[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/12/17 11:55, Wols Lists wrote:

On 09/12/17 12:08, Alan McKinnon wrote:

I'm all in favour of Lennart-bashing, but let's keep the bashing to what
he's responsible for.




As far as I can tell, the most egregious thing he's responsible for is
for wanting a well-designed system that works!

Face it, linux is a hodge-podge of things thrown together, and held
together with baling wire and sealing wax. Lennart doesn't want a system
where a small failure in one place cascades and brings down a load of
stuff elsewhere.

Granted he's not necessarily the most politic of people, and has ruffled
a lot of feathers, but I'd much rather a system he's cleaned up, than a
system where everything hangs together on a knife-edge.


I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't care :-P

This is me:

"Seems like KDE and Gnome prefer/recommend or require systemd. OK. 
Install that instead. I don't actually care what it does or how it works."

[gentoo-user] Re: Pentium 4, 32bit fails to update media-gfx/uniconvertor-2.0_pre379-r1

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/12/17 10:51, Mick wrote:

Any idea were that "MagickWand" went hiding?
[...]

Should I file a bug, or am I missing some other package?


This was fixed in 2.0_pre379-r2, so you should temporarily keyword that 
version until it goes stable.

[gentoo-user] Re: Is gnome becoming obligatory?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 09/12/17 11:51, Mick wrote:

I've seen gnome-base/gnome-common pulled in on more than one systems, all of
which have USE="-gnome" set:

  # emerge -uaNDvt world

These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
[...]
Calculating dependencies... done!
[ebuild  N ]  gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3::gentoo
USE="autoconf-archive" 153 KiB
[...]

All systems are on profile:  default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop/plasma

Why is gnome-base/gnome-common needed?


It's an extremely lightweight package. There seem to be some packages 
that need files from it. The package itself only installs these files:


  $ qlist gnome-common
  /usr/bin/gnome-autogen.sh
  /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-common.m4
  /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-compiler-flags.m4
  /usr/share/aclocal/gnome-code-coverage.m4
  /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/ChangeLog.bz2
  /usr/share/doc/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1/README.bz2

So basically it only copies some small text files to /usr. It doesn't 
build anything.

[gentoo-user] Re: "The sound of Silence" by glibc

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/12/17 19:54, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

Hi,

emerge -e @world installs glibc

On my system this kills the build of pulseaudio...which in turn make
my linux PC one of the most quiet ones...sigh


Use "emerge -a --resume --keep-going". This should continue the world 
rebuild, and will not abort the emerge when pulseaudio (or any other 
packages) fail to build. Then at the end, emerge will print a list of 
packages that failed to build. You should then fix those if you can. How 
urgent it is to fix them depends on the packages, of course.

[gentoo-user] Re: Harvesting failed compilation...

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/12/17 18:08, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

after emerge -e @world --keepgoing
I got this packages, which failed to compile, listed
[...]

make failed
glibc failed
libstd++ failed

so...the less important packages so to say.

And after fixing those -- if possible -- I guess that I doomed
to start the whole process right from the beginning.


If you can fix them, portage should still remember the previous run and 
keep rebuilding world from where it stopped. It remembers 2 past failed 
emerges when using --resume. See "man emerge", in the "--resume" section.


In this case, do "emerge --resume" first, but when the first package in 
the list starts to emerge, abort with Ctrl+C. This will count as a 
failed emerge and the resume list will get updated and remember that one 
as the most recent one. Then do a backup copy of /var/cache/edb/mtimedb. 
Now try and fix the packages. After you fixed them, see if "emerge 
--resume" still remembers the last world rebuild. If not, copy the 
backed up file back and now "emerge --resume" should continue building 
from where it last failed.

[gentoo-user] Re: git wants a password to portage sync

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/12/17 12:40, Bill Kenworthy wrote:

I use a central machine that all other gentoo machines pull portage
updates from using emerge set up for git.

Some 10+ physical and virtual machines work fine.

A newly installed machine wants a git password to do the git pull where
as no other machine does.  Tried setting up keys for it on the remote
machine (user portage which is who git pulls come from) and ssh login
works fine, git demands a password.

Any hints because its got me beat!


I suspect the keys on the other machines are not password protected, but 
the key on that machine is and Git asks you for it.

[gentoo-user] Re: Looking for a pre-compiled Linux distribution

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 24/11/17 00:01, Wols Lists wrote:

On 23/11/17 18:45, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 23/11/17 19:11, Helmut Jarausch wrote:


I'd like to recommend a Linux distribution to someone who needs an as
simple Linux distribution as possible.
Since I am going to help that person from time to time, it should be
as similar as possible to Gentoo.
[...]


Arch Linux is similar. Just imagine you have "emerge", except there's
only binary packages. When you install it initially, you're left on the
command line with nothing installed except base packages, much like Gentoo.


How close is Slackware to that description?
[...]


I'd say not close at all. Slackware uses pretty outdated software and is 
not rolling release.


Arch Linux on the other hand, like Gentoo, does not have releases. You 
install it once and the upgrades are pretty much identical to Gentoo.

[gentoo-user] Re: Looking for a pre-compiled Linux distribution

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 23/11/17 19:11, Helmut Jarausch wrote:

Hi,

I'd like to recommend a Linux distribution to someone who needs an as 
simple Linux distribution as possible.
Since I am going to help that person from time to time, it should be as 
similar as possible to Gentoo.


Which distribution would you recommend.


Arch Linux is similar. Just imagine you have "emerge", except there's 
only binary packages. When you install it initially, you're left on the 
command line with nothing installed except base packages, much like Gentoo.

[gentoo-user] Re: memset_s

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 15/11/17 11:05, Jorge Almeida wrote:

On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 12:54 AM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 14/11/17 19:36, Jorge Almeida wrote:


On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Jorge Almeida <jjalme...@gmail.com>
wrote:





Unless you look at the assembly output, you can't be sure. Some optimization
is done even at -O0.

I'd stick to using explicit_bzero() which is safe regardless of compiler
vendor *and* version.


But what about overwriting with random bytes? Having "explicit-*"
versions of whatnot seems madness. BTW, I checked the assemby,
memset() is there. But there should be way to tell the compiler "do
what I say".


Writing random bytes isn't going to help. If the compiler can deduce 
that the random bytes aren't being used and that not writing anything 
will not change the observable behavior of the code, the write might not 
happen. And even if you do use the random bytes (like writing them to 
/dev/null,) the write might still not happen. The compiler might have 
marked another memory location as "hot" (in cache terms) and safe to 
write to, and use that instead.


The only sure way to do this I can think of, is to require the caller to 
use volatile and implement your own memset(). This is obviously prone to 
error. To fix that, you could enforce your own volatile pointer with 
something like:


  typedef struct passwd_t {
  volatile char* data;
  } passwd_t;

  passwd_t* alloc_passwd(int len);
  void free_passwd(passwd_t* passwd);

However, since explicit_bzero() is something several other people have 
come up as the solution to the problem, it's what I recommend. It's been 
tested already by other people on multiple platforms and compilers. Have 
a configure check for it, and if not found, try again with -lbsd. Or 
have a configure switch for it. These tests are easy to do with CMake or 
Autoconf.


Trying to reinvent the wheel, especially when it comes to security, 
doesn't sound like a good idea. It's easy to get it wrong.

[gentoo-user] Re: memset_s

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 14/11/17 19:36, Jorge Almeida wrote:

On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Jorge Almeida  wrote:


http://www.daemonology.net/blog/2014-09-04-how-to-zero-a-buffer.html



Of course, what would really solve the optimize-into-oblivion problem
is a pragma that when invoked on a particular block of code (maybe
only a function definition) would tell the compiler to do what the
programmer says rather than viewing a function as a kind of black box.





It seems a solution exists with gcc:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2219829/how-to-prevent-gcc-optimizing-some-statements-in-c

The last reply:

void __attribute__((optimize("O0"))) foo(unsigned char data) {
 // unmodifiable compiler code
}

Any comments, anyone?
Unless you look at the assembly output, you can't be sure. Some 
optimization is done even at -O0.


I'd stick to using explicit_bzero() which is safe regardless of compiler 
vendor *and* version.

[gentoo-user] Re: memset_s

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 13/11/17 13:38, Mart Raudsepp wrote:

On E, 2017-11-13 at 12:44 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

explicit_bzero() is available in glibc. It's in .


Interesting. Some Xorg stuff is using libbsd explicitly, but probably
since before glibc gained this. This is new since glibc-2.25.


Oops, you're right. Didn't notice this. 2.25 is very recent. So from a 
portability point of view, it might be a good idea to stick to libbsd, 
or at least have a configure test for it.

[gentoo-user] Re: memset_s

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 13/11/17 09:17, Jorge Almeida wrote:

On Sun, Nov 12, 2017 at 7:03 PM, Mart Raudsepp  wrote:

On L, 2017-11-11 at 00:10 +, Jorge Almeida wrote:

Well, most programmers probably won't care about this stuff anyway,
and people who deal with cryptography tend to be more cautious than
average. But I'm not really making a case for safe versions of known
functions. After all, the usual functions do fine for most
applications. memset() would be enough to clear RAM with sensitive
data if we had a pragma (or equivalent) to convince the compiler to
not ignore it (I mean a pragma to invoke on a particular function
definition when the programmer  feels that a black box behaviour is
undesirable). Of course, solving the problem of the compiler copying
stuff around might be harder nut to crack.


Sounds like you want explicit_bzero from libbsd?


According to their man page, yes. I'll have to [try to] check the
source. I wonder how they do it? Even the volatile modifier doesn't
solve the problem, according to the link in previous post.


explicit_bzero() is available in glibc. It's in .

