Re: Zoom in the official repo is outdated

[Bob McGowan]

On 4/24/24 01:28 PM, Michael Kjörling wrote:

On 24 Apr 2024 16:42 -0300, from luizroma...@tecgraf.puc-rio.br (Luiz Romário 
Santana Rios):

Earlier this month, I noticed I was no longer able to login to Zoom meetings
using the client installed from the Debian repos. In order to join meetings,
I had to uninstall it then install the flatpack Zoom package.

I think it should either be updated or outright removed in favor of the
flatpack version. What do you think? Should I report a bug?

I can't seem to find any Zoom client at all in the official Debian
repositories. It also doesn't really sound like something that the
Debian project _would_ package.

https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=zoom (which searches
everything from buster to trixie plus sid and experimental, across all
architectures) lists packages named libnet-z3950-simple2zoom-perl,
libnet-z3950-zoom-perl, libnet-z3950-zoom-perl-dbgsym, node-d3-zoom,
ruby-zoom, ruby-zoom-dbgsym, xzoom, xzoom-dbgsym, zoom-player and
zoom-player-dbgsym; none of which appear to be in any way related to
the proprietary videoconferencing service.

That said, if it's packaged for Debian somewhere and the packaged
version does not work for its intended purpose on a version of Debian
it's advertised as being packaged for, then yes, my firm belief is
that making some sort of report of this to whoever packages it that it
doesn't work properly (ideally with steps to reproduce the incorrect
behavior) is entirely reasonable.

_If_ that is the Debian project, then filing a bug against the
specific package through the Debian bug tracker is the correct way to
do it. _If so_, then start at .

Zoom provides a .deb package from their website, so they are the ones to 
work with.


You can run your Zoom app (don't start a meeting) and in the upper 
right, just above the gear icon is an account icon.  Click it and you'll 
get a menu which includes a "Check for Updates" item.


The resulting window will either tell you you're up to date or have a 
link to their webpage to download the latest version.


You will then need to manually install the .deb package.

Bob

Re: Why or why not back up "/lost+found"

[Bob McGowan]

On 8/10/23 03:03 PM, Nicolas George wrote:

Default User (12023-08-10):

And, if /lost+found should be excluded, then shouldn't "lost+found"
in any other directories be excluded from backups as well? Why/why
not?

Unfortunately, I regret to say that I did not find that the answer to
the question(s) about lost+found in the original post were contained in
the explanation(s) of its function - at least in what I have read so
far.

The lost+found directory at the root of the filesystem is special, it is
created when the filesystem is created and set up to receive orphaned
files. A lost+found directory elsewhere… is just a directory with a
wacky name.

Regards,


Almost but not quite completely true.

If you have more than one filesystem on your host, they may also have 
lost+found directories which will show up in their mount points.


For example, with your home on a separate disk, mounted on /home, there 
may be a /home/lost+found.


The same thinking applies to them as to /lost+found.

Any other location, then it is a user creating a directory or file with 
a wacky name, as Nicolas suggests.


Bob

Re: mounting media in plasma5

[Bob McGowan]

On 7/3/23 07:36 AM, Hans wrote:

An ext4 file system has its own internal Unix ownerships and permissions.
When mounted, those ownerships and permissions are what determine who
can read or write to each file/directory within the file system.

Yes, I know.

The ACL that's being added at the root directory of the mounted file
system is giving you extra read privileges on top of what the file
system permissions grant to you.  I would ignore that for now.


The bad thing: These ACLs have higher pivilges than the filesystem and they
inhibit the writing of the device.


If you want to write to a mounted ext4 file system where everything
is owned by root, just become root.  sudo cp myfile /mount/hans/whatever/

No good idea. For myself it would be ok, but not for my customers.
If you need to restrict root access by customers, why not do 'sudo mkdir 
/mount/whoever/newdir' to create a subdirectory and 'sudo chown 
user:user /mount/whoever/newdir' so your customers can write to the 
subdirectory?


However, as I mentined before, I could either remove ACLs, or better just set
the directory to the rights of the user manually.

Howeverm the last thing is, what I would have been expected by the desktop
environtment. Thus there are two optins: Either this is  a bug or it is set by
the developers to do as it does.

Maybe some maintainer or developer (who might read this) might know more.

Best regards

Hans

Re: Help with Optimus and external monitor use

[Bob McGowan]

Additional info:
$ nvidia-detect
Detected NVIDIA GPUs:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation TU117M
[GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q] [10de:1f91] (rev a1)

Checking card:  NVIDIA Corporation TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Mobile / Max-Q]
(rev a1)
Your card is supported by the default drivers.
Your card is also supported by the Tesla 470 drivers series.
Your card is also supported by the Tesla 450 drivers series.
Your card is also supported by the Tesla 418 drivers series.
It is recommended to install the
nvidia-driver
package.

$ apt search nvidia-driver
Sorting... Done
Full Text Search... Done
glx-alternative-nvidia/stable,now 1.2.1~deb11u1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider

libegl-nvidia0/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary EGL library

libgl1-nvidia-glvnd-glx/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary OpenGL/GLX library (GLVND variant)

libgles-nvidia1/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 1.x library

libgles-nvidia2/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary OpenGL|ES 2.x library

libglx-nvidia0/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary GLX library

nvidia-alternative/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 allows the selection of NVIDIA as GLX provider

nvidia-detect/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed]
 NVIDIA GPU detection utility

nvidia-driver/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed]
 NVIDIA metapackage

nvidia-driver-bin/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA driver support binaries

nvidia-driver-libs/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA metapackage (OpenGL/GLX/EGL/GLES libraries)

nvidia-kernel-dkms/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64 [installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source

nvidia-kernel-source/stable 470.182.03-1 amd64
 NVIDIA binary kernel module source

nvidia-legacy-390xx-driver/stable 390.157-1~deb11u1 amd64
 NVIDIA metapackage (390xx legacy version)

nvidia-legacy-390xx-kernel-dkms/stable 390.157-1~deb11u1 amd64
 NVIDIA binary kernel module DKMS source (390xx legacy version)

nvidia-legacy-390xx-kernel-source/stable 390.157-1~deb11u1 amd64
 NVIDIA binary kernel module source (390xx legacy version)

xserver-xorg-video-nvidia/stable,now 470.182.03-1 amd64
[installed,automatic]
 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver

xserver-xorg-video-nvidia-legacy-390xx/stable 390.157-1~deb11u1 amd64
 NVIDIA binary Xorg driver (390xx legacy version)

