albert Einstein) If you cannot make abstructions about details you do not understand the concepts underlying them. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] simple-netaid-backend debugged.
Hi Everyone, My version of simple-netaid-backend has been debugged to connect when there is only one active wifi hotspot. It was previously failing to connect because there was an error in a while loop which prevented iteration from taking place when there was only one active wifi hotspot. Please, note my graphical frontend does not use unnecessary cosmetics to make it look appealing to the eyes. My aim was simplicity and low use of system processing and memory. Moreover, the backend establishes a connection using low level calls to avoid using ifupdown. It uses instead ifconfig, iwconfig, wpa_supplicant and dhclient. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Systemd as tragedy
Whether systemd is a tragedy or not, I will not say, but whenever I tried it, I was always greeted with OS crashes. At first, I tried to use it for a media player but, needless to state, the OS crashed for no reason. With an SD card as the storage medium this becomes a nuisance as one has to take out the SD card, insert it in another machine, and run fsck to repair damage done by not shutting down properly. I have already an impredictable mains supply that has the habit of suspending itself at its own whims. I do not need a pseudo-init that has been constantly fed features it shouldn't feature as an init rendering it the most obese of all. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Added desktop-live to the install guides
On 02/01/2019, goli...@dyne.org wrote: > On 2019-01-01 21:37, Steve Litt wrote: >> The degree of attentiveness we now >> demand in our workplaces has been a positive trait for only a >> couple centuries, and genetics hasn't caught up. So blame is >> counterproductive. >> > > I beg to differ. It's not in the genetics. It's in how we choose to > live. The level of consciousness in parts of the world hundreds of years > BC surpasses what we are capable of today. Our individual > traits/skills/talents are the resultants of the quality of our past > actions over millennia. IOW we start a life with what what is > commensurate to who we have been. So choose wisely. > > golinux > What 'consciousness' you are talking about?! So, according to you, speculation becomes proven facts? These 'dull days' a scientific hypothesis must pass through various stages to become a theory. I have a 'hypothesis' of how the human brain generates consciousness, but that, is only a USELESS UNPROVEN HYPOTHESIS irrespective of how intricate and detailed it may happen to be. Observe ---> hypothesize ---> publish ---> peer review ---> paradigm ---> theory Now, narcissists can start to manipulate what I wrote in the most puerile ways imaginable. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] IceCat
So, this is yet another limited browser that many modern web-sites find repulsive to connect to. It is clear the problem is not the browsers themselves, but economical and political. It is economical, because a browser that is heavily biased towards privacy is detrimental to advertising, especially targeted advertising. It is political because the world as a whole with globalisation, is becoming even more capitalistic. Websites that offer services completely for free do not fit in a capitalistic world. Readers can try to argue this is not 'always' the case, which need not be mentioned as it should be obvious, that there are website owners who commit themselves to offer a service for free, but this is far from being the norm, which matters most. So, privacy lovers are essentially a political minority that is trying to dictate to the majority. For the majority money comes first, and that, comes from targeted advertising. Even people who code for open source projects do it for their own gains: some do it for their CV, others do it for their research, still others do it for their business, and maybe a tiny fraction for their commitment to open source. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
[DNG] Website changes
Good, provided an installer is obedient to do what is commanded. What happens when an installer obstinately insists on installing LVM, (ilLogical Volume Management), as it happened to me several times when I was still using Debian, and also when I started to use Devuan? I was left with no choice other than using debootstrap and chroot. In the event debootstrap fails, I am left with no other choice other than using a very dirty low level installation by extracting packages manually. This latter step is still a step in the dark when everything fails, as there is no list of packages of what debootstrap installs when it works. I suggest a package containing all packages that are usually installed by debootstrap and a script to configure them. I will not suggest the MS Windows way of suggesting a self extracting executable that itstalls and configures what debootstrap installs, although that would be a too-good-to-be-true. ___ Dng mailing list Dng@lists.dyne.org https://mailinglists.dyne.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dng