[gentoo-user] Re: Any reason for "Missing digest" errors at the moment

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 13/11/17 06:43, Andrew Lowe wrote:

Hi all,
I've just done an "eix-sync" and upon doing "emerge -NuD world", get a
few screen fulls of:

Missing digest for '/usr/portage/.

where the packages are mostly from kde-frameworks, -5.40.0, and a few
from kde-apps, -17.08.3.

Has anyone else seen this?


Was getting it too from time to time. I switched from rsync to git and 
it never happened again.

[gentoo-user] Re: memset_s

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 10/11/17 11:54, Jorge Almeida wrote:

I'm trying to use memset_s() but the system (glibc?) doesn't know
about it. I also tried to compile against musl, same result.

There's precious little info about memset_s in the net. Does it exist
at all? No man page.


$ grep -r memset_s /usr/include

Nope. Doesn't exist.

[gentoo-user] Re: Systemd

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/11/17 00:02, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 12:17 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com 
 >
 > The only problem I have with systemd is that it's unable 
to reliably restore the ALSA mixer volumes/settings on startup. It fails 
50% of the time. Which is very annoying, but not the end of the world.


Do you have PulseAudio installed? What's the output of 'systemctl status 
alsa-restore.service'? Do you have /var/lib under a "special" (RAID, 
LUKS, whatever) partition?


Yes, I'm using PulseAudio.

The status output is:

$ systemctl status alsa-restore.service
● alsa-restore.service - Save/Restore Sound Card State
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/alsa-restore.service; static; 
vendor preset: disabled)

   Active: active (exited) since Wed 2017-11-08 23:26:55 EET; 14min ago
  Process: 221 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/alsactl restore (code=exited, 
status=0/SUCCESS)

 Main PID: 221 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   CGroup: /system.slice/alsa-restore.service

Nov 08 23:26:54 gentoopc systemd[1]: Starting Save/Restore Sound Card 
State...

Nov 08 23:26:55 gentoopc systemd[1]: Started Save/Restore Sound Card State.


No special mounts. Everything is a single partition.

[gentoo-user] Re: Systemd

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/11/17 21:23, Rich Freeman wrote:

On Sat, Nov 4, 2017 at 2:17 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com> wrote:

[...] The only problem I have with systemd is that it's unable to
reliably restore the ALSA mixer volumes/settings on startup. It fails 50% of
the time. Which is very annoying, but not the end of the world.


Out of curiosity - are you using alsa-state or alsa-restore?
Apparently alsa provides two different ways of preserving state.  You
might consider switching them (which is triggered by the existence of
/etc/alsa/state-daemon.conf - but it might have some other
requirements which I didn't bother to check on).


alsa-restore. It claims to do exactly what I want, run:

  /usr/sbin/alsactl restore

at startup.



With any save/restore tool like these I always keep a copy of the
state somewhere where it doesn't get overwritten at shutdown if I have
a complex configuration.
Well, the thing is that the state is not getting overwritten. When 
during boot systemd fails to restore the volumes, the state is still 
fine and I can manually run:


  /usr/sbin/alsactl restore

and restore the volumes. This sounds like some sort of race condition 
where something else is calling "alsactl init", so sometimes "restore" 
happens after "init", which results in my volumes getting restores, and 
sometimes "init" happens after "restore", which gives me default volume 
levels.

[gentoo-user] Re: Compilation error mpv / libav

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/11/17 05:51, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

I installed ffmpeg- and it compiles fines.

Everything else failed again (for example mpv-).

Why does an update of already ok installed applications
break something in parts because the installation
has components, which are mutually exclusive?
They weren't before (whichout the update everythong was fine...)


With mpv, I'd recommend using their own build system if you want the 
current git version of mpv. It compiles ffmpeg too and uses it 
privately, which frees you from the burden of having to emerge 
ffmpeg- and break other packages that rely on ffmpeg.


If the mpv ebuild has a "bundled-ffmpeg' USE flag, we would be fine. But 
since it doesn't, it's recommended to not use Gentoo's mpv ebuild and 
instead build it manually. Fortunately, mpv's build script is easy to 
use. You just run it from time to time and it will get you a build from 
latest git using latest ffmpeg.

[gentoo-user] Re: Systemd

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/11/17 18:15, siefke_lis...@web.de wrote:

I have a short question to systemd. I would like to ask your experience
in the changeover. Was it easy? Were there problems?
Change or reinstall? What mean the profis here?


I did both. Changed one system to systemd, re-installed one from scratch 
with systemd.


Both worked. The only problem I have with systemd is that it's unable to 
reliably restore the ALSA mixer volumes/settings on startup. It fails 
50% of the time. Which is very annoying, but not the end of the world.

[gentoo-user] Re: systemd: "local system does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling"

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Alright, thanks. Looks like I'll have to live with that message for a 
while. Which isn't a big deal.



On 28/10/17 21:58, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:
On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 1:44 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com 
<mailto:rea...@gmail.com>> wrote:

 >
 > There is no such kernel option.

Yes, there is[1]. However, there is no such option for kernel version 
4.9[2], although there is for 4.10[3]. I think that's the problem, for 
using the firewall BPF options of systemd, you'll need to use kernel 
version >= 4.10.


Regards.

[1] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/init/Kconfig#L848
[2] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v4.9/init/Kconfig
[3] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/v4.10/init/Kconfig#L1157
--
Dr. Canek Peláez Valdés
Profesor de Carrera Asociado C
Departamento de Matemáticas
Facultad de Ciencias
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

[gentoo-user] Re: systemd: "local system does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling"

[Nikos Chantziaras]

There is no such kernel option.


On 28/10/17 21:21, Canek Peláez Valdés wrote:

Do you have CONFIG_CGROUP_BPF enabled?

Regards.

On Sat, Oct 28, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com 
<mailto:rea...@gmail.com>> wrote:


I'm getting these at startup:

systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-journald.service:33
configures an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system
does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.
systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!
systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-udevd.service:32
configures an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system
does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.
systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!
systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-logind.service:34
configures an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system
does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.
systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!

What do I need to make this work? I found this:

https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/7188
<https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/7188>

But CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL is enabled and I still get that message.

This is on kernel 4.9.59 with systemd 235.

[gentoo-user] systemd: "local system does not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling"

[Nikos Chantziaras]

I'm getting these at startup:

systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-journald.service:33 
configures an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system does 
not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.

systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!
systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-udevd.service:32 configures 
an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system does not 
support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.

systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!
systemd[1]: File /lib/systemd/system/systemd-logind.service:34 
configures an IP firewall (IPAddressDeny=any), but the local system does 
not support BPF/cgroup based firewalling.

systemd[1]: Proceeding WITHOUT firewalling in effect!

What do I need to make this work? I found this:

  https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/7188

But CONFIG_BPF_SYSCALL is enabled and I still get that message.

This is on kernel 4.9.59 with systemd 235.

[gentoo-user] revdep-rebuild finds nothing, while revdep-rebuild.sh wants to rebuild the whole system

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Running the new revdep-rebuild finds nothing:

 $ sudo revdep-rebuild -i -- -a
  * This is the new python coded version
  * Please report any bugs found using it.
  * The original revdep-rebuild script is installed as revdep-rebuild.sh
  * Please file bugs at: https://bugs.gentoo.org/
  * Collecting system binaries and libraries
  * Checking dynamic linking consistency

 Your system is consistent

However, running revdep-rebuild.sh wants to rebuild everything:

  https://pastebin.com/raw/BHq2NU0G

Does someone know what's going on?

[gentoo-user] Re: remove gnome/systemd

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/09/17 18:55, Raffaele Belardi wrote:

After several months of Gnome3 I decided it is too heavy for my old
workstation and would like to go back to LXDE. The flow could be:

1. rebuild kernel with openRC support and install
2. emerge -C gnome networkmanager
3. emerge -C systemd
4. change profile to generic desktop (non-Gnome)
5. emerge -N lxde-meta  
6. emerge -N xdm openrc anacron sysklogd sysvinit
7. reboot

I doubt it will be this easy... anything I'm missing, suggestions?


You can just keep systemd and only remove Gnome. Switch to another, 
non-Gnome systemd profile and unmerge Gnome, then do a --depclean. Also 
look in your world file to see if you have anything in there that 
prevents depclean from removing it.

[gentoo-user] Re: Chromium no longer displays content of TLS certificate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/09/17 20:05, Mick wrote:

Either chromium has stopped displaying the content of the TLS certificate of a
web site I happen to visit, or it has made it quite complicated for the user
to find it.


Go to:

  chrome://flags/#show-cert-link

Flip the flag. Restart Chromium. The certificate should now be visible 
when clicking on the "Secure" button in the URL bar.

[gentoo-user] Re: High resolution on a 13 inch screen

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/09/17 23:58, Grant wrote:

I'm getting strange results from xdpyinfo.  I always get 96x96 DPI and
the screen size changes along with the resolution.  When I run 'xrandr
--dpi 200x200' and check xdpyinfo, it reports correctly.  But if I log
out and back in to xfce4 without doing anything else, it gives me
96x96 again.



XFCE is probably forcing 96DPI by default. This is usually done by desktop
environments that don't support DPI scaling very well. I just found this
(sort of flame-war-ish) thread:

   https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7734

and indeed XFCE doesn't seem to have very good support for this. Maybe you
can find some of the settings listed there useful though.

Other than that, if you want working DPI scaling, you'll have much better
luck with KDE 5 / Plasma.


Won't I freak out if I'm an xfce4 guy and I try to switch to KDE?  Is
there a better choice for HiDPI migration for people who like xfce4?


You could try LXQt, which is the upcoming replacement for LXDE. It's 
Qt-based, so DPI scaling *should* work well (no guarantees, didn't try 
it myself yet.) And its desktop philosophy is more similar to XFCE, 
meaning minimalist, non-bloated UIs.