$
Bob

Help with Optimus and external monitor use

[Bob McGowan]

Hi,

I have an Asus Tuf Gaming laptop which has an Optimus configuration, 
with an AMD GPU rather than Intel.


I'm running Debian 11.7

I do not have any of the "other" auxiliary software tools installed, 
such as Primus (primusrun...).


When I run glxgears -info, I see it using the AMD GPU as expected.

Setting __NV_PRIME_RENDER_OFFLOAD_PROVIDER=NVIDIA-G0 
__GLX_VENDOR_LIBRARY_NAME=nvidiaas described in the Debian Wiki 
 
and then running glxgears -info shows it is using the Nvidia GPU, as 
expected.


My problem is that what I want is to use the external HDMI with an 
external monitor.


So in the section of the Wiki page titled "PRIME Render Offload with an 
External Display", I followed the instructions to run nvidia-xconfig 
(had to install it first).


That failed. :(

I finally took a look at Xorg.0.logand discovered the following error:

   [  5116.917] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
   [  5116.917] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
   [  5116.917] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not
   exist, 0)

What "module" is this referring to?

The kernal module is loaded:

   $ lsmod | grep nvidia
   nvidia_modeset   1204224  1
   nvidia  35528704  19 nvidia_modeset
   drm   630784  19
   gpu_sched,drm_kms_helper,nvidia,amdgpu,ttm

Do I have an incorrect X "driver" and if so, what do I need to 
remove/install?


Thanks for your help.

Bob

Re: CUPS - how to match autodetected printers to physical ones

[Bob McGowan]

On 2/16/23 12:01 PM, Brian wrote:

On Thu 16 Feb 2023 at 11:27:25 -0800, Bob McGowan wrote:


On 2/16/23 11:14 AM, Brian wrote:

On Thu 16 Feb 2023 at 11:52:21 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:


[1]to...@tuxteam.de  [2023-02-16 16:53:02] wrote:

Just for kicks: have you tried sending a PS (or *gasp* PDF) file
down that alley (e.g. with socat)?

For That One Form in the Year this might be just sufficient...

Hint: start with a small one :)

I don't think "a small one" can be small enough in case it misfires.
Instead, I usually make sure there's only 1 sheet of paper in the tray
when I send the test (usually a sheet that I already used :-)

Producind a PDF with the line "This is a test" in it is
incredibly easy. Jumping through hoops is not needed.


However, the PDF file created (I used LibreOffice 'cause its fast and
easy) was 7,335 characters long, according to 'wc', which also reported
367 "words" and 139 "lines".

Given that a standard US letter size sheet (8.5 by 11 inches) has 66
lines per page, that is just over 2 pages.

So putting only one used sheet of paper in the printer would save a
couple of sheets of paper. ;)

Not much but why waste paper for a simple test?

I have no desire or intention to investigate how LibreOffice
deals with a single line text file converted to a PDF. This
works to not waste paper when fileout.pdf is printed:

  /usr/lib/cups/filter/texttopdf 1 1 1 1 1 filein.txt > fileout.pdf


The point is that conversion to PDF results in a larger file than some 
might expect.


And we don't know if the printer actually does understands PDF 
directly.  If it does not, it would attempt to print the entire contents 
of the file as plain text.  At least, this is how I understood the 
comment I was responding to.


In the case of your command (which, by the way, requires some "esoteric" 
knowledge of CUPS), the resulting file, according to 'wc', is: 85  181 
1020 fileout.pdf


Not as big as the LibreOffice file, but still more than one page of 
output if printed as plain text.

Re: CUPS - how to match autodetected printers to physical ones

[Bob McGowan]

  
  
On 2/16/23 11:14 AM, Brian wrote:


  On Thu 16 Feb 2023 at 11:52:21 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:


  
to...@tuxteam.de [2023-02-16 16:53:02] wrote:


  Just for kicks: have you tried sending a PS (or *gasp* PDF) file
down that alley (e.g. with socat)?

For That One Form in the Year this might be just sufficient...

Hint: start with a small one :)



I don't think "a small one" can be small enough in case it misfires.
Instead, I usually make sure there's only 1 sheet of paper in the tray
when I send the test (usually a sheet that I already used :-)

  
  
Producind a PDF with the line "This is a test" in it is
incredibly easy. Jumping through hoops is not needed.



However, the PDF file created (I used LibreOffice 'cause its fast
  and easy) was 7,335 characters long, according to 'wc', which also
  reported 367 "words" and 139 "lines".
Given that a standard US letter size sheet (8.5 by 11 inches) has
  66 lines per page, that is just over 2 pages.
So putting only one used sheet of paper in the printer would save
  a couple of sheets of paper. ;)
Not much but why waste paper for a simple test?

Bob

  

Re: Detailed Leafpad manual [not just manpage]?

[Bob McGowan]

On 12/4/22 03:29 AM, Richard Owlett wrote:
I wish to document a personal project.The desired format will resemble 
the outline for term papers we wrote in school in the 50's. Except 
some items may be a short paragraph or two long.


