Re: [gentoo-user] Broadcom wireless problem after a certain time

[Mick]

On Friday 30 Dec 2016 21:22:17 Hogren wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I write to the list for a little strange problem.
> 
> I have a wireless card :
> # lspci |grep -i 802
> 24:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n
> 
> 
> Globally, the card works fine. I use wpa_supplicant. I have a systemd
> service to start the connection when I want. The DHCP client works fine
> too. etc. All is right.
> 
> But, because there is always a "but", After a certain quantity of
> downloaded data, the card's stopping to work fine. I can't receive
> anything. I need to stop an restart the systemd service.
> 
> I herd that there is many problems with Broadcom wireless devices
> because the driver is only based on reverse engineering.
> 
> That is the reason ? And there is a solution for this kind of problem ?
> 
> Thank you very much !
> 
> Hogren

I don't know what problems are being reported on the model you are using, but 
previous models were experiencing problems with power saving.  Use modinfo to 
find out what power saving parameters the module has and try disabling these, 
in case power management is the cause of the interruptions you are 
experiencing.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: alsamixer and pulseaudio - which is at fault?

[Mick]

On Friday 30 Dec 2016 15:11:29 Corbin Bird wrote:
> On 12/30/2016 07:44 AM, Mick wrote:
> > On Friday 30 Dec 2016 12:12:17 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >> On 12/30/2016 12:04 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >>> On 12/29/2016 03:21 PM, Mick wrote:
>  Hi All,
>  
>  My sound has been behaving erratically for a while now, probably since
>  pulseaudio started being shipped with various desktop applications.
> >>> 
> >>> I had many similar issues years ago. I solved them by doing the
> >>> following:
> >>> [...]
> >> 
> >> Oh, forgot to mention that I also deleted the ALSA custom configuration
> >> 
> >> files:
> >>rm ~/.asoundrc
> >>rm /etc/asound.conf
> >> 
> >> It's recommended to not have them, unless you actually need them.
> > 
> > Thank you Nikos, I followed your advice above but the darn thing is still
> > not working as it should.  The interaction of pa with alsa is anything
> > but aligned with the way my brain works and with how alsa used to work.
> > 
> > I've commented out the pa entries to stop it trying to restore settings as
> > you suggested.  Alsamixer settings now stick between reboots, except for
> > the first headphone which for some reason is always muted and changing it
> > won't stick for a couple of years now.  All looks great  until I get
> > a desktop pop up warning.  Then I notice both Speaker and PCM are pegged
> > at 100% again.  :-/
> > 
> > This also happens if I tweak any of the pa settings using a GUI. 
> > Adjusting
> > the application settings using e.g.
> > systemsettings5/hardware/Multimedia/Audio Volume/Applications,
> > immediately resets alsamixer's Speaker and PCM bars both to 100.  I am
> > guessing when a warning pops up on the desktop it is also plugging into
> > pa and no matter what Speaker or PCM have been set at, they will be
> > pegged at 100 once more.
> 
> You do need to install "media-sound/pavucontrol" and uninstall ( if
> possible ) whatever desktop GUI based mixer you are currently using ( if
> .. if .. it is based on the alsamixer and not on PulseAudio ).
> 
> Changing settings in the wrong mixer just doesn't work.

Thanks Corbin, I did install pavucontrol but did not persevere with it.  When 
I first started it up it muted the master volume control, which I had to unmute 
to get my sound back.  I'll try reinstalling it tomorrow and test it more 
thoroughly.

The audio mixer I used is based on pa anyway.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Dale]

J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Friday, December 30, 2016 01:57:53 AM Dale wrote:
>>
>> My settings:
>>
>> EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--with-bdeps y --backtrack=100 --keep-going -v -j8
>> --quiet-build=n -1"
>>
>> I forgot I had that set to 8 jobs.  Wonder why I did that?  Given your
>> experience, I want to get more ram and more cores.
> More RAM, yes. More cores aren't always necessary.
> With regards to your options, the " --load-average  " setting is 
> important 
> to keep the system responsive.
>
> With mine, it is possible to have 12*12 GCC-processes running. The load-
> average prevents that from happening.
>
> --
> Joost
>
>

Mine stays very responsive until it runs out of memory.  Once it starts
using swap, it gets slow.  Things still work but it requires a lot of
patience.  Here are some more of my settings:

PORTAGE_NICENESS=5

PORTAGE_IONICE_COMMAND="ionice -c 3 -p \${PID}"

MAKEOPTS="-j8"

I'll most likely upgrade the ram first.  That's the thing that I know is
running out.  The CPU is just a matter of those occasions when more
cores could/might be useful, which may be a lot or may not. 