Anyway, if I were you, I'd just try all of them using live-CDs/USBs from 
various distros, and see what works best. LXDE, LXQt, Gnome, KDE, 
Budgie, those seem to be the main ones right now.

[gentoo-user] Re: High resolution on a 13 inch screen

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/09/17 23:26, Grant wrote:

Is there a way to digitally discover the true height and width of your
screen in mm?


Yes. xdpyinfo shows the information:

   xdpyinfo | grep -B2 resolution

If the information is wrong, that usually means one of two things (sometimes
even both): a) the video driver is reporting the wrong size to Xorg, and/or
b) the screen is reporting the wrong size to the driver.


I'm getting strange results from xdpyinfo.  I always get 96x96 DPI and
the screen size changes along with the resolution.  When I run 'xrandr
--dpi 200x200' and check xdpyinfo, it reports correctly.  But if I log
out and back in to xfce4 without doing anything else, it gives me
96x96 again.


XFCE is probably forcing 96DPI by default. This is usually done by 
desktop environments that don't support DPI scaling very well. I just 
found this (sort of flame-war-ish) thread:


  https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?id=7734

and indeed XFCE doesn't seem to have very good support for this. Maybe 
you can find some of the settings listed there useful though.


Other than that, if you want working DPI scaling, you'll have much 
better luck with KDE 5 / Plasma.

[gentoo-user] Re: High resolution on a 13 inch screen

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/09/17 22:24, Grant wrote:

My laptop's 13" screen has a native resolution of 3200x1800 which
makes everything crazy small on-screen.  Is there a good method for
telling Xorg or xfce4 to compensate, or should I one-at-a-time my
applications?


Depends on your desktop. I'm not sure if XFCE supports this, but in KDE
everything scales to my monitor's DPI automatically.

What is the output of:

   xdpyinfo | grep -i resolution

(The utility is in the x11-apps/xdpyinfo package.)

On such a small screen, the result should be a very high DPI (around 282.)
If that's not the number you get, then your graphics driver is reporting it
wrong to Xorg, and you need to set it manually.


This led me to the DisplaySize parameter for xorg.conf which helps a lot.



Is there a way to digitally discover the true height and width of your
screen in mm?


Yes. xdpyinfo shows the information:

  xdpyinfo | grep -B2 resolution

If the information is wrong, that usually means one of two things 
(sometimes even both): a) the video driver is reporting the wrong size 
to Xorg, and/or b) the screen is reporting the wrong size to the driver.

[gentoo-user] Re: High resolution on a 13 inch screen

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/09/17 19:14, Grant wrote:

My laptop's 13" screen has a native resolution of 3200x1800 which
makes everything crazy small on-screen.  Is there a good method for
telling Xorg or xfce4 to compensate, or should I one-at-a-time my
applications?
Depends on your desktop. I'm not sure if XFCE supports this, but in KDE 
everything scales to my monitor's DPI automatically.


What is the output of:

  xdpyinfo | grep -i resolution

(The utility is in the x11-apps/xdpyinfo package.)

On such a small screen, the result should be a very high DPI (around 
282.) If that's not the number you get, then your graphics driver is 
reporting it wrong to Xorg, and you need to set it manually.

[gentoo-user] Re: systemD?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 30/08/17 23:39, mad.scientist.at.la...@tutanota.com wrote:
I do not want to start a whole systemd storm, glad i was offline for 
that.  however, in my case i'd really like to avoid systemd.  can i 
setup with out systemd, or do i need to remove and patch later.


As others mentioned, openrc is the default. If you just do a default 
install, you won't be using systemd.


However, make sure that you don't intend to use something that requires 
systemd. Like Gnome, for example. You then will need to convert to 
systemd rather than having started out with it.

[gentoo-user] Re: Budgie

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 25/08/17 23:43, siefke_lis...@web.de wrote:

Does anyone have experience with the Budgie desktop under Gentoo?
Installation? Use? Reports would be nice.


There's a wiki page:

  https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Budgie

but I haven't tried it myself yet.

[gentoo-user] Re: No beep.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 14/08/17 21:22, Alan Mackenzie wrote:

However, during the building, I discovered to my disgust that there was
no loudspeaker in my new case.


You sure? These days, it's not shaped like a speaker anymore, but more 
like... a clip-on microphone? Not sure how to describe it. It's really 
small and easy to overlook in the mainboard's package along the other 
cables and connectors. It's this one:


https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP0YW4962

[gentoo-user] Re: Restart agetty after update @world?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 12/08/17 10:35, Matthias Hanft wrote:

Hi,

for weekly updates, I'm using the usual update commands, such as

emerge -NDuv @world
emerge -c
revdep-rebuild -i

In order to find out which services are still using old versions
of updated programs/libraries, I add

lsof | grep -w DEL | grep portage


You should probably use app-admin/lib_users for this.

[gentoo-user] Re: upgrading to gcc-5 (on x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/08/17 18:13, allan gottlieb wrote:

gcc-config -l reports
  [1] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.9.3
  [2] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-4.9.4 *
  [3] x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0

The news item from 2015-10-22 suggests (I have gentoolkit-0.3.3)
   # revdep-rebuild --library 'libstdc++.so.6' -- --exclude gcc

Is that the entire procedure needed?  In particular, ignoring
performance, can I avoid emerge --emptytree and just execute?

   # gcc-config x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-5.4.0
   # revdep-rebuild --library 'libstdc++.so.6' -- --exclude gcc


That usually works. If you want to be 100% sure, you still need a full 
@system followed by a @world rebuild. But usually just rebuilding 
C++-linked packages will give you a stable system.


I still recommend a @system rebuild at least though, since it's fast.

[gentoo-user] Re: maim screenshooting

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 30/07/17 21:04, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

Hi,

I am shootin around the screen...experimenting...

 From here:
https://github.com/naelstrof/maim

I found this:

 "This is a basic, but useful command that simply screenshots the current 
active window.
  $ maim -i $(xdotool getactivewindow) ~/mypicture.jpg
 "

Giving this via commandline it always shoots the terminal window (I
see no way to edit a commandline without activateing the terminal
window).


Have you tried introducing a delay to give you time to switch to the 
window you want to screenshot? Like:


  $ sleep 2; maim -i $(xdotool getactivewindow) ~/mypicture.jpg

This will give you 2 seconds to switch to another window.

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 20/07/17 06:46, Dale wrote:

First, I'm pretty clueless on what you are doing but notice something
that just may be related.  Do you have zsh installed on your system?  It
says zsh can't be found basically so perhaps it needs to be
installed???
No, that message is just zsh printing the error message. For example, 
when you enter:


  sdfkljsdfklsdfjkl

with bash you get:

  bash: sdfkljsdfklsdfjkl: command not found

With zsh, the prefix would be "zsh: ", not "bash: ".

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 20/07/17 06:26, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

What is the output of:

   $ eix -e glibc

Does it list the "multilib" USE flag as enabled? Does /lib32/libc.so.6 
exist?


In addition, what is the output of:

  $ file /lib/ld-linux.so.2

It should be:

  /lib/ld-linux.so.2: symbolic link to ../lib32/ld-linux.so.2

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 20/07/17 06:11, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

On 07/20 04:51, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 19/07/17 19:57, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

Hi,

My Buspirate v36a needs a newer firmware.
Unfortunately the flasher software is only
available in 32bit and I run a 64bit modern
Gentoo.


Is this the tool?

https://github.com/DangerousPrototypes/Bus_Pirate/blob/master/package/BPv3-firmware/pirate-loader_lnx

That is a dynamically linked executable. I just ran it on my 64-bit Gentoo:
[...]


Now it this case changes from "weird" to "mysterious":

I downloaded that file. Here it has the checksum (md5)

97122ea9062bbabcd04b2ffdee7b1bb8  pirate-loader_lnx


Same md5sum here. So we have the same binary.


"file pirate-loader_lnx"says:
pirate-loader_lnx: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), 
dynamically linked, interpreter /lib/ld-linux.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.8, with 
debug_info, not stripped


Same here.



but "ldd" states:
ldd ./pirate-loader_lnx
not a dynamic executable


That's where I get a different result. Here, I get:

$ ldd pirate-loader_lnx
linux-gate.so.1 (0xf776a000)
libc.so.6 => /lib32/libc.so.6 (0xf757)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xf776b000)

(Btw, I assume you did "chmod +x pirate-loader_lnx" on it.)



How can "dynamically linked" and "not a dynamic executable" can be
true simultanously?


That is weird. Can it be that you're not using a multilib configuration? 
What is the output of:


  $ eix -e glibc

Does it list the "multilib" USE flag as enabled? Does /lib32/libc.so.6 
exist?

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 19/07/17 19:57, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

Hi,

My Buspirate v36a needs a newer firmware.
Unfortunately the flasher software is only
available in 32bit and I run a 64bit modern
Gentoo.


Is this the tool?

https://github.com/DangerousPrototypes/Bus_Pirate/blob/master/package/BPv3-firmware/pirate-loader_lnx

That is a dynamically linked executable. I just ran it on my 64-bit Gentoo:


$ ./pirate-loader_lnx
+++
  Pirate-Loader for BP with Bootloader v4+
  Loader version: 1.0.2  OS: Linux
+++

pirate-loader usage:

 ./pirate-loader --dev=/path/to/device --hello
 ./pirate-loader --dev=/path/to/device --hex=/path/to/hexfile.hex [ 
--verbose

 ./pirate-loader --simulate --hex=/path/to/hexfile.hex [ --verbose

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 19/07/17 20:40, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

the tool is statically linked and only the command "file"
reveals its 32bit nature.


Have you tried just running it? And as Mick mentioned, run your tool 
with linux32:


  $ linux32 ./tool

It might just work without you having to do anything else. Since its 
statically linked, you shouldn't need any 32-bit libs.