I did a web search for text editors with an auto-indent feature.
The only one I recognized was Leafpad. But I couldn't find appropriate 
documentation or "howto". Where would I find it?


Any other suggestions for a basic text editor in the Debian repository 
with an auto-indent feature. I'm not interested in a full blown word 
processor.


TIA


By "outline for term papers", I presume you mean:

    I.  Topic A

        1.  Topic A subtopic A

        2.  Topic A subtopic B

            a.  Topic A subtopic B subsubtopc A

    II.  Topic B

    ...and so on.

"Autoindenting" should be a standard feature of any text editor use for 
programming.


I've used gvim for many years and it has this feature.  You can set it 
during the edit sessions by typing ":set ai", or put "set ai" (or "set 
autoindent") in your .vimrc or .gvimrc file.


To make it work conveniently, you might also want to set the tabstop, 
which by default is 8 spaces, to something less so you don't use up your 
paper width too quickly.  An indent of 2 is enough for basic visibility 
but 3 or 4 might be a bit nicer to work with the outline number part of 
the line.  This would allow you to indent a short paragraph under the 
outline heading such that it lines up with heading text, as in:


    I.  Topic A

       Paragraph ...

I hope this helps.

Bob

Re: Debian 11 - How to install Gtkmm

[Bob McGowan]

  
  
On 11/9/22 04:09 PM, Amn wrote:

Trying
  to install Gtkmm 4 in a Debian 11 box I do this :
  
  sudo apt install libgtkmm-4.0-dev
  
  
  But then I get this error :
  
  
  Unable to locate package libgtkmm-4.0-dev
  
  
  What am I doing wrong?
  
  

Perhaps libgtkmm-4.0 doesn't exist?
$ apt search
  libgtkmm

Sorting... Done

Full Text Search... Done

libgtkmm-2.4-1v5/stable,now
  1:2.24.5-4 amd64 [installed,automatic]

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ 2 (shared libraries)


libgtkmm-2.4-dev/stable
  1:2.24.5-4 amd64

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ 2 (development files)


libgtkmm-2.4-doc/stable
  1:2.24.5-4 all

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ 2 (documentation)


libgtkmm-3.0-1v5/stable,now
  3.24.2-2 amd64 [installed,automatic]

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ (shared libraries)


libgtkmm-3.0-dev/stable
  3.24.2-2 amd64

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ (development files)


libgtkmm-3.0-doc/stable
  3.24.2-2 all

 C++ wrappers for GTK+ (documentation)


$ cat /etc/debian_version

11.1
  
I don't see a 4.0 version.
Bob
  
  

Re: question about sound

[Bob McGowan]

The command to add a user to a group is:  useradd -G 
groupname[,groupname...] username


For example:  useradd -G audio,pulsaudio bob

On 8/17/22 10:21, Jude DaShiell wrote:

the user that's doing this would need to be added to the audio group and
maybe the pulseaudio group if that group exists.  The groupadd command can
do that for the user but groupadd has to be used by root to get that done.
Before doing any of that, a user can find what groups they're already in
by typing the groups command and a list should appear showing the groups.
Man groupadd can show how to use that command when it's time.


Jude  .

On Wed, 17 Aug 2022, mick.crane wrote:


hello,
Please take into account I don't know what I'm doing generally and know
nothing about audio.
Several years ago somebody asked me to edit a radio broadcast to separate out
a few seconds.
It took a couple of minutes to install Audacity, figure out the GUI thing and
save the bits of audio.
I'm wanting now to edit .wav files.
Can't find Audacity in the repository for Bookworm.
There is Ardour6.
It's a bit complex.
By selecting PulseAudio as the wotsit it seemed to be working but I try again
and there is no sound output to hear.
There is message like " don't have permission to access".
Is there some numpty explanation of how this is supposed to work ?
Do these things PulseAudio, Alsa, Jack provide a stream on some bus or
something and the Ardour6 programme edits bits out as it goes by ?
If it's a physical piece of tape you can imagine you can cut it with a pair of
scissors and cellotape bits together but I've no idea how it's working with a
PC.
resource of simplified explanation appreciated.

regards

mick

Re: Libreoffice: printing "dirties" the file being printed

[Bob McGowan]

On 4/2/22 14:10, Charles Curley wrote:

On Sat, 2 Apr 2022 10:58:49 -0700
Bob McGowan  wrote:


Start LibreOffice, open the 'Tools' menu and click on 'Options'.
Under the 'LibreOffice' heading select 'General' and in about the
middle of the new set of options you will see 'Document Status'.

Be sure it is not checked.

Thanks. Unfortunately, that did not seem to work. I tried checking it;
that also modified on printing. Libreoffice appears to be ignoring that
flag.


I just confirmed that the version of LibreOffice I'm running matches 
what you have.


And as Brad Rogers said, "Works here."

You may need to go to LibreOffice help directly with this.

Bob

Re: Authentication failed after su-

[Bob McGowan]

On 2/28/22 13:09, Dan Ritter wrote:

sudo su - -l -c "rest of the line"


Some comments on this, without knowing just how it failed:

1.  There is no reason I can see to using both 'sudo' and 'su' 
together.  By default, they both let you run a command as the root user.


2.  Using both '-' and '-l' with su is redundant, they do almost (per 
the man page) the same thing.  The man page suggests '-l' is better due 
to reduced side effects.


3.  The -c option provides a means to tell su to run a specific 
command.  So the string 'rest of the line' generates an error stating 
'command not found' if run as is.  You need to supply this part of the 
line so processing can be duplicated and evaluated.


If I insert an 'echo' before the word 'rest', there is no error.