One just always drools over the latest greatest stuff tho.  ;-)

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: alsamixer and pulseaudio - which is at fault?

[Corbin Bird]

On 12/30/2016 07:44 AM, Mick wrote:
> On Friday 30 Dec 2016 12:12:17 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> On 12/30/2016 12:04 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> On 12/29/2016 03:21 PM, Mick wrote:
 Hi All,

 My sound has been behaving erratically for a while now, probably since
 pulseaudio started being shipped with various desktop applications.
>>> I had many similar issues years ago. I solved them by doing the following:
>>> [...]
>> Oh, forgot to mention that I also deleted the ALSA custom configuration
>> files:
>>
>>rm ~/.asoundrc
>>rm /etc/asound.conf
>>
>> It's recommended to not have them, unless you actually need them.
> Thank you Nikos, I followed your advice above but the darn thing is still not 
> working as it should.  The interaction of pa with alsa is anything but 
> aligned 
> with the way my brain works and with how alsa used to work.
>
> I've commented out the pa entries to stop it trying to restore settings as 
> you 
> suggested.  Alsamixer settings now stick between reboots, except for the 
> first 
> headphone which for some reason is always muted and changing it won't stick 
> for a couple of years now.  All looks great  until I get a desktop pop up 
> warning.  Then I notice both Speaker and PCM are pegged at 100% again.  :-/
>
> This also happens if I tweak any of the pa settings using a GUI.  Adjusting 
> the application settings using e.g. systemsettings5/hardware/Multimedia/Audio 
> Volume/Applications, immediately resets alsamixer's Speaker and PCM bars both 
> to 100.  I am guessing when a warning pops up on the desktop it is also 
> plugging into pa and no matter what Speaker or PCM have been set at, they 
> will 
> be pegged at 100 once more.
>

You do need to install "media-sound/pavucontrol" and uninstall ( if
possible ) whatever desktop GUI based mixer you are currently using ( if
.. if .. it is based on the alsamixer and not on PulseAudio ).

Changing settings in the wrong mixer just doesn't work.

[gentoo-user] Broadcom wireless problem after a certain time

[Hogren]

Hello,

I write to the list for a little strange problem.

I have a wireless card :
# lspci |grep -i 802
24:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n


Globally, the card works fine. I use wpa_supplicant. I have a systemd
service to start the connection when I want. The DHCP client works fine
too. etc. All is right.

But, because there is always a "but", After a certain quantity of
downloaded data, the card's stopping to work fine. I can't receive
anything. I need to stop an restart the systemd service.

I herd that there is many problems with Broadcom wireless devices
because the driver is only based on reverse engineering.

That is the reason ? And there is a solution for this kind of problem ?

Thank you very much !

Hogren

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[lee]

"taii...@gmx.com"  writes:

> On 12/30/2016 08:39 AM, lee wrote:
>
>> the...@sys-concept.com writes:
>>
>>> I'm putting a new system, it will be running mainly, VirtualBox,
> [...]
>> If you want a rock solid machine with lots of cores and RAM and very
>> capable of powering VMs, the HP Z800 is worthwhile to check out.
> [...]
>>
> You can build a system with a (new) KGPE-D16, two used 6276 processors
> and used 64gb ecc ram for only around $500 which will net you a 32
> core computer that can run blob free no microcode coreboot that
> supports max 256GB RDIMM RAM.

Including an excellent 850W power supply, a good case, SAS RAID
controller and a graphics card?

The 6276 is a more power hungry than a Xeon and runs at only 2.3GHz
(though I don't know how that compares to the Xeon).  Power consumption
is an issue for me because electricity is way too expensive here.

Asus doesn't seem to say anything about coreboot?

> There is another coreboot compatible (theoretically, but not tested)
> QP max 1TB (jesus christ) RDIMM RAM G34 motherboard, so you could have
> 64 cores for only $20 or so per 16 cores. (plus the $30 for a cpu
> cooler)

It's good to have so many options to choose from :)  Considering all
this, is there a good reason to go for an FX-8350?

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[taii...@gmx.com]

On 12/30/2016 08:39 AM, lee wrote:


the...@sys-concept.com writes:


I'm putting a new system, it will be running mainly, VirtualBox,
Asterisk, Hylafax etc. (nothing graphic intensive).