One thing that might prevent it from working, is that it might need an 
old kernel version or a compatibility kernel option that is disabled by 
default on modern kernel versions.


But in the end, you won't know until you actually try it.

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Small and dirty 32 bit environment just to flash my Bus Pirate

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 19/07/17 19:57, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

Hi,

My Buspirate v36a needs a newer firmware.
Unfortunately the flasher software is only
available in 32bit and I run a 64bit modern
Gentoo.


By default, Gentoo is multilib. Meaning it runs 32-bit software too. 
What libraries does the tool need to run? You probably can build those 
libraries with 32-bit support enabled.


So what error message do you get when you try to run the tool? We can 
figure out which libraries it needs, and for those libraries you can 
then enable the "abi_x86_32" USE flag in package.use.


On my system, I have that enabled for all libraries by default. My 
package.use has this in it:


  */* abi_x86_32

But you can just set it only for some packages if you don't want every 
package (that supports this flag) to be also built for 32-bit.

[gentoo-user] Re: Don't miss the 1 500 000 000 Unix second!

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 14/07/17 05:40, R0b0t1 wrote:

On Thu, Jul 13, 2017 at 8:01 AM, Andrew Savchenko  wrote:

Hi all!

I'd like to remind you that
   $ date -d @15
is drawing close!

Don't miss the moment :)


Here it is!


I missed it. Damn sleep. I need to quit sleeping, waste of time.

[gentoo-user] Re: Don't miss the 1 500 000 000 Unix second!

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 13/07/17 21:15, Kent Fredric wrote:

On Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:01:42 +0300
Andrew Savchenko  wrote:


I'd like to remind you that
   $ date -d @15
is drawing close!

Don't miss the moment :)


  watch -n 1 'echo $(( 15 -  $( date +"%s") ))'

Enjoy.


watch -n 1 'date -d@$((15 - $(date +"%s"))) -u +%H:%M:%S'

Enjoy even more :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: media-sound/apulse / media-plugins/alsa-plugins

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/07/2017 09:41 μμ, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:

How to solve this blocker?

[blocks B ] 

Something is trying to install them. Add "-t" to your emerge command to 
see which package is depending on them.

[gentoo-user] Re: Copy'n'Paste...but not for all?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 29/06/2017 12:53 πμ, Neil Bothwick wrote:

On Wed, 28 Jun 2017 20:43:03 +0200, tu...@posteo.de wrote:


I dont like CTRL-V/CTRL-P that much...its a windows way.


Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V pre-dates Windows.


Yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-C#In_graphical_environments

[gentoo-user] Re: Copy'n'Paste...but not for all?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 26/06/2017 07:45 μμ, Ian Zimmerman wrote:

On 2017-06-26 19:18, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:


Sometimes the clipboard contents even disappear if you exit the
application you copied from. Start Google Chrome. Select the URL bar.
Press Ctrl+C. Quit Google Chrome. Try Ctrl+V somewhere. It's gone. The
clipboard content you just copied from Chrome is gone.


I think this is a feature, for privacy reasons.  pass (the password
manager) does the same with passwords it puts into the clipboard.


Nah, it's because in X the clipboard doesn't contain the data, it only 
contains a reference to the X client the copy was made it. A paste asks 
the application you copied from to provide the data. That means that if 
you quit the application, you can't paste anymore.


However, a clipboard manager is supposed to fix that (like klipper on 
KDE/Plasma). But stuff stuff still breaks.


The only workaround I know to paste something into a VM guest is to copy 
from the host application (e.g. Chrome), click on klipper icon in the 
systray, click on the paste data, then paste into the VM.


And guess what? Sometimes that doesn't work either. Fortunately, it does 
most of the time.

[gentoo-user] Re: Copy'n'Paste...but not for all?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 26/06/2017 06:15 πμ, J. Roeleveld wrote:

On June 26, 2017 3:19:49 AM GMT+02:00, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

[...]
Similar things happen with VMware. It seems that many applications do
not set the clipboard contents in a way that VB or VMw can recognize.

Never found a solution to this myself.


How do you try to copy/paste?

I find it only works when I explicitly use 'edit->copy' and 'edit->paste'. Or 
CTRL-C and CTRL-V.

In other words, just like in MS Windows.

Selecting text and then pasting using the middle mouse button doesn't work.


Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. In some applications it works, in some it doesn't.

I think there's several ways to set the clipboard in X. Some 
applications do it correctly, some don't. Some desktop environments 
interfere, some don't.


Sometimes the clipboard contents even disappear if you exit the 
application you copied from. Start Google Chrome. Select the URL bar. 
Press Ctrl+C. Quit Google Chrome. Try Ctrl+V somewhere. It's gone. The 
clipboard content you just copied from Chrome is gone.


It's a good old huge big effing mess, as usual. The year of the Linux 
desktop will probably be the one where the freakin' clipboard actually 
works, because we still can't get it right in 2017.


/rant off

[gentoo-user] Re: Copy'n'Paste...but not for all?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 25/06/2017 09:12 μμ, tu...@posteo.de wrote:

On my Gentoo Linux box I am running Virtualbox and
on that virtual box Linux again.

When trying to cut text from a terminal or another
text-based apolication and past that into a firefox
running on the virtualized Linux it fails.

But when I start a firefox on the host system,
cut text from a terminal or another text-based
application and paste that into the URL-field
of the firefox on the host sustem, then cut
it from there and paste it into the firefox
on the viryalized Linux...it works.

Looks a little weird to me...
Is that an error, which fails to fail completly
or is a half working feature (or do I fail
in both cases ... ;) ?


Similar things happen with VMware. It seems that many applications do 
not set the clipboard contents in a way that VB or VMw can recognize.


Never found a solution to this myself.

[gentoo-user] Re: e2fsck -a /dev/sdb1

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 16/06/2017 11:59 πμ, Helmut Jarausch wrote:

On 06/16/2017 12:26:07 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

If you don't need the files on the stick (as you mentioned on another
post), then I'd recommend formatting it using exfat. Works on both Linux
and Windows. Emerge sys-fs/fuse-exfat and mounting exfat sticks will
happen automatically, just like as if it was ext4.

To format the stick you can use sys-fs/exfat-utils (it installs
mkfs.exfat.) Or format it under Windows. You probably should erase the
partition first under Linux though so that Windows sees all space as
unclaimed. Just remember to select exfat instead of fat32 when you
format it.



I've read that one should use SDFormatter version 4 (on Windows)


Never heard of it. Sounds like it's for SD cards, not USB sticks?

[gentoo-user] Re: e2fsck -a /dev/sdb1

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 15/06/2017 06:26 μμ, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:

I'm trying to repair USB disk (64GB) originally formatted with ext4

I read the USB stick on Windows via some kind of windows ext4 driver now I can 
not open it on Linux box.

e2fsck -a /dev/sdb1
64gb: recovering journal

(just stays there and does nothing).
when I unplug it I get:

e2fsck: No such file or directory while trying to re-open 64gb


If you don't need the files on the stick (as you mentioned on another 
post), then I'd recommend formatting it using exfat. Works on both Linux 
and Windows. Emerge sys-fs/fuse-exfat and mounting exfat sticks will 
happen automatically, just like as if it was ext4.


To format the stick you can use sys-fs/exfat-utils (it installs 
mkfs.exfat.) Or format it under Windows. You probably should erase the 
partition first under Linux though so that Windows sees all space as 
unclaimed. Just remember to select exfat instead of fat32 when you 
format it.

[gentoo-user] Re: KDE 5 MTP failure

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/14/2017 06:05 PM, Daniel Frey wrote:

So the MTP process crapped out again.

I repeated this three times and cursed at KDE (it used to work, I
haven't had to copy files off my phone in more than six months) and
emailed them to myself.


Same happens to me. And always has.

I also tried every MTP tool in portage, and only found one (1) that 
actually works: sys-fs/simple-mtpfs


And I suspect that might even differ from device to device. What works 
for one device will probably not work for another. In general, MTP 
support seems like a huge mess.

[gentoo-user] Re: Why is PS1 (the console prompt) different for the root user?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/10/2017 09:24 PM, Toralf Förster wrote:

On 06/10/2017 08:06 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:




I'm not seeing it :-P


Well, not really documented, but I'd say to have (beside the user name) 
a different thing to indicate that this is the super user command line.


It's in red, has the "username@" missing, and has a "#" prefix instead 
of an "$". That's a very good indication already that it's a root shell.

[gentoo-user] Re: Why is PS1 (the console prompt) different for the root user?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/10/2017 11:50 AM, Toralf Förster wrote:

On 06/10/2017 08:12 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:


Is there a rationale for this?


Yes, please look into /etc/bash/bashrc (near to the end) ;)


I'm not seeing it :-P

[gentoo-user] Why is PS1 (the console prompt) different for the root user?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

I noticed that the root prompt does not include the full path of the 
current directory. Normal user:


  me@gentoopc ~ $ cd /usr/bin
  me@gentoopc /usr/bin $

However, for root:

  gentoopc ~ # cd /usr/bin
  gentoopc bin #

So for users, I can see where I am ("/usr/bin"). For root, I cannot. It 
just says "bin".


Now, I can change it easily in /etc/bash/bashrc (not sure if that's the 
correct place, but it works) by replacing "\W" with "\w". However, I'm 
curious as to why "\W" is used for root. When I have several root logins 
open (and I usually have to,) it makes it difficult to tell where I am. 
It says "bin", but am I in /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, somewhere else?


Is there a rationale for this?

[gentoo-user] Re: port forwarding

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 06/05/2017 07:28 AM, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:

My firewall (dd-wrt) does not opening specific port.

In NAT(QoS) tab I have:
forward from port 4569 to internal IP port 4569 (this is an asterisk IAX
port);

netstat -a |grep 4569
udp0  0 0.0.0.0:45690.0.0.0:*

But when I check this port via ShieldsUP! it keeps showing me it is:
"closed"


If SU can tell that the port is closed, then it's being forwarded 
correctly. Otherwise, SU would show "Stealth" for the port status 
(meaning it cannot tell if it's closed or open.)