Hence, the actual error is needed, as well as the actual command being run.

Bob

Re: Recs for new Linux laptop? (to replace Zareason)

[Bob McGowan]

On 11/9/21 7:17 AM, Tom Browder wrote:
My Zareason laptop (13-in screen, very lightweight and thin) is 
running Debian 10 natively and wonderfully (with Win10 as a dual boot 
option), but the company has gone out of business and I want to start 
preparing a standby replacement.


I would appreciate any recommendations for that. I have looked at both 
Emperor Linux and System 76 over the years. They always seem a bit 
pricey, but I'm willing to bite the bullet now if I have to--I'm 
getting too old to waste time on problem installations now.


Thanks,

-Tom


Just two comments of things to look out for:

1.  If possible avoid Optimus based (dual graphics card) laptops.  It 
seems there is a lot of variability in how different companies implement 
this, which may impact how well a Linux distribution works with the laptop.


2.  I've had problems with recent laptops from Dell that have Windows 
installed and use an Intel disk controller in RAID mode (even though 
there is only one disk).  These machines will boot the installer just 
fine but the installer fails to detect the disk or controller making 
installation impossible.  This is likely to change over time but short 
term could be an issue.


Cheers,

Bob

Touch screen monitor recommendations?

[Bob McGowan]

Hi,

I have a use case which could use a touchscreen monitor with a standard 
desktop running Debian.


Does anyone have any recommendations for units known to work with Debian?

Thanks,

Bob

Re: QEMU-KVM VMs sometime freeze when I run them for a couple of days

[Bob McGowan]

On 1/6/21 5:33 AM, buz.hr...@seznam.cz wrote:

From: Nicholas Geovanis 


George Shuklin's comment may have intended this question too: Are backups 
running
somewhere when the VMs "randomly" hang? Not necessarily on the VM that hangs,
but somewhere touching a related filesystem, disk or network device?

Hi Nicholas,

Thank you for asking. No backups on the host or inside the guest. And nothing 
else IO intensive on the host. They're IO intensive tasks in some guests but as 
I mentioned it's difficult to say if those tasks trigger the freezing.

I've just been working on getting Qemu for powerpc to install NetBSD 9.1 
and had bunches of problems with the VM hanging during the install 
process.  This was using the current default Debian package, 3.1.0.


The Qemu website has source for version 5.2.0, which I downloaded and 
built.  It does not hang.


Perhaps upgrading is the answer?

Bob

Re: Help with install on old Mac

[Bob McGowan]

On 12/5/20 1:47 AM, didier gaumet wrote:

Hello

Disclaimer: I am not familiar with Apple (old or new) hardware

There is the Debian Jessie installation manual for the powerpc architecture:
  https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/powerpc/index.html.en

the 3.6.1 section could explain why you have difficulties to boot from your 
hard disk:
  
https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/powerpc/ch03s06.html.en#invoking-openfirmware
but the link indicated to upgrade is broken

http://gnats.netbsd.org/43952 provides an updated link:
  wget 
http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Apple_Software_Updates/English-North_American/Macintosh/System/Mac_OS_X/System_Disk_Utility.smi.bin

On a side note, NetBSD, FreeBSD and OpenBSD all seem to have present version of 
their OS for the mac powerpc architecture:, NetBSD probably being the most 
advanced and supported (FreeBSD: WIP):
  http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/macppc/

keep us informed if you have succeeded :-)



Hello Didier,

Thanks for the links.  I too had noticed some of the Debian links were 
broken.


I did try a different, smaller, USB stick for the firmware, but it did 
not help.  Plus some of the info from other pages suggested at least one 
partition name might be wrong.  So I decided to follow your suggestion 
to look into the BSD systems.


I chose NetBSD and have successfully installed it.  But again, getting 
the system to boot into it is proving a challenge.


Since I'm now using NetBSD, I'll be taking this conversation over to 
their lists.


But I may ultimately retry getting Linux up on the machine.

We'll see how it goes.

Thanks again,

Bob

Help with install on old Mac

[Bob McGowan]

It is a Power PC G3 running Mac OS 9.

I've gotten CDs for Jessie 8.11, the last Debian release to support 
Power PC architecture.


I set up a second SCSI hard disk with an Adaptec controller and 
installed to it successfully.  However, upon reboot the system does not 
start immediately.  When it finally does, it boots the old Mac OS 9.


It turns out the existing disk is on an Advansys controller (?) that 
needs non-free firmware.  I figured this might be the cause of the 
reboot failure.


So I have rebooted from the CD and tried to access firmware on a USB 
stick.  I've tried several directory locations and had no success with 
the installer finding the files.  This may be due to the size of the 
stick (32G), I'll try something smaller later.


The real issue I need help with is that I can't figure out how, or even 
if it is possible, to use virtual consoles with Debian for Power PC, 
during install.  It would help if I could get a virtual console to work 
so I can take a look at what is going on behind the scenes.


Does anyone here have any experience from ages past with this 
environment?  Any suggestions for web sites with useful information for 
such old hardware?


I'm doing this for fun and learning, so I'm good with the restrictions 
all this will impose, particularly the old OS. ;)


Thanks,

Bob

Re: Zoom.

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/17/20 1:23 PM, pe...@easthope.ca wrote:

Does anyone have Zoom working in Debian 10?

Here it produces empty windows.  Visible toward the right in this
screenshot.  http://easthope.ca/Zoom.png

This is the entire output after starting in a terminal and then
exiting.

peter@joule:~$ zoom
peter@joule:~$

Thx,   ... P.

When I start Zoom using the command line, I get a single window with 
options to join or start a meeting, schedule a meeting or share screen.  
Plus additional choices, but the point is, I see nothing like what your 
screenshot looks like.