- IN WIN BL631 Low Profile Micro ATX Case w/ 300W Power Supply,
- AMD FX-8350 Processor 4.0GHz w/ 16MB Cache
- Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 w/ DDR3, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan
- Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3-1866MHz CL10 Dual Channel Kit
- Samsung 850 EVO Series mSATA Solid State Drive, 1TB
- Asus GeForce GT 720 Silent CSM, 2GB, PCI-E w/ D-Sub VGA, DVI, HDMI

Will I have any problems installing Gentoo on this configuration, eg.
with Video Card etc.?
Do I need more RAM?

If you want a rock solid machine with lots of cores and RAM and very
capable of powering VMs, the HP Z800 is worthwhile to check out.

You can get them for good prices here from resellers/ebay, and they are
IMO currently the best you can get for your money if you want something
like that.  Technology has moved on a bit, but you'd spend about twice
the money if you buy something new that offers comparable overall
performance.  The Z820s are still rather pricey.

"Top speed" may be higher with the AMD, but I think it will have a hard
time beating the overall performance of 2 Xeons with 6x2 cores each and
48GB RAM (or whatever configuration you get) when you load it with VMs
and start compiling stuff.

IF that's an issue for you: I've measured the power consumption of a
Z800 with two X5675, 48GB RAM and a GTX770: 130W at idle, which I think
is amazing.  It can reach about 600W when compiling, with the graphics
card working hard and 6 spinning 3.5" disks.

There are no issues with temperatures or anything, and they are pretty
quiet.

The power supplies they have are impressive.  I've seen the lights go
out for like half a second or so, and I expected the machines to go
down, but they kept running as if nothing happened.

You can run Gentoo, Debian and Fedora on them.  If you run Xen on it,
limit cstates to 1 or you may see random freezes.

I wouldn't change mine for anything less than a Z820.  I used to build
my machines from parts, and I quit doing that because it isn't
worthwhile when you can just get a Z800 which offers more for half the
money.


Other than that, as others have already said, you're probably better off
with at least 32GB and a better PSU.  I also don't store data or a
system on a single disk with no redundancy, except for backups.

(A Z800 has four 3.5" bays, and you can get adapters for 2.5" disks that
plug in.  You could use 2x72GB 2.5" 15k SAS disks which you can get very
cheaply for the system, put everything else on your SSD and use a 3.5"
SATA disk for backups.)

You can build a system with a (new) KGPE-D16, two used 6276 processors 
and used 64gb ecc ram for only around $500 which will net you a 32 core 
computer that can run blob free no microcode coreboot that supports max 
256GB RDIMM RAM.


There is another coreboot compatible (theoretically, but not tested) QP 
max 1TB (jesus christ) RDIMM RAM G34 motherboard, so you could have 64 
cores for only $20 or so per 16 cores. (plus the $30 for a cpu cooler)

Re: [gentoo-user] Weird warning message when emerging gcc

[lee]

Nikos Chantziaras  writes:

> A world update emerged gcc-5.4.0-r2 (update from 5.4.0). At the end of
> the build, I got this:
>
>  * Python seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
>  * Switching native-compiler to x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0
> ...PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting is invalid: 'bzip2'
> PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting from make.globals is invalid: 'bzip2'
>
> I'm not seeing how python is broken here (works fine), and why
> PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND is invalid. Can someone explain what's going on
> here?

Since there is such a command, is it possible (and worthwhile) to use
lbzip2 instead of bzip2 with portage?  (lbzip2 is ridiculously fast when
you have the cores and the RAM ...)

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[lee]

the...@sys-concept.com writes:

> I'm putting a new system, it will be running mainly, VirtualBox,
> Asterisk, Hylafax etc. (nothing graphic intensive).
>
> - IN WIN BL631 Low Profile Micro ATX Case w/ 300W Power Supply,
> - AMD FX-8350 Processor 4.0GHz w/ 16MB Cache
> - Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 w/ DDR3, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan
> - Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3-1866MHz CL10 Dual Channel Kit
> - Samsung 850 EVO Series mSATA Solid State Drive, 1TB
> - Asus GeForce GT 720 Silent CSM, 2GB, PCI-E w/ D-Sub VGA, DVI, HDMI
>
> Will I have any problems installing Gentoo on this configuration, eg.
> with Video Card etc.?
> Do I need more RAM?

If you want a rock solid machine with lots of cores and RAM and very
capable of powering VMs, the HP Z800 is worthwhile to check out.