"Closed" means the application that listens on that port is not running, 
or is not answering. But the port has been forwarded.

[gentoo-user] Re: [SOLVED] Can I resize /dev/shm on the fly?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/29/2017 10:13 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:

On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 10:05:02PM +0300, Mart Raudsepp wrote

Ühel kenal päeval, E, 29.05.2017 kell 14:47, kirjutas Walter Dnes:

   I was using a chroot, and I bind-mounted the chroot's /dev and
/proc
and /sys on top of the host machine's directories.  Bad idea... I now
have a 10 megabyte /dev/shm on the host.  Is it possible to resize
/dev/shm to approx 1 gigabyte without rebooting?


mount -oremount,size=1G /dev/shm

Provided it's a tmpfs like it is for me.


   Thanks; that pointed me in the right direction.  The command gave me a
response "mount: /dev/shm not mounted or bad option".  After some trial
and error, I found I had to...

mount -o remount,size=1G /dev


That does not look correct. /dev/shm should be a separate mount point, 
independent of /dev.

[gentoo-user] Re: Which update broke VMWare?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/25/2017 02:51 AM, Adam Carter wrote:
I just confirmed i need both +bundled-libs and unset 
VMWARE_USE_SHIPPED_LIBS to get it to work.


Thanks! That works indeed. You just saved half my bacon :-)

[gentoo-user] Which update broke VMWare?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

VMWare Workstation stopped working on ~amd64. And I don't know which of 
the updated packages broke it. Before I start reverting all emerges I 
made in the last 20 days or so (it's a BIG list according to qlop), has 
someone already figured out what broke it?


When I say "stopped working", I mean nothing happens:

  $ vmware
  $

(No output. Doesn't start.)

If I enable the "bundled-libs" USE flag, I get:

  $ vmware
  Loop on signal 11

  $

And nothing happens after that error message.

[gentoo-user] Re: tmp on tmpfs

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/24/2017 08:16 AM, Ian Zimmerman wrote:

So what are gentoo users' opinions on this matter of faith?

I have long been in the camp that thinks tmpfs for /tmp has no
advantages (and may have disadvantages) over a normal filesystem like
ext3, because the files there are normally so small that they will stay
in the page cache 100% of the time.

But I see that tmpfs is the default with systemd.  Surely they have a
good reason for this? :)


Their reason is described here:

  https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/APIFileSystems

It seems that they consider it an important *default* to have /tmp exist 
even if nothing else exists yet during boot-up.


Normally I wouldn't care too much whether /tmp is tmpfs or not. The only 
cases where I do care, is when unpacking a huge tarball with contents I 
didn't intend to keep around. But I stopped doing that in /tmp anyway. I 
have my own ~/tmp for that now. When using /tmp for that, you need to rm 
-rf what you don't need anymore, since it eats up RAM.


Another case is when I download something big that I intend to install 
(*.bin installers) or unpack into a final location on disk. In those 
cases, /tmp on tmpfs helps since it lowers disk fragmentation: you 
download it to RAM, then install to disk.

[gentoo-user] Re: gentoo rocks

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/20/2017 02:13 AM, Mick wrote:

PS. You think that's bad?  Try installing from Stage 1, over dial up and a day
and a half later suffering a power cut without a UPS ...  O_O


More than a decade ago I did that, with mixed results:

http://i.imgur.com/t55RyxV.jpg

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Tux AWOL

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/18/2017 05:06 PM, Daniel Frey wrote:

On 05/17/2017 03:35 PM, Kai Krakow wrote:


It also enables me to finally use UEFI and suspend to RAM again
with NVIDIA proprietary without a dead framebuffer after resume. ;-)


I have had this problem for years and thought it was a bad card.
Replaced it recently, still have the problem.


This is usually due to CSM being enabled in the mainboard's settings. If 
you use UEFI with the EFI console kernel driver, but you still get this 
in dmesg:


 NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
 NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
 NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
 NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
 NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.

then CSM is the reason. One of the issues is restoring the framebuffer 
after resuming.


CSM is the "Compatibility Support Module" of UEFI. When enabled, the 
graphics card is being initialized by CSM, not by UEFI, and the nvidia 
driver doesn't fully support this.


Some mainboards allow you to disable CSM. Unfortunately, not all do.

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Tux AWOL

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/18/2017 05:06 PM, Daniel Frey wrote:

On 05/17/2017 03:35 PM, Kai Krakow wrote:


It also enables me to finally use UEFI and suspend to RAM again
with NVIDIA proprietary without a dead framebuffer after resume. ;-)



I have had this problem for years and thought it was a bad card.
Replaced it recently, still have the problem.


The issue with nvidia's driver is that it doesn't play well with CSM 
enabled in the BIOS. If you have the option to disable CSM, then it 
should work.


CSM is the "Compatibility Support Module" of UEFI. With it enabled, the 
graphics card is initialized by CSM, not by UEFI, and that it not fully 
supported by nvidia. If you use UEFI with the EFI console driver but 
still get this in dmesg:


 NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
 NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
 NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
 NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
 NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.

then the issue is that you have CSM enabled. Unfortunately, some 
mainboards do not provide an option to disable CSM.

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Tux AWOL

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 05/14/2017 01:47 PM, Jorge Almeida wrote:

It's the first time I hear about plymouth. Visiting
https://cgit.freedesktop.org/plymouth/ I found zilch documentation.


It's... complicated:

  https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Plymouth

[gentoo-user] Re: replacement for ftp?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/25/2017 05:29 PM, lee wrote:

since the usage of FTP seems to be declining, what is a replacement
which is at least as good as FTP?

I'm aware that there's webdav, but that's very awkward to use and
missing features.


Is this about security? Then the closest replacement is FTPS (aka SSL 
FTP). It's just plain old FTP at its core, but over SSL. You do need an 
FTP client that supports SSL though. You can configure it to only 
encrypt passwords while the payload data remains non-encrypted.


There's also SFTP, but that's completely different (even though it has 
"FTP" in the name, it's actually SSH, not FTP.)


And there's rsync too, which is for synchronization of files (only 
changes are uploaded, not the whole data) which makes it very fast if 
what you upload is intended to replace old data.

[gentoo-user] Re: gcc with graphite flag?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/30/2017 10:36 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:

On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 10:09:16PM +0300, Nikos Chantziaras wrote

On 04/30/2017 05:04 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:

On Sunday, April 30, 2017 2:18:42 PM CEST Nikos Chantziaras wrote:


Btw, I don't think that USE flag is useful for anything, unless you put
the graphite optimization flags in your CFLAGS (-floop-interchange
-floop-strip-mine -floop-block). If you don't use those, there shouldn't
be a reason to enable the graphite flag.



Is there any benefit from using graphite and these CFLAGS on a current
Gentoo system?

Using a simple google-search, I can't find anything recent.


What Rasmus said, but the differences aren't going to be noticeable in
general use. For heavy number crunching (like video encoding) or huge
batch jobs or high-traffic servers maybe, but for normal desktop PC use
there's not going to be a difference.


  For Pale Moon, the developers want...

-floop-parallelize-all -fpredictive-commoning -ftree-loop-distribution 
-ftree-vectorize

  I follow those specs when doing a contributed build.


Are these using graphite though?

[gentoo-user] Re: htop wants cgroups

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/30/2017 08:33 PM, Jorge Almeida wrote:

On Sun, Apr 30, 2017 at 9:40 AM, Kai Krakow  wrote:

Am Sun, 30 Apr 2017 09:26:16 -0700
schrieb Jorge Almeida :




Well, it says "should be" enabled. It's not a requirement. You may not
use some of htop's features like proper process grouping.


Yes, and the emerge finished withou error. But the language of the
warning suggests that nasty things would happen to such people as
would fail to comply.


You can enable cgroups in the kernel and then simply not use them. This 
will shut it up. It's what I do :-P

[gentoo-user] Re: gcc with graphite flag?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/30/2017 05:04 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:

On Sunday, April 30, 2017 2:18:42 PM CEST Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 04/30/2017 05:25 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

  So much for that wiki entry.  BTW, I ended up putting...

sys-devel/gcc graphite

...in package.use.  The "graphite" USE flag means something entirely
different for harfbuzz, i.e. build against media-libs/harfbuzz against
media-gfx/graphite2


Btw, I don't think that USE flag is useful for anything, unless you put
the graphite optimization flags in your CFLAGS (-floop-interchange
-floop-strip-mine -floop-block). If you don't use those, there shouldn't
be a reason to enable the graphite flag.



Is there any benefit from using graphite and these CFLAGS on a current Gentoo
system?

Using a simple google-search, I can't find anything recent.


What Rasmus said, but the differences aren't going to be noticeable in 
general use. For heavy number crunching (like video encoding) or huge 
batch jobs or high-traffic servers maybe, but for normal desktop PC use 
there's not going to be a difference.

[gentoo-user] Re: gcc with graphite flag?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/30/2017 05:25 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

  So much for that wiki entry.  BTW, I ended up putting...

sys-devel/gcc graphite

...in package.use.  The "graphite" USE flag means something entirely
different for harfbuzz, i.e. build against media-libs/harfbuzz against
media-gfx/graphite2


Btw, I don't think that USE flag is useful for anything, unless you put 
the graphite optimization flags in your CFLAGS (-floop-interchange 
-floop-strip-mine -floop-block). If you don't use those, there shouldn't 
be a reason to enable the graphite flag.

[gentoo-user] Re: gcc with graphite flag?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/28/2017 10:08 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

  In the past, there used to be dire warnings about the difficulty of
installing gcc with graphite.  Have things become easier with 5.4.0?