I've seen the browser part only when I click on a link in an email invite.

As for exiting, so long as Zoom considers it a normal exit, it will give 
an exit status of zero and you will simply see the next prompt.  That is 
as expected.


More details on exactly what you are doing and how you are getting your 
environment set up would be helpful.


Bob

Re: Journal

[Bob McGowan]

On 9/3/20 11:20 AM, Joe wrote:

On Thu, 3 Sep 2020 11:11:56 -0400
Dan Ritter  wrote:



Pelican is a static site generator. You write your content in
MarkDown or RST, and then Pelican compiles it into a website by
applying a theme and CSS styles.

Performance is high, because your webserver is only handing out
existing files. Security is high, because your webserver isn't
allowing any writes to anything.

My personal blog is at https://blog.randomstring.org

You can see many examples at http://pelicanthemes.com

Pelican is packaged for Debian. Although we are a few releases
behind mainline, the difference is all in new features, not
security.



Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm not looking for a CMS system, just
a diary. Either Robojournal (if it was maintained) or Lifeograph (if it
worked at all) would be fine.


I just installed Lifeograph, out of curiosity mostly.  It installed and 
runs, but does not have a modifiable window, is that what you mean by 
"not working"?


I maximized the window and there was then enough territory to actually 
see and read the stock "diaries".  Perhaps this is enough to help you? 
I have not yet tried to create my own diary, so there may be other 
issues I haven't hit yet.


If not, a clearer description of "if it worked at all" would be helpful.



For now, I'll go with phpMyAdmin, and throw together a frontend in PHP
when I have time and enthusiasm.



Bob

Re: Problems with Asus tuf gaming A15

[Bob McGowan]

AN, BONAIRE, KABINI,
MULLINS, KAVERI, HAWAII
[   826.647] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[   826.647] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
[   826.647] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
[   826.649] xf86EnableIOPorts: failed to set IOPL for I/O (Operation 
not permitted)

[   826.649] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[   826.649] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[   826.649] (EE) open /dev/dri/card0: No such file or directory
[   826.649] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
[   826.649] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
[   826.649] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
[   826.649] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[   826.649]compiled for 1.20.4, module version = 0.0.2
[   826.649]ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 24.0
[   826.649] (EE) Unable to find a valid framebuffer device
[   826.649] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
[   826.649] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
[   826.649] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
[   826.650] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
[   826.650] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[   826.650]compiled for 1.20.4, module version = 0.0.2
[   826.650]ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 24.0
[   826.650] (II) FBDEV(2): using default device
[   826.650] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[   826.650] (II) UnloadModule: "modesetting"
[   826.650] (EE) Screen 0 deleted because of no matching config section.
[   826.650] (II) UnloadModule: "fbdev"
[   826.650] (II) UnloadSubModule: "fbdevhw"
[   826.650] (EE)
Fatal server error:
[   826.650] (EE) Cannot run in framebuffer mode. Please specify busIDs 
  for all framebuffer devices

[   826.650] (EE)
[   826.650] (EE)
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support
 at http://wiki.x.org
 for help.
[   826.650] (EE) Please also check the log file at 
"/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information.

[   826.650] (EE)
[   826.653] (EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.
===end Xorg.0.log

In an earlier iteration of installation, I recall finding some info 
about framebuffers.  Also something about running in UEFI environments.


If anyone has specific references or suggestions, I'll take them.

I'll also be doing additional research myself.

Bob



On Tue, Aug 18, 2020 at 12:24 AM Bob McGowan <mailto:ramjr0...@gmail.com>> wrote:


On 8/16/2020 8:20 AM, Andrew Cater wrote:

No, that's OK. Grab a netinst or the DVD image: you can use
mirrors - the critical thing is that you don't install any
graphics drivers over and above the text mode drivers, you don't
try to use the graphical install - nothing graphical. Once you've
got a minimal install, then you can try adding the
firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-misc-nonfree build-essential -
which will get the AMD GPU drivers for the Ryzen and also the bits
you need to build the Nvidia modules. At that point, you might
need either the bumblebee or the bumblebee-nvidia (so the
proprietary drivers) as listed above. Then you add the environment.

As you go through the expert install, at one point it asks you if
you want to use contrib and non-free drivers and whether you want
to add apt-src to allow  imports of source code to build - answer
yes to all of these. If you don't do an expert install, you don't
get to see the lower priority questions that get asked in the
background, hence my insistence on expert install mode (which is
under advanced on the boot menu).

On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 3:02 PM Duval Coetzer
mailto:duval.coetze...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hi man YES it is the one with the dual graphics cards. sadly
it isnt intel but it runs a Ryzen chip and switches to Nvidia.
The problem that I have is that when I search for the nvidia
graphics to upgrade to then it doesnt find it. I dont know if
I am messing up. How do I boot using media? Oh snap okay I
will chack again. the thing is when I do the install I wipe
everything again. I am having cellphone problems so I need to
write the instructions down of what I am going to do. So let
me get this right. After I boot from a bootable usb with
Debian on it I select the installation that is non graphical.
I dont update using mirrors which will give me the terminal
after reboot. Where do I find the checkbox that asks for
nonfree and contrib? Once I reboot what is the command line
for bumblebee? I probably have to find my spicific drivers on
their site right? Well I am still roughly new you lost me
after building the modules. Thank you for the help!