You can get them for good prices here from resellers/ebay, and they are
IMO currently the best you can get for your money if you want something
like that.  Technology has moved on a bit, but you'd spend about twice
the money if you buy something new that offers comparable overall
performance.  The Z820s are still rather pricey.

"Top speed" may be higher with the AMD, but I think it will have a hard
time beating the overall performance of 2 Xeons with 6x2 cores each and
48GB RAM (or whatever configuration you get) when you load it with VMs
and start compiling stuff.

IF that's an issue for you: I've measured the power consumption of a
Z800 with two X5675, 48GB RAM and a GTX770: 130W at idle, which I think
is amazing.  It can reach about 600W when compiling, with the graphics
card working hard and 6 spinning 3.5" disks.

There are no issues with temperatures or anything, and they are pretty
quiet.

The power supplies they have are impressive.  I've seen the lights go
out for like half a second or so, and I expected the machines to go
down, but they kept running as if nothing happened.

You can run Gentoo, Debian and Fedora on them.  If you run Xen on it,
limit cstates to 1 or you may see random freezes.

I wouldn't change mine for anything less than a Z820.  I used to build
my machines from parts, and I quit doing that because it isn't
worthwhile when you can just get a Z800 which offers more for half the
money.


Other than that, as others have already said, you're probably better off
with at least 32GB and a better PSU.  I also don't store data or a
system on a single disk with no redundancy, except for backups.

(A Z800 has four 3.5" bays, and you can get adapters for 2.5" disks that
plug in.  You could use 2x72GB 2.5" 15k SAS disks which you can get very
cheaply for the system, put everything else on your SSD and use a 3.5"
SATA disk for backups.)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: alsamixer and pulseaudio - which is at fault?

[Mick]

On Friday 30 Dec 2016 12:12:17 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 12/30/2016 12:04 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> > On 12/29/2016 03:21 PM, Mick wrote:
> >> Hi All,
> >> 
> >> My sound has been behaving erratically for a while now, probably since
> >> pulseaudio started being shipped with various desktop applications.
> > 
> > I had many similar issues years ago. I solved them by doing the following:
> > [...]
> 
> Oh, forgot to mention that I also deleted the ALSA custom configuration
> files:
> 
>rm ~/.asoundrc
>rm /etc/asound.conf
> 
> It's recommended to not have them, unless you actually need them.

Thank you Nikos, I followed your advice above but the darn thing is still not 
working as it should.  The interaction of pa with alsa is anything but aligned 
with the way my brain works and with how alsa used to work.

I've commented out the pa entries to stop it trying to restore settings as you 
suggested.  Alsamixer settings now stick between reboots, except for the first 
headphone which for some reason is always muted and changing it won't stick 
for a couple of years now.  All looks great  until I get a desktop pop up 
warning.  Then I notice both Speaker and PCM are pegged at 100% again.  :-/

This also happens if I tweak any of the pa settings using a GUI.  Adjusting 
the application settings using e.g. systemsettings5/hardware/Multimedia/Audio 
Volume/Applications, immediately resets alsamixer's Speaker and PCM bars both 
to 100.  I am guessing when a warning pops up on the desktop it is also 
plugging into pa and no matter what Speaker or PCM have been set at, they will 
be pegged at 100 once more.

-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[taii...@gmx.com]

On 12/30/2016 07:54 AM, Alan McKinnon wrote:


On 30/12/2016 14:12, Neil Bothwick wrote:

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:


Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in.

What's the problem, now you have all the justification you need for
buying a bigger monitor ;-)



I have 8 cores with krells for each, plus for procs, 2 disks and 3
interfaces. And plenty vertical space to spare.

1920x1080 monitor of course :-)


I have 16 cores.

You can get a g34 16 core 62xx or 63xx opteron for only $10-40, buy two 
and combine that with a compatible coreboot motherboard and compile 
times will at last be bearable.
Note: the 63xx series needs microcode updates for virtualization, but 
62xx works with no microcode at all.