I don't remember any issues with it, even with 4.9.

[gentoo-user] Re: How do you manage manually compiled software?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/28/2017 04:33 AM, Danny YUE wrote:

Hi guys,

I am compiling RISC-V tools...I am just curious how do you manage your
manually compiled software?


I make ebuilds for them and put them in /usr/local/portage.

[gentoo-user] Re: Clang has gone walkabout

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/10/2017 03:58 PM, Simon Thelen wrote:

Try running `env-update && source /etc/profile'. Your path should be
extended by /etc/profile.env which is generated from /etc/env.d/10llvm-9995.


Just logout/login. "source" will help in the current shell.

[gentoo-user] Re: Clang has gone walkabout

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/10/2017 12:13 PM, Andrew Lowe wrote:

Hi all,
Do we have any clang users out there? I've had clang installed on my
machine for ages and a simple "clang test.c" will result in an
executable. I can even nearly build my whole machine using clang, so its
up and running. I've now just updated clang, from a working 3.9.1 to a
4.0.0-r1 and clang has now disappeared. If I type in "clang --version",
I get "command not found". "whereis clang" only gives me the library
dir. Doing "ls -la /usr/bin/cla*" gives me "No such file or directory"


This is normal. You just need to logout of the system and in again for 
the updated environment.


Some packages can modify the environment, so it's usually best to 
logout/login after every update.

[gentoo-user] Re: Nvidia Drivers. =(

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/05/2017 05:15 PM, Alan Grimes wrote:

I'm still running on my old kernel as I re-build my system, Nvidia
drivers just barfed


381.09 was released today which supports kernel 4.10. But it might take 
a while until it's in portage.


In general, I stick with LTS kernels ("Long Term Support.") Right now, 
that's 4.9. Doing that solved "doesn't build against kernel X" issues 
with binary packages like the nvidia drivers and vmware workstation. If 
you're using nvidia, I'd recommend using the latest LTS kernel. What's 
the latest LTS is listed here:


  https://www.kernel.org

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Tools for putting HDD back to new state

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/04/2017 04:07 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:

I've googled fairly extensively on the subject and did not find a way
described anywhere to return a disk to what is called its raw state.


There's not such thing. When shipping, the disk might contain all 
zero-bytes, or random bytes.




There may even be legal ramifications I suppose along the line of
selling used discs as new after some kind of processing.


Wiping the disk does not change the internal book-keeping data of the 
device. It's stored in its SMART memory, which lists how many hours the 
disk has been used, and whether there's any errors that have been detected.


That data cannot be wiped since it's not on the disk. It's on a chip. 
That data can be viewed with any SMART viewer (like sys-apps/gsmartcontrol).

[gentoo-user] Re: [OT] Tools for putting HDD back to new state

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/03/2017 09:11 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:

I probably should know this, but off the top of my head I don't
remember ever running into anything like this.

I'd like to do what ever is done to set a used  disk back to the
state it was in when new... Not sure what that state is, but at least
no evidence of boot manager or fs having been installed.


You can use cfdisk (or another partitioning tool) and delete all partitions.

Then, delete the MBR (Master Boot Record), which is where boot managers 
put themselves. You do that with:


  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_hard_disk bs=446 count=1

It's not necessary to write zeroes all over the disk. You only need to 
delete the partitions and the boot manager, unless you also want to make 
the old data on the disk irrecoverable instead of it just appearing 
empty out of the box. In that case, following the advise of the other 
posters here and write zeroes all over the disk with dd is a good idea.

[gentoo-user] Re: Heads up: A reason *NOT* to have xorg.conf file

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/04/2017 12:11 AM, k...@aspodata.se wrote:

Walter Dnes:
...

  This state of affairs seems to have evolved slowly.  There wasn't one
version where it worked for nobody, immediately followed by the next
version that worked for everybody.  Years ago, X would not run without
an xorg.conf file.  Then X started being able to properly autoconfigure
without an xorg.conf file for 10% of users...  then 20%... then 30%,
etc.  Today it works for just about everybody.


No for me, I still use a serial mouse with mman protocol.


I have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/mouse.conf file. I use it to set the 
default acceleration profile. In your case, you should be able to delete 
your xorg.conf and instead just use this in mouse.conf:


  Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier  "Mouse0"
  Driver  "mouse"
  Option  "Device"   "/dev/whatever_you_use_currently"
  Option  "Protocol" "MouseMan"
  EndSection

[gentoo-user] Re: Heads up: A reason *NOT* to have xorg.conf file

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/02/2017 07:35 AM, Dale wrote:

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 04/02/2017 06:55 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

  My best guess is that the problem was due to a recent update to
x11-base/xorg-server  On both my systems it now requires USE="glamor".
This may require changes to xorg.conf.  On my main desktop, with no
xorg.conf, X does the detection and configuration "auto-magically".  The
hot backup machine would have an old xorg.conf with old (i.e. wrong)
settings for the updated xorg-server.


This has been the case for many years now. Anyway, better late than
never :-P

You do sometimes need some custom settings though. This goes in
seperate *.conf files now, which must be inside the
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory. Some packages can place a config file
there automatically.


I still have a xorg.conf file here.  May have to test removing it one
day.  I also have a file in the xorg.conf.d/ directory.  After it reads
my file, will it also read the file in the directory or does it ignore
anything else since I have the old file?  The file is named 20opengl.conf.

I seem to recall trying to run without it ages ago and something not
working.  Can't recall what it was since it was a good long while back.


If you don't *need* an xorg.conf (and you don't, otherwise you'd know 
:-P) then it's best to not have one. It's nothing dangerous to try. Just 
move it somewhere else and logout/login. If something breaks, just move 
the file back (or better, see what option you have in it that seems you 
need to provide manually, and split that into a .conf file inside 
xorg.conf.d. That's how I configure my nvidia driver. I have no 
xorg.conf. Instead, I have an xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf file:


  https://pastebin.com/raw/0GsxaFRj

It's a good system. I can do small, "surgical" tweaks to options without 
having to maintain a full xorg.conf file.

[gentoo-user] Re: Heads up: A reason *NOT* to have xorg.conf file

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/02/2017 12:18 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote:

On Sat, 1 Apr 2017 23:35:59 -0500, Dale wrote:


You do sometimes need some custom settings though. This goes in
seperate *.conf files now, which must be inside the
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ directory. Some packages can place a config file
there automatically.


Packages shouldn't do that, /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d is for local
configuration files. Packages are supposed to use
/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d


Oh. Then I guess some runtime program generates files there. I have two:

  00-keyboard.conf
  20opengl.conf

It seems eselect generates the opengl one, but the other I don't now 
where it came from:


  # Read and parsed by systemd-localed. It's probably wise not
  # to edit this file manually too freely.
  Section "InputClass"
Identifier "system-keyboard"
MatchIsKeyboard "on"
Option "XkbLayout" "us"
Option "XkbModel" "pc105+inet"
Option "XkbOptions" "terminate:ctrl_alt_bksp"
  EndSection

I assumed the systemd package installed it there. (I don't use systemd, 
but I have it installed.) Now I see that "qfile" doesn't find a package 
this belongs to, so it's been put there by some daemon or other program 
probably.

[gentoo-user] Re: Heads up: A reason *NOT* to have xorg.conf file

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 04/02/2017 06:55 AM, Walter Dnes wrote:

  My best guess is that the problem was due to a recent update to
x11-base/xorg-server  On both my systems it now requires USE="glamor".
This may require changes to xorg.conf.  On my main desktop, with no
xorg.conf, X does the detection and configuration "auto-magically".  The
hot backup machine would have an old xorg.conf with old (i.e. wrong)
settings for the updated xorg-server.


This has been the case for many years now. Anyway, better late than 
never :-P


You do sometimes need some custom settings though. This goes in seperate 
*.conf files now, which must be inside the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/ 
directory. Some packages can place a config file there automatically.

[gentoo-user] Re: How am I supposed to block the KDE update?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 03/15/2017 07:38 AM, J. Roeleveld wrote:

On March 14, 2017 6:05:17 PM GMT+01:00, Nikos Chantziaras
<rea...@gmail.com> wrote:

(The issue was that hovering over icons or other items would
highlight them but they would stay highlighted forever even after
the mouse moved somewhere else or even if you click somewhere
else. So everything would be full of highlighted icons.)


I have seen this happen on MS Windows machines. (Customer supplied
ones)

I think it is related to some accessibility thing that accidentally
gets enabled. (I simply reboot Windows as I prefer not to fight my
way through a stupidly locked down system)

Could be a similar cause with your KDE/Plasma issue?


Nope. It was a bug that indeed got fixed in the plasma-5.32.0-r1 revbump.

[gentoo-user] Re: How am I supposed to block the KDE update?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 03/14/2017 06:34 PM, Alan McKinnon wrote:

Eek. That's not nice. You have masked frameworks-5.32.0 and plasma-5.9.3
packages (presumably you got all of them), and you missed something in
the huge chain that needs one or more of them.


Oops, you are absolutely correct. In fact, what I didn't mask is 
=kde-frameworks/plasma-5.32.0-r1.


And here's the funny part: I specifically only masked =*/*-5.32.0 
instead of ~*/*-5.32.0 so that I'll know when the bug gets potentially 
fixed; it would result in this exact kind of breakage I got, reminding 
me to try the update again.


So I'll be trying the update again to see if the plasma revbumb is there 
to actually fix the desktop again. (The issue was that hovering over 
icons or other items would highlight them but they would stay 
highlighted forever even after the mouse moved somewhere else or even if 
you click somewhere else. So everything would be full of highlighted icons.)