On 8/16/20 4:06 PM, Andrew Cater wrote:

Hi David,

OK. I

Re: Problems with Asus tuf gaming A15

[Bob McGowan]

On 8/16/2020 8:20 AM, Andrew Cater wrote:
No, that's OK. Grab a netinst or the DVD image: you can use mirrors - 
the critical thing is that you don't install any graphics drivers over 
and above the text mode drivers, you don't try to use the graphical 
install - nothing graphical. Once you've got a minimal install, then 
you can try adding the firmware-linux-nonfree firmware-misc-nonfree 
build-essential - which will get the AMD GPU drivers for the Ryzen and 
also the bits you need to build the Nvidia modules. At that point, you 
might need either the bumblebee or the bumblebee-nvidia (so the 
proprietary drivers) as listed above. Then you add the environment.


As you go through the expert install, at one point it asks you if you 
want to use contrib and non-free drivers and whether you want to add 
apt-src to allow  imports of source code to build - answer yes to all 
of these. If you don't do an expert install, you don't get to see the 
lower priority questions that get asked in the background, hence my 
insistence on expert install mode (which is under advanced on the boot 
menu).


On Sun, Aug 16, 2020 at 3:02 PM Duval Coetzer 
mailto:duval.coetze...@gmail.com>> wrote:


Hi man YES it is the one with the dual graphics cards. sadly it
isnt intel but it runs a Ryzen chip and switches to Nvidia. The
problem that I have is that when I search for the nvidia graphics
to upgrade to then it doesnt find it. I dont know if I am messing
up. How do I boot using media? Oh snap okay I will chack again.
the thing is when I do the install I wipe everything again. I am
having cellphone problems so I need to write the instructions down
of what I am going to do. So let me get this right. After I boot
from a bootable usb with Debian on it I select the installation
that is non graphical. I dont update using mirrors which will give
me the terminal after reboot. Where do I find the checkbox that
asks for nonfree and contrib? Once I reboot what is the command
line for bumblebee? I probably have to find my spicific drivers on
their site right? Well I am still roughly new you lost me after
building the modules. Thank you for the help!

On 8/16/20 4:06 PM, Andrew Cater wrote:

Hi David,

OK. If this is one of the laptops with dual graphics cards where
it will often use an Intel graphics chip for simple tasks and
switch to Nvidia embedded card for more complex graphics/gaming?.
Stop. Get prepared for a more complicated process. Boot using
media. Do a text mode expert install - this will ask you lots of
questions but, critically, will allow you to produce a minimal
installation that is text mode only. When asked, add non-free and
contrib repositories: uncheck the box for a graphical / X Windows
environment. Once a minimal text mode install is complete, allow
the computer to shut down. Reboot, use apt or aptitude to install
and run the bumblebee program to set up the nvidia drivers and
the dependencies you need to build modules: you can use either
the free drivers which will give you nouveau or the proprietary
driver.  Build and install any necessary modules. At no point
until after that is completed, should you try installing X or a
graphic environment. Shutdown and reboot. At that point, use the
tasksel program to add the graphics environment and desktop
environment that you want.

Do this in the wrong order and it _will_ fail / appear to work
briefly then randomly crash - I had very similar problems with
one series of MSI laptops - trying to explain this to someone who
didn't understand Linux at all was painful - I think it took me
five or six installs and a couple of days to work out a passable
install sequence that worked consistently thereafter.

Andy C

On Sat, Aug 15, 2020 at 9:28 AM Duval Coetzer
mailto:duval.coetze...@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello I have problems with the Debian distro in general with
the A15
gaming laptop. I have tried all major Debian distros like
Ubuntu Mint
Kali and even Debian itself. The problem as such is after
successful
install of the operating system , at boot I get an error
which keeps me
from booting. I have tried setting the nouveau modeset= 0 and
nomodeset=0 which causes it to load further than my initial
error but I
still dont reach the GUI. I am running dual graphics and I tried
updating the software by going into the terminal after
hitting another
error but it still doesnt boot. Please help. The only
opperating system
I can run at the moment is Opensuse Tumbleweed.

Kind regards.


Hi Andy,

I have this same issue and was just about ready to ask the same question 
Duval had.  So I jumped on your post and followed instructions to the 
letter.  But I still do not get a 

Re: Installation Problem

[Bob McGowan]

On 7/14/20 1:48 PM, David Christensen wrote:

On 2020-07-14 13:33, Vlad Dragomir wrote:


I tried to install Debian on an unused laptop I'm having,


It asks for additional non-free firmware, unfortunately it's an Intel 
wireless card. It gives a list of files it needs in order to configure 
the network, which is I suppose a good start. Still,
1.    I have no idea where to find those files, Google didn’t help me 
much with this.
2.    If I find those files, I don’t know where exactly to paste them 
on the installation drive for it to see them.
3.    This installation iso pretends it contains non-free firmware 
already, so normally it shouldn’t ask for those files. Am I missing 
something?
Therefore, I had to cancel the installation, at least for the time 
being. It would be rather useless to have a system without Internet 
access.


Proprietary Wi-Fi firmware is an unending PITA with FOSS.


I buy laptops with wired Ethernet interfaces to avoid this problem.  I 
then use the wired connection for installation and for installing Wi-Fi 
firmware.



If I needed to install Debian on a laptop without Ethernet, I would buy 
a USB Ethernet adapter.  The key is finding one that is supported by 
FOSS OOTB.  Unfortunately, I do not own one and cannot make a 
recommendation.  (And, these products constantly change.)  I would  STFW 
for mailing list and forum archives for USB WiFi adapaters that are 
known to work with Debian 10.  If you are willing to buy used equipment 
(if only to do the install and firmware for the build-in Wi-Fi), eBay is 
a good source.



David

If you need a USB<->Ethernet dongle, I recently purchased one, through 
Amazon.  It is a Gigabit/USB3.0 dongle that works nicely with Debian.


The manufacturer is "plugable" (plugable.com) and the device is model 
USB3-E1000.