Re: [gentoo-user] Weird warning message when emerging gcc

[Miroslav Rovis]

On 161230-11:59+0200, Alan McKinnon wrote:
> On 30/12/2016 11:44, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> > A world update emerged gcc-5.4.0-r2 (update from 5.4.0). At the end of
> > the build, I got this:
> > 
> >  * Python seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
> >  * Switching native-compiler to x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0
> > ...PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting is invalid: 'bzip2'
> > PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting from make.globals is invalid: 'bzip2'
> > 
> > I'm not seeing how python is broken here (works fine), and why
> > PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND is invalid. Can someone explain what's going on here?
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> I get the same odd message for all of the 5.x series for which I have
> build logs:
> 
> $ grep -r "Python seems to be broken" /var/log/portage/
> to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
> /var/log/portage/sys-devel:gcc-5.4.0-r2:20161229-080856.log: * Python
> seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
> to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...

   
Looking it up, I get this exact same message, plus another for gnueabi:

./cross-arm-unknown-linux-gnueabi:gcc-5.4.0-r2:20161229-131203.log: *
Python seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
./sys-devel:gcc-5.4.0-r2:20161229-121300.log: * Python seems to be
broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...


> 
> I suggest file a bug
> 
Yes! Looking it up at:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?chfield=[Bug%20creation]=24h=atom=Bugs%20reported%20in%20the%20last%2024%20hours
only this one entry is (currently) about 5.4.0:
sys-devel/gcc-5.4.0-r2 has deceitful ${PV}
https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=604084

If it is indeed a case for reporting, whoever does it, pls. inform this
mailing list, please!

-- 
Miroslav Rovis
Zagreb, Croatia
http://www.CroatiaFidelis.hr


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Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Alan McKinnon]

On 30/12/2016 14:12, Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
>> Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
>> gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
>> problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
>> desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in. 
> 
> What's the problem, now you have all the justification you need for
> buying a bigger monitor ;-)
> 
> 

I have 8 cores with krells for each, plus for procs, 2 disks and 3
interfaces. And plenty vertical space to spare.

1920x1080 monitor of course :-)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Neil Bothwick]

On Fri, 30 Dec 2016 00:24:36 -0600, Dale wrote:

> Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
> gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
> problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
> desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in. 

What's the problem, now you have all the justification you need for
buying a bigger monitor ;-)


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Top Oxymorons Number 42: Airline Food


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Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[J. Roeleveld]

On Friday, December 30, 2016 10:21:28 AM Mick wrote:
> On Friday 30 Dec 2016 08:18:48 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Friday, December 30, 2016 12:24:36 AM CET Dale wrote:
> > > J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > > > As for the specs:
> > > > 
> > > > - 8 core CPU: nice
> > > 
> > > Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
> > > gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
> > > problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
> > > desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in.
> > 
> > I know what you mean. What I miss is an option to have gkrellm on 1 side
> > of
> > the screen and when I maximize a window, that doesn't hide gkrellm.
> > I limited some of the sensors to be able to fit all 12 virtual cores.
> > (Or if there is, where do I set it)
> 
> This can be managed via the DE settings (but it depends on the DE options of
> course).  You can also set it in GKrellM configuration, General, 'Set on
> top of other windows of the same type'.

I don't want it on top, I want it to prevent maximizing from taking the area 
used by gkrellm.

> > > > - mSATA SSD: Make sure it fits your mainboard. NVMe is faster, but
> > > > also
> > > > more expensive.
> > > > The Samsung EVO series are good for normal work-loads. The performance
> > > > does
> > > > tend to drop when the write-cache starts to fill up. With multiple VMs
> > > > using disk and swap, that can happen quicker then you think. Check
> > > > your
> > > > requirements.
> > > > 
> > > > - memory: Personally, I would increase this to 32GB with the fastest
> > > > spec
> > > > that matches the CPU and mainboard. It helps a lot, especially with
> > > > Virtualbox. What isn't used by applications/VMs will be available for
> > > > disk-cache.
> 
> +1 for more and faster memory.  If the choice comes down to either more, or
> faster memory, go for faster.  With normal desktop use I have not yet
> noticed 16G being exhausted.  I dedicate 8G for tmpfs which is used for
> emerge activities.  I suggest you go for the fastest spec memory your MoBo
> will run. You'll likely have to overclock it to make your memory clock
> higher speeds. As a rule I prefer Asus MoBos, if only because online
> reviews when I built the last PC showed fewer complains that Gigabyte.

Take into account that with Asus boards, the sensors don't always work 
correctly with Linux. Not sure about Gigabyte.