Moral of the story: more coffee before posting :-P

[gentoo-user] How am I supposed to block the KDE update?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Updading to kde-frameworks 5.32 breaks my desktop. So I masked it. Meaning:

  =kde-frameworks/attica-5.32.0
  =kde-frameworks/breeze-icons-5.32.0
  =kde-frameworks/extra-cmake-modules-5.32.0
  # ... and all the rest

in /etc/portage/package.mask/kdeframeworks

That worked for a couple days. Not anymore. Now I can't update my system 
anymore, since emerge -uDN @world aborts:


  The following mask changes are necessary to proceed:
   (see "package.unmask" in the portage(5) man page for more details)
  # required by kde-misc/kshutdown-4.0::gentoo[kde]
  # required by @selected
  # required by @world (argument)
  # /etc/portage/package.mask/kde:
  #=kde-frameworks/kdelibs-4.14.29-r1
  #=kde-frameworks/kdelibs-env-4.14.3
  #=kde-frameworks/kf-env-4
  =kde-frameworks/kglobalaccel-5.32.0
  # required by kde-plasma/ksshaskpass-5.9.3::gentoo
  # required by kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.9.3::gentoo
  # required by @selected
  # required by @world (argument)
  # /etc/portage/package.mask/kde:
  =kde-frameworks/kcoreaddons-5.32.0
  # required by kde-plasma/kdeplasma-addons-5.9.3::gentoo
  # required by kde-plasma/plasma-meta-5.9.3::gentoo
  # required by @selected
  # required by @world (argument)
  # /etc/portage/package.mask/kde:
  =kde-frameworks/kcompletion-5.32.0

(This are just the first lines. The full error output is huge.)

So what am I supposed to do?

I don't get it :-/

[gentoo-user] Re: No room left on /boot

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 03/05/2017 11:33 PM, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:


When I installed the system I followed standard, installation
instructions, and allocated disk space accordingly in Gentoo
installation instruction manual.  I think it wasn't enough.

What I my options to reduce kernel size or increase /boot partition?


You don't need a /boot partition ;-)

/boot is just a directory here. Worked like that for years and years.

[gentoo-user] Re: boost-1.62.0-r1 blocked by nothing ??

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/02/2017 10:49 PM, the...@sys-concept.com wrote:

On 02/02/2017 01:36 PM, Walter Dnes wrote:

On Thu, Feb 02, 2017 at 10:47:48AM -0700, the...@sys-concept.com wrote


On gcc-4.8.5 on my system boost-1.62.0-r1 was failing as well
I switched to gcc-4.9.3 and it emerges just fine.


  I see that you still haven't fully upgraded your system.  Looking at
my /usr/portage/seys-devel/gcc subdirectory, the date stamps on the
ebuilds are...

-rw-r--r--  1  1408 Dec 28  2015 gcc-4.8.5.ebuild
-rw-r--r--  1  1408 Jun 21  2016 gcc-4.9.3.ebuild
-rw-r--r--  1  1408 Dec 20 11:36 gcc-4.9.4.ebuild

  gcc-4.9.4 is the current default stable version, as of Dec 20th.


Yes, I have this gcc-4.9.4 but prefer older stable branch; if I'll be
experiencing some compilation problems I'll switch to 4.9.4 :-)


4.8 is not "older" actually. It's ancient :-P

[gentoo-user] Re: boost-1.62.0-r1 blocked by nothing ??

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/02/2017 06:31 PM, Neil Bothwick wrote:

On Thu, 2 Feb 2017 14:47:29 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:


now I have an emerge mystery myself: It claims boost is blocked
by  ... nothing.


Same here. I don't know why, but the way I solved it is by unmerging
boost and then trying the update again.

When I unmerged both boost as well as boost-build, portage wanted to
re-install 1.62. The only way I could make it work is keep boost-build
1.62 installed and only unmerge boost.


All I did was "emerge -1a boost boost-build" and it worked fine, as it
has done in the past.


I tried that too, but all that did was just re-emerge the currently 
installed versions.

[gentoo-user] Re: Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/02/2017 07:04 AM, Jonathan Callen wrote:

On 02/01/2017 05:37 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 02/02/2017 12:32 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 02/01/2017 08:00 PM, Michael Palimaka wrote:

On 01/02/17 23:39, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

Is there a way to disable the Gentoo branding in KDE? My launcher icon
as well as my start screen got replaced with Gentoo-branded ones.


Are you using the LiveDVD or similar variant? The only Gentoo KDE
branding we ship in the main repository is in kinfocenter and is
configured via /etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc.


Nope. Regular install.


And this is the launcher icon:

  http://i.imgur.com/UyGlgLK.png

AFAIK, this is the Gentoo logo.



That appears to be upstream's new icon for that:

https://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma-5.9/plasma-5.9.png


Oh, wow. So KDE uses an icon that is exactly the same as Gentoo's.

Well, never mind then.

[gentoo-user] Re: boost-1.62.0-r1 blocked by nothing ??

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/02/2017 01:21 AM, Jörg Schaible wrote:

Hi,

now I have an emerge mystery myself: It claims boost is blocked by  ...
nothing.


Same here. I don't know why, but the way I solved it is by unmerging 
boost and then trying the update again.


When I unmerged both boost as well as boost-build, portage wanted to 
re-install 1.62. The only way I could make it work is keep boost-build 
1.62 installed and only unmerge boost.

[gentoo-user] Re: Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/02/2017 12:32 AM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 02/01/2017 08:00 PM, Michael Palimaka wrote:

On 01/02/17 23:39, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

Is there a way to disable the Gentoo branding in KDE? My launcher icon
as well as my start screen got replaced with Gentoo-branded ones.





Are you using the LiveDVD or similar variant? The only Gentoo KDE
branding we ship in the main repository is in kinfocenter and is
configured via /etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc.


Nope. Regular install.


And this is the launcher icon:

  http://i.imgur.com/UyGlgLK.png

AFAIK, this is the Gentoo logo.

[gentoo-user] Re: Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/01/2017 05:40 PM, Francesco Turco wrote:

On Wed, 2017-02-01 at 16:58 +0200, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

Do you have the 'branding' USE flag enabled?


There is no such flag.


On my system:

$ euse -i -g branding
global use flags (searching: branding)

[- cD   ] branding - Enable Gentoo specific branding

So the "branding" USE flags exists as far as I know.


I meant there's no such flag for the KDE packages :-)

[gentoo-user] Re: Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/01/2017 08:00 PM, Michael Palimaka wrote:

On 01/02/17 23:39, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

Is there a way to disable the Gentoo branding in KDE? My launcher icon
as well as my start screen got replaced with Gentoo-branded ones.





Are you using the LiveDVD or similar variant? The only Gentoo KDE
branding we ship in the main repository is in kinfocenter and is
configured via /etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc.


Nope. Regular install.

/etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc:

  [General]
  Name=Gentoo Linux
  LogoPath=/usr/share/kinfocenter/glogo-small.png
  Website=https://www.gentoo.org/

And:

  $ qfile /etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc
  kde-plasma/kinfocenter (/etc/xdg/kcm-about-distrorc)

[gentoo-user] Re: Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 02/01/2017 03:15 PM, J. Roeleveld wrote:

On February 1, 2017 1:39:56 PM GMT+01:00, Nikos Chantziaras <rea...@gmail.com> 
wrote:

Is there a way to disable the Gentoo branding in KDE? My launcher icon
as well as my start screen got replaced with Gentoo-branded ones.


Do you have the 'branding' USE flag enabled?


There is no such flag.

[gentoo-user] Disable Gentoo branding on KDE?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Is there a way to disable the Gentoo branding in KDE? My launcher icon 
as well as my start screen got replaced with Gentoo-branded ones.

[gentoo-user] Re: Pulseaudio - Asus Xonar STX II 7.1 - 5.1 Surround - Front audio is coming from rear speakers in Firefox

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/29/2017 11:23 AM, Jochen Kirchner wrote:

Analog Surround 5.1 + Analog Stereo Input is selected in the
configuration tab in pavucontrol

Front left+right speaker volume is shown on firefox (CubebUtils:
audiostream) under the playback tab
But the sound is coming from the rear speakers.


Could be an issue with the playback program. The "stereo upmix" setting 
in alsamixer is only for when stereo is being sent to the card. Some 
programs convert stereo to surround on their own *prior* to sending it 
to the card. The card then sees it as surround and plays it as-is. If 
Firefox sends a surround stream with silence on the front speakers and 
sound on the rear ones, the card just plays it as-is since it's a 
surround signal.



> Another strange thing: If I start Diablo 3 with wine and select stereo
> in the audio settings of Diablo, the sound is coming through the front
> speakers... wtf :)

In this case, wine sends a stereo stream to the card, and the "stereo 
upmix" setting takes effect. Which is why I think it's Firefox that's 
the issue.




This is my kernel sound config:
[...]
Currently I'm rebuilding the kernel without "HD-Audio" and the old alsa
API. I will report back.


For reference, this is my config (for a Xonar D1, which uses the same 
driver):


$ cat /boot/config | grep CONFIG_SND | grep -v "not set"
CONFIG_SND=y
CONFIG_SND_TIMER=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM=y
CONFIG_SND_HWDEP=y
CONFIG_SND_RAWMIDI=y
CONFIG_SND_JACK=y
CONFIG_SND_JACK_INPUT_DEV=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQUENCER=y
CONFIG_SND_PCM_TIMER=y
CONFIG_SND_HRTIMER=y
CONFIG_SND_SEQ_HRTIMER_DEFAULT=y
CONFIG_SND_PROC_FS=y
CONFIG_SND_DMA_SGBUF=y
CONFIG_SND_RAWMIDI_SEQ=y
CONFIG_SND_MPU401_UART=y
CONFIG_SND_DRIVERS=y
CONFIG_SND_PCI=y
CONFIG_SND_OXYGEN_LIB=y
CONFIG_SND_VIRTUOSO=y
CONFIG_SND_HDA_PREALLOC_SIZE=2048
CONFIG_SND_USB=y
CONFIG_SND_USB_AUDIO=y

[gentoo-user] Re: Pulseaudio - Asus Xonar STX II 7.1 - 5.1 Surround - Front audio is coming from rear speakers in Firefox

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/28/2017 09:57 PM, Jochen Kirchner wrote:

while playing a mix on mixcloud.com the sound suddenly switched to rear
speakers again :(

Strange thing is:

When I lower the volume from the front speaker on the device
"pulseaudio" the rear speakers gets quiet.