As an aside, for anyone that might be interested, I tested it 
successfully with both a Samsung Galaxy S9 cellphone and a Lenovo Tablet 
TB-8504F, which surprised me a bit.  I've also tested on two other 
Android tablets, where it did not work, so mileage will vary.


Regardless, it works with Debian without a hitch. ;)

Bob

Re: Cannot get systemd to forget about swap space on a failed disk

[Bob McGowan]

On 6/29/2020 11:37 PM, Reco wrote:

Hi.

On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 11:10:44PM -0700, Bob McGowan wrote:

But I cannot figure out where this might be, or even if this is the correct 
interpretation.

Check out the contents of /etc/systemd/system first.
Rebuild initramfs second.

Reco


Hi,

It seems my troubleshooting skills are not up to snuff. :(

I isolated the wrong disk.  This is partly due to the complexity 
(excessive, I think) of the systemd system, partly due to the fact that 
the startup reports of running jobs associated with disks overwrite each 
other, and I just grabbed the wrong one.


Regardless, upon commenting the correct disk out of fstab, and adding 
back my new secondary swap, everything works again as expected.


It may help others to know what I did.

Part of my original failure to find anything was because I was focused 
on the /lib/systemd, /usr/lib/systemd and /etc/systemd directories.  
Even though I had read the documentation that referenced /run/systemd, I 
had not checked it out.


When I did, I immediately found the correct UUID information for the 
actual failing disk.  And the rest is history.


Thanks for taking the time to look into this.

Bob

Cannot get systemd to forget about swap space on a failed disk

[Bob McGowan]

Please see thread with subject "Be careful when editing /etc/fstab" for 
a bit of background.


My computer had two swap partitions, on two different disks, when one of 
them started to generate CRC errors, seek errors, etc.


Once I determined which of the two it was, I commented out the 
/etc/fstab entry for it, halted the system, removed the faulty disk and 
rebooted.  I got dumped into the "emergency rescue" single user mode, 
after waiting several minutes for various "start jobs" to time out.


Given the above referenced email, and the info in the links it 
references, I would have thought that rebooting, with the modified fstab 
file, should have worked just fine.


However, as noted, it did not, so I must assume systemd has a unit (is 
this the right term?) defining my original swap setup.


I did find in man pages, that if both fstab and a systemd unit define 
the same thing, systemd wins.


That just reinforces the idea that somewhere, systemd knows the swap 
disk devices.


But I cannot figure out where this might be, or even if this is the 
correct interpretation.


Any suggestions on next steps greatly appreciated.

Bob

Re: Remote terminal: xterm -e ssh vs. ssh xterm

[Bob McGowan]

On 4/28/20 8:46 AM, Steve Keller wrote:

What are best practices to create a remote terminal?  I see to ways:
Create a local terminal emulator and run ssh to the remote host in
that or call ssh to run the terminal emulator on the remote host,
i.e.

 xterm -e ssh -X   or  ssh -X  xterm -ls

What are pros and cons?  I see one: The latter will produce more
overhead as it runs the X11 protocol through the ssh tunnel.

Steve


I have read several of the responses to this and I think it would help 
to clarify exactly what is happening in each of the two cases.


This is a bit long, my apologies, but to decide which is best, we need 
to know what is happening at all levels.


First, in both cases, you are running some sort of X based environment 
on your local machine.


Case one:  you run an xterm locally which uses your local environment to 
open a window in which an ssh is run on your local machine to open a 
connection to the remote host.  The sshd on the remote executes some 
remote application, in this case a login shell, to communicate with 
you.  You used the -X option to ssh so you could run an X client on the 
remote and it would display on your local host.


Case two:  you run ssh in your local terminal emulator, which could be 
any X terminal emulator (xterm, gnome-terminal, etc). You use the -X 
option to allow the X protocol to communicate from the remote to the 
local, and you run an xterm on the remote, which then displays on your 
local system.  This is all handled by the same sshd that ran a shell, 
above.  You used the -ls option for the remote xterm, which causes it 
run a login shell.  If you should need to run a remote graphical program 
within the remote xterm, it would also open a window on your local system.


The only real difference is, as you noted, the remote xterm overhead.

Since you used the -X option of ssh, I presume you intend to run some 
other graphical application on the remote, so not having a remote xterm 
could reduce overhead from two remote graphical applications.


However, there is no reason whatsoever to run a local xterm from within 
a local terminal emulator, just run the ssh directly:


ssh -X 

Or, if you do in fact want to run some remote graphical application:

ssh - x  

Unless there is some specific feature of the xterm that you need, that 
other emulators do not supply?


Bob

Re: using Webex from Stretch

[Bob McGowan]

Hi,

I recently had a sound problem with a web page and was instructed to do 
the following to enable it for a specific web site.  Note, this is not 
exactly intuitive.


1.  Go to the web site in your browser;
2.  In my Firefox, just to the left of the address bar are some icons, 
click the "info" (lower case 'i' in a circle);
3.  The first item listed is "Connection", use the arrow (>) to the 
right to open "Site Security";

4.  At the bottom there is a "More Information" link, click it;
5.  In the "Page Info" window that opens, click the "Permissions" tab;
6.  Scroll down to find lines for "Camera" and "Microphone";
7.  Unselect the "Use Default" and click the radio button for "Allow".

I'm running Firefox Quantum 68.7.0esr, but I believe the above should 
work for any recent Firefox build.


Bob

On 4/9/20 12:02 PM, Kleene, Steven (kleenesj) wrote:

On Thursday, April 9, 2020 8:50 AM, I wrote:


I see that my Firefox is set to "Block websites from automatically playing
sound". ...  I'll try changing that permission this afternoon and
see if it works.


Alas, Webex was still unable to make an audio connection.  Someday I'll be
allowed to go back to my workplace and test the Buster machine there.  (Or I
could upgrade at home.)