> > > Same here.  Putting portage's work directory on tmpfs does make it
> > > measurably faster.  Bad thing is, if Firefox and LibreO needs to update
> > > at the same time, I have to go back to spinning rust or do them by
> > > themselves.  It runs out of memory pretty fast.
> 
> I have not noticed this here with 8G our of my 16G RipjawsX RAM dedicated to
> portage, but unlike Dale I do not run a full Plasma DE and try to update
> Chromium, FF, & LO all in parallel at the same time!  ;-)

I do the same on my laptop, with 16GB. That also works. But this laptop dates 
back to when I considered 16GB sufficient.

> With regards to PSUs most reputable manufacturers bring out entry level
> models which use cheap(er) capacitors with inferior rating, middle of the
> road which use upgraded caps and top of the range which are as good as it
> gets.
> 
> On the last box I built I chose a Corsair CX430M PSU and have been very
> pleased with it (so far).  Running a UPS also helps your PSU last longer,
> especially if you live in an area where brown outs happen regularly.

I used to live in such an area. Not currently. But a UPS would still be a good 
idea.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[J. Roeleveld]

On Friday, December 30, 2016 01:57:53 AM Dale wrote:
> J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > On Friday, December 30, 2016 12:24:36 AM CET Dale wrote:
> >> J. Roeleveld wrote:
> >>> As for the specs:
> >>> 
> >>> - 8 core CPU: nice
> >> 
> >> Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
> >> gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
> >> problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
> >> desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in.
> > 
> > I know what you mean. What I miss is an option to have gkrellm on 1 side
> > of
> > the screen and when I maximize a window, that doesn't hide gkrellm.
> > I limited some of the sensors to be able to fit all 12 virtual cores.
> > (Or if there is, where do I set it)
> 
> I wish we could divide it in half.  Have some sensors on the left side
> and some on the right.  Dang, 12 cores.  That does take up a lot of
> room.  To have it all show up, one would about have to turn their
> monitor on its side and make it tall instead of wide.
> 
> >>> - mSATA SSD: Make sure it fits your mainboard. NVMe is faster, but also
> >>> more expensive.
> >>> The Samsung EVO series are good for normal work-loads. The performance
> >>> does
> >>> tend to drop when the write-cache starts to fill up. With multiple VMs
> >>> using disk and swap, that can happen quicker then you think. Check your
> >>> requirements.
> >>> 
> >>> - memory: Personally, I would increase this to 32GB with the fastest
> >>> spec
> >>> that matches the CPU and mainboard. It helps a lot, especially with
> >>> Virtualbox. What isn't used by applications/VMs will be available for
> >>> disk-cache.
> >> 
> >> Same here.  Putting portage's work directory on tmpfs does make it
> >> measurably faster.  Bad thing is, if Firefox and LibreO needs to update
> >> at the same time, I have to go back to spinning rust or do them by
> >> themselves.  It runs out of memory pretty fast.
> > 
> > I have 32GB in my desktop and I can run a "emerge -e @world" without
> > issues
> > and portages work directory is on tmpfs.
> > And that is with the following parallel-settings in make.conf:
> > MAKEOPTS="--jobs 12 --load-average 14"
> > EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--jobs 12 --load-average 14"
> > (Using a 6-core i7)
> > 
> > --
> > Joost
> 
> My settings:
> 
> EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--with-bdeps y --backtrack=100 --keep-going -v -j8
> --quiet-build=n -1"
> 
> I forgot I had that set to 8 jobs.  Wonder why I did that?  Given your
> experience, I want to get more ram and more cores.

More RAM, yes. More cores aren't always necessary.
With regards to your options, the " --load-average  " setting is important 
to keep the system responsive.

With mine, it is possible to have 12*12 GCC-processes running. The load-
average prevents that from happening.

--
Joost

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Kai Peter]

On 2016-12-30 03:23, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:

I'm putting a new system, it will be running mainly, VirtualBox,
Asterisk, Hylafax etc. (nothing graphic intensive).

- IN WIN BL631 Low Profile Micro ATX Case w/ 300W Power Supply,
- AMD FX-8350 Processor 4.0GHz w/ 16MB Cache
- Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 w/ DDR3, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan
- Kingston HyperX Fury 16GB DDR3-1866MHz CL10 Dual Channel Kit
- Samsung 850 EVO Series mSATA Solid State Drive, 1TB
- Asus GeForce GT 720 Silent CSM, 2GB, PCI-E w/ D-Sub VGA, DVI, HDMI

Will I have any problems installing Gentoo on this configuration, eg.
with Video Card etc.?


Short answer: no.


Do I need more RAM?