And when I lower the volume from the front speaker on the device "Xonar"
the front speakers get quiet.

So I guess something IS wrong here :/


emerge media-sound/pavucontrol and run it. Check if the PA settings are 
correct in the "configuration" tab.


Also, did you make sure you're using the virtuoso kernel driver and NOT 
the oxygen one?

[gentoo-user] Re: Pulseaudio - Asus Xonar STX II 7.1 - 5.1 Surround - Front audio is coming from rear speakers in Firefox

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/27/2017 06:15 PM, Jochen Kirchner wrote:

Hi fellow gentoo'ers,


I'm running XFCE with pulseaudio.

Hardware is Asus Xonar STX II with the 7.1 daughterboard

Analog Surround 5.1 is selected in xfce4-volumed-pulse.

If I do speaker-test -c 6 all is right. Front audio is put through the
front speakers.

But if I play sound in Firefox and/or Chromium (eg. youtube) the sound
is mainly coming through the rear speakers.

Any advice? If you need more info please let me know, thanks!


Run alsamixer (media-sound/alsa-utils). Press F6, select the Xonar and 
look for a "Stereo Upmix" setting.


Also, make sure you're using the "Virtuoso" kernel driver 
(SND_VIRTUOSO), not the C-Media "Oxygen" one (SND_OXYGEN). The Virtuoso 
driver should provide the correct mixer controls for Xonar cards.


(The Oxygen driver works too, since the Xonar cards use the Oxygen chip, 
but it might not provide Xonar-specific mixer controls.)

[gentoo-user] Re: What has happened to the Gentoo tree?

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/27/2017 11:56 AM, Helmut Jarausch wrote:

Thanks Mick, thanks Neil,

it turned out that eix (I'm using eix-99) was broken. I removed it
and installed again.
This fixed the issue.


Or you forgot to run eix-update after doing emerge --sync?

[gentoo-user] Re: snafu: the update

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/26/2017 01:58 AM, Alan Grimes wrote:

Tom H wrote:

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 1:05 PM, Alan Grimes  wrote:

The linux kernel stalls stone cold dead in either direct from firmware
or pass through grub mode.

AFAIK, when you load the kernel directly from the EFI firmware, it has
to have the ".efi" suffix. But that doesn't explain why it would stall
when loaded from grub...

Somewhat OT: Regarding grub, your "/boot/" is messy. It might not be
making a difference for (efi)-grub2's functioning but you have grub1
files (*stage1_5), grub2 bios files (i386-pc/), as well as grub2 efi
files (x86_64-efi/).


Yeah, I've been using that directory for many many long years, I ended
up removing the grub directory completely and re-installing, it's much
cleaner now.


You have done it wrong, actually :-P

You are mounting the EFI partition as /boot. You should be mounting it 
as /boot/efi.


/boot can just be a subdirectory of the root partition, and thus use the 
ext4 filesystem, while /boot/efi should be the vfat EFI partition. So 
you should have /boot/efi/EFI.


Right now, your kernels, configs, etc, are on vfat. Which completely 
lacks a Unix permission scheme, or ACL.


Fortunately, this is easy to fix. Just umount /boot, change your fstab, 
mkdir /boot/efi, mount /boot/efi, and move everything from /boot/efi to 
/boot except /boot/efi/EFI.

[gentoo-user] Re: SNAFU!!!! Boot drive modernization.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

I had the same issue. I fixed it by disabling GRUB's automatic UUID 
kernel parameter and using my own.


/etc/default/grub:

GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="root=/dev/sda5 rootfstype=ext4"

Regenerate the grub config after editing it (grub-mkconfig).


On 01/25/2017 04:38 PM, Alan Grimes wrote:

After 7 long years, the peace of mind feature on my Velociraptor HD had
finally given up the ghost.

So I get a new SSD, that's slightly smaller but still a large multiple
of what I actually need the drive for. =P

To be fully trendy (and finally wanting to put the 1980's to bed) I try
to set up UEFI on gpt partitions, so the new boot partition, which is
also excessively large, now has a EFI directory.



localhost new_uefi # tree -L 2
.
├── config-4.6.7
├── EFI
│   ├── BOOT
│   └── gentoo
├── grub
│   ├── default
│   ├── device.map
│   ├── e2fs_stage1_5
│   ├── fat_stage1_5
│   ├── ffs_stage1_5
│   ├── fonts
│   ├── grub.cfg
│   ├── grubenv
│   ├── i386-pc
│   ├── iso9660_stage1_5
│   ├── jfs_stage1_5
│   ├── locale
│   ├── minix_stage1_5
│   ├── reiserfs_stage1_5
│   ├── splash.xpm.gz
│   ├── stage1
│   ├── stage2
│   ├──
stage2_eltorito

│   ├──
themes

│   ├──
ufs2_stage1_5

│   ├──
vstafs_stage1_5

│   ├──
x86_64-efi

│   └──
xfs_stage1_5

├──
memtest86plus

│   ├──
memtest

│   └──
memtest.netbsd

├──
System.map-4.6.7

└──
vmlinuz-4.6.7



10 directories, 23
files

localhost new_uefi #


Okay,

I copy GRUB into BOOT and test it, I unplugged the 'raptor to make it a
good test. It got to the point of kernel loading where it stalled
presumably because the kernel couldn't find root. But I had TESTED GRUB
AND IT WORKED!!!11



Okay...

I then use a parted CD and tried to rsync my data across, got bitten by
the goddamned trailing / missfeature, ended up using mv and fixed the
directory entries instead of putting another 50gb of wear on my new drive.


Side note: these boot CDs disable my mouse because it's using a USB port
that's mapped to the same IO address space as another USB port and, due
to my CPU/MOBO combination, I need about a dozen kernel parameters to
unhose using IOMMU.


So I've tested grub, it got to the kernel,

Now I have a root filesystem so the kernel should work.

Now to juggle the cables

Grub now dies before accomplishing anything whatsoever complaining that
it can't find a specific uuid.

I have one thing to say about UUID's at this point:

BURN
-- IN --
HELL.

Before I had been indifferent because I could ignore them completely
with no ill effects,

Now it's failing in a way that I don't even know what's going on. jeez!

So what I did was pray to almighty GooG and was provided with a grub
boot repair disk.. Which wouldn't work because it refused to touch a
UEFI system from a legacy-booted CD... So I reformatted my only CF disk
(which was reserved for BIOS images) and got it to do the work. The
keyboard input barely worked because there was almost no visible
feedback of the cursor position when the gui was operated by keyboard...
Anyway, I set the settings the way I wanted and it stopped dead at "plz
wait a few minutes while botching up your kernels "... I came back the
next morning and it was still frozen so I juggled the cables back and am
therefore able to write this e-mail. =\

[gentoo-user] Re: Problem matching latest kernel with latest Nvidia

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/10/2017 06:31 PM, Corbin Bird wrote:

You might want to add "static-libs" to the use flags as well. Another
useful utility gets built by it.


There doesn't seem to be anything installed by it, except a static lib 
(libXNVCtrl.a) and some header files (/usr/include/NVCtrl). No executables.

[gentoo-user] Re: Problem matching latest kernel with latest Nvidia

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/10/2017 11:01 AM, Philip Webb wrote:

170109 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 01/09/2017 10:09 AM, Philip Webb wrote:

I had a previous thread re Kernel 4.9.0 + Nvidia 375.26 (now stable).
I tried recompiling that kernel with DRM disabled,
& remerged Nvidia 375.26 , but X won't start.

The nvidia driver isn't "automatic". It's not used by X.Org by default.
X.Org only uses its own drivers by default.
For the nvidia driver, you need a conf file.
Something like this in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf:
http://pastebin.com/raw/0y3NMndp


I didn't need this with earlier versions of Nvidia-drivers,
but I've copied your template & am willing to give it a try.
It looks as if there are several lines which wouldn't fit my machine.


The file is generic. The only thing specific to me is "G2770PF", which 
my monitor's model name. Which is not parsed anyway.

[gentoo-user] Re: nvidia driver missing symbols

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 01/09/2017 10:15 PM, Daniel Frey wrote:

On 01/09/2017 12:10 PM, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 01/09/2017 10:09 AM, Philip Webb wrote:

170105 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

On 01/05/2017 08:05 AM, wabe wrote:

Make sure that you have also enabled CONFIG_DRM.
CONFIG_DRM=y
CONFIG_DRM_KMS_HELPER=y
CONFIG_DRM_KMS_FB_HELPER=y
CONFIG_DRM_FBDEV_EMULATION=y

For nvidia, these need to be all disabled.  Then it should work.


I had a previous thread re Kernel 4.9.0 + Nvidia 375.26 (now stable).
I tried recompiling that kernel with DRM disabled,
& remerged Nvidia 375.26 , but X won't start.


The nvidia driver isn't "automatic". It's not used by X.Org by default.
X.Org only uses its own drivers by default.

For the nvidia driver, you need a conf file. Something like this in
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf:

http://pastebin.com/raw/0y3NMndp



The nvidia driver has a tool to help with this too, it's called
`nvidia-xconfig`.


Which creates a global config IIRC. It's better to use a xorg.conf.d 
file instead of a global one. Let X.Org do auto-configuration for 
everything else, and just use xorg.conf.d/nvidia.conf for the nvidia 
driver only.