Hmm..., I couldn't see a general answer here. From the above it depends 
on the number of VM's and how many RAM you (have to) give them. Maybe as 
a reference, my actual plasma session uses 13 GB of RAM. But having more 
RAM is never a bad thing. If the system starts to swap then you need 
more.


--
Sent with eQmail-1.10-dev

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Mick]

On Friday 30 Dec 2016 08:18:48 J. Roeleveld wrote:
> On Friday, December 30, 2016 12:24:36 AM CET Dale wrote:
> > J. Roeleveld wrote:
> > > As for the specs:
> > > 
> > > - 8 core CPU: nice
> > 
> > Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,
> > gkrellm won't have enough screen to show each core separately.  That's a
> > problem there.  lol  It already takes up the whole right side on one
> > desktop.  I guess I could make the thing shorter to fit them all in.
> 
> I know what you mean. What I miss is an option to have gkrellm on 1 side of
> the screen and when I maximize a window, that doesn't hide gkrellm.
> I limited some of the sensors to be able to fit all 12 virtual cores.
> (Or if there is, where do I set it)

This can be managed via the DE settings (but it depends on the DE options of 
course).  You can also set it in GKrellM configuration, General, 'Set on top of 
other windows of the same type'.


> > > - mSATA SSD: Make sure it fits your mainboard. NVMe is faster, but also
> > > more expensive.
> > > The Samsung EVO series are good for normal work-loads. The performance
> > > does
> > > tend to drop when the write-cache starts to fill up. With multiple VMs
> > > using disk and swap, that can happen quicker then you think. Check your
> > > requirements.
> > > 
> > > - memory: Personally, I would increase this to 32GB with the fastest
> > > spec
> > > that matches the CPU and mainboard. It helps a lot, especially with
> > > Virtualbox. What isn't used by applications/VMs will be available for
> > > disk-cache.

+1 for more and faster memory.  If the choice comes down to either more, or 
faster memory, go for faster.  With normal desktop use I have not yet noticed 
16G being exhausted.  I dedicate 8G for tmpfs which is used for emerge 
activities.  I suggest you go for the fastest spec memory your MoBo will run.  
You'll likely have to overclock it to make your memory clock higher speeds.  
As a rule I prefer Asus MoBos, if only because online reviews when I built the 
last PC showed fewer complains that Gigabyte.


> > Same here.  Putting portage's work directory on tmpfs does make it
> > measurably faster.  Bad thing is, if Firefox and LibreO needs to update
> > at the same time, I have to go back to spinning rust or do them by
> > themselves.  It runs out of memory pretty fast.

I have not noticed this here with 8G our of my 16G RipjawsX RAM dedicated to 
portage, but unlike Dale I do not run a full Plasma DE and try to update 
Chromium, FF, & LO all in parallel at the same time!  ;-)

With regards to PSUs most reputable manufacturers bring out entry level models 
which use cheap(er) capacitors with inferior rating, middle of the road which 
use upgraded caps and top of the range which are as good as it gets.

On the last box I built I chose a Corsair CX430M PSU and have been very 
pleased with it (so far).  Running a UPS also helps your PSU last longer, 
especially if you live in an area where brown outs happen regularly.

HTH.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] from Firefox52: NO pure ALSA?, WAS: Firefox 49.0 & Youtube... Audio: No

[Tom H]

On Thu, Dec 29, 2016 at 8:15 PM, Miroslav Rovis
 wrote:
> On 161229-05:13-0500, Tom H wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 27, 2016 at 1:53 PM, lee  wrote:
>> > Neil Bothwick  writes:

>> There are two ways to ensure that you always have the kernel's names:
>>
>> 1) Add "net.ifnames=0" to the kernel cmdline
>
> I use that all the time.
>
> Of course, I don't use the below, no poetterware in my machine:
>
>> 2) Override "NamePolicy=..." in "/lib/systemd/network/99-default.link"
>> with "NamePolicy=kernel" in "/etc/systemd/network/99-default.link".
>
> But I respect if anybody else wants it, let them have it, just, allow
> free speech, as you, _mostly_, do, id est, to tell people unintrusively
> what that SystemDisaster is...

It's too bad that the eudev maintainers didn't see fit to keep the
".link" units (they could've moved them to "/{etc,lib}/udev/network/"
if having "systemd" in a path's a no-no") because they make renaming a
NIC simpler.

[gentoo-user] Re: alsamixer and pulseaudio - which is at fault?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/30/2016 12:04 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 12/29/2016 03:21 PM, Mick wrote:

Hi All,

My sound has been behaving erratically for a while now, probably since
pulseaudio started being shipped with various desktop applications.


I had many similar issues years ago. I solved them by doing the following:
[...]


Oh, forgot to mention that I also deleted the ALSA custom configuration 
files:


  rm ~/.asoundrc
  rm /etc/asound.conf

It's recommended to not have them, unless you actually need them.

[gentoo-user] Re: alsamixer and pulseaudio - which is at fault?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/29/2016 03:21 PM, Mick wrote:

Hi All,

My sound has been behaving erratically for a while now, probably since
pulseaudio started being shipped with various desktop applications.


I had many similar issues years ago. I solved them by doing the following:

In /etc/pulse/daemon.conf, I've set:

  flat-volumes = no

In /etc/pulse/default.pa, comment-out these entries:

  #load-module module-device-restore
  #load-module module-stream-restore
  #load-module module-card-restore

Add the "alsasound" service to "boot" runlevel:

  rc-config add alsasound boot

In /etc/conf.d/alsasound, set:

  RESTORE_ON_START="yes"
  SAVE_ON_STOP="yes"

Stop the alsasound service:

  /etc/init.d/alsasound stop

Delete the currently saved mixer settings:

  rm /var/lib/alsa/asound.state

Use alsamixer to configure your sound card to your liking (hit F6 first 
and select the real device.)


Start the alsasound service:

  /etc/init.d/alsasound start

Stop it again to save the current mixer settings:

  /etc/init.d/alsasound stop

Change /etc/conf.d/alsasound to:

  SAVE_ON_STOP="no"

You're done. Reboot to check if everything is working as intended.

What the above does is make PA not restore its own settings on boot, 
make ALSA restore your preferred settings on boot but not save 
alterations on shutdown (next reboot will restore your initial 
settings.) It also disables the "flat volumes" feature of PA, which for 
me at least resulted in many "RIP my ears" moments, and also makes the 
volume mixer (KMix and pavucontrol in my case) behave very weirdly (it 
seems I need to get a PhD from MIT first to figure out what the volume 
settings do when "flat volumes" is on.)


Note that the above is only done once. Do it, and reboot. After that it 
should work forever. When upgrading PA or ALSA, make sure to not 
overwrite your custom /etc/ settings when running "dispatch-conf" or 
"etc-update" (or whatever you're using.)


Hope this helps.

Re: [gentoo-user] Weird warning message when emerging gcc

[Alan McKinnon]

On 30/12/2016 11:44, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> A world update emerged gcc-5.4.0-r2 (update from 5.4.0). At the end of
> the build, I got this:
> 
>  * Python seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
>  * Switching native-compiler to x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0
> ...PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting is invalid: 'bzip2'
> PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting from make.globals is invalid: 'bzip2'
> 
> I'm not seeing how python is broken here (works fine), and why
> PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND is invalid. Can someone explain what's going on here?
> 
> 


I get the same odd message for all of the 5.x series for which I have
build logs:

$ grep -r "Python seems to be broken" /var/log/portage/
/var/log/portage/sys-devel:gcc-5.3.0:20161009-190108.log: * Python seems
to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
/var/log/portage/sys-devel:gcc-5.4.0-r2:20161229-080856.log: * Python
seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
/var/log/portage/sys-devel:gcc-5.4.0:20161009-182055.log: * Python seems
to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...

The 4.x series is fine.

I suggest file a bug

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckin...@gmail.com

Re: [gentoo-user] New box

[Kai Peter]

- 8 core CPU: nice


Makes me drool a bit here.  I want a 8 core CPU.  The only downside,


Have had such CPU (AMD FX8350) and wasn't satisfied really. It wasn't 
powerful as *I* expected. I didn't get it cool and quiet as I wanted to 
in my desktop. Even not with water cooling. IMO more RAM is better than 
more cores.


--
Sent with eQmail-1.10-dev

[gentoo-user] Weird warning message when emerging gcc

[Nikos Chantziaras]

A world update emerged gcc-5.4.0-r2 (update from 5.4.0). At the end of 
the build, I got this:


 * Python seems to be broken, attempting to locate CHOST ourselves ...
 * Switching native-compiler to x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0 
...PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting is invalid: 'bzip2'

PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND setting from make.globals is invalid: 'bzip2'

I'm not seeing how python is broken here (works fine), and why 
PORTAGE_BZIP2_COMMAND is invalid. Can someone explain what's going on here?