On Monday, April 6, 2020 7:37 PM, Dan Ritter replied:


However, if WebEx has a public SIP interface, you can have any
SIP VOIP program -- there are lots of them -- talk directly to
that, without passing through a telephone gateway.

A little googling shows me this page:

https://help.webex.com/en-us/7yxpa9/Join-a-Webex-Meeting-from-a-Video-System

and this one:

https://help.webex.com/en-us/7ej8gq/Requirements-for-Business-to-Business-B2B-SIP-Calls-To-and-From-the-Cisco-Webex-Cloud

which might be helpful.


I'll try that too.  Meanwhile I'll just have to use my wife's Windows laptop.
Thanks for all the helpful discussions.


From: rhkra...@gmail.com 
Sent: Thursday, April 9, 2020 11:21 AM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: using Webex from Stretch

On Thursday, April 09, 2020 07:09:35 AM Carl Fink wrote:

On 4/9/20 2:37 AM, deloptes wrote:

Kleene, Steven (kleenesj) wrote:

I was given two options.  If I chose "Use computer for audio", I got the
errors above again.  If I chose "Call in", it just showed a phone
number.


I assume (I know ;-) that when you see that phone number, the intention is
that you call in using a telephone.




In Webex you can also have the meeting call you, which is what
I do when I must use my phone. Generally I use computer audio,
and give Firefox permission to use it (and my camera if desired).

Re: Any Bluetooth 5 adapter Debian compatible

[Bob McGowan]

On 1/7/20 1:19 PM, deloptes wrote:

Bob McGowan wrote:


It looks like the majority of the pure Bluetooth devices are only 4.0.
There is one combination WIFI/Bluetooth I saw that is 5.0.


The version here does not mean anything relevant to the support by the OS.
BT4.0 in terms of hardware is compatible with bluez5 in terms of software.
This is only the features supported by the hardware version. As the 5.0
specification is rather new, only in recent years there are BT5 adapters in
the stores AFAIK.



Ah, confused by hardware versus software versioning.  Thanks for correction.

Still, it would be good to know if others have any experience with these 
particular products.  In particular, the LM506, which is available from 
Amazon for around $17 US.  A bit steep, compared to most other dongles.


Thanks.

Re: Any Bluetooth 5 adapter Debian compatible

[Bob McGowan]

On 1/5/20 3:24 AM, deloptes wrote:

André Rodier wrote:


Hello,

I am looking for a USB / Bluetooth 5 adapter, natively compatible with
Debian.

Thanks,
André


most of them are

I use ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)

Double check if adapter (newer once) are LE - there were issues with them.

I would just pick up one and see if the chipset is supported in linux and
what is the experience with that chip.

regards



Regarding the original request, I've been doing some research and came 
across the following:  https://www.lm-technologies.com/


They have combination WIFI/Bluetooth as well as pure Bluetooth, both low 
power and large/long range.  And they claim Linux compatibility.


It looks like the majority of the pure Bluetooth devices are only 4.0. 
There is one combination WIFI/Bluetooth I saw that is 5.0.


Does anyone have any actual experience with dongles from this 
manufacturer to share?


Thanks,

Bob

Re: Taming the "lsblk" command

[Bob McGowan]

On 1/8/19 10:47 PM, Felix Miata wrote:

Jude DaShiell composed on 2019-01-09 00:04 (UTC-0500):


lsblk -l -o name,label | sort | script

I tried exactly that on Buster multiple times, and always get the following:

root@gb250:~# NAME  LABEL
bash: NAME: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda
bash: sda: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda10 k25p10deb10
bash: sda10: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda11 k25p11deb10fat
bash: sda11: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda12 k25p12Ubionic
bash: sda12: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda13
bash: sda13: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda14
bash: sda14: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda15
bash: sda15: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda16
bash: sda16: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda1  K25P01ESP
bash: sda1: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda2  k25p02swap
bash: sda2: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda3  k25p03res
bash: sda3: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda4  k25p04usrlcl
bash: sda4: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda5  k25p05home
bash: sda5: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda6  k25p06pub
bash: sda6: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda7  k25p07stw
bash: sda7: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda8  k25p08s150
bash: sda8: command not found
root@gb250:~# sda9  k25p09s151
bash: sda9: command not found
root@gb250:~# sr0
bash: sr0: command not found
root@gb250:~# exit


What was the content of the script you piped to?  Its design would 
possibly explain this.


Bob

Re: perl; Trying to get File::stat to work

[Bob McGowan]

It looks like this has to do with mixing the usage of the "native" stat 
of Perl with the "object" version from File::stat.


The 'stat' from File::stat returns a reference to an object, which has 
the stuff you're wanting, tucked away internally as object variables.  
You need to do:


    use File::stat;

    $statRef = stat('testfile');

    $mtime = $statRef->mtime ()

Hoping this helps.

Bob

On 10/19/18 7:47 PM, Martin McCormick wrote:

I am a member of a perl discussion list but it seems to have gone
away so I hope somebody here can give me an idea as to why the
stat function is not working.

Create a file called testfile in your working directory
and then run the following perl script:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use warnings::unused;
use File::stat;
use File::Spec;

my $last_update_time;

$last_update_time = ( stat("testfile") )[9];
printf("%d\n",$last_update_time);

As this stands, it should print a 10 or so digit number
representing the number of seconds since Midnight UTC on January
1 of 1970.  What it actually does is to not set the variable and
you get the "Use of uninitialized variable" squawk with no
value assignment to the variable.

The [9] referrs to the ninth element in an array which
should be the time stamp.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ

Re: Burn Blu-Ray video on Linux

[Bob McGowan]

Thank you both for pointing to the correct library.  I will be trying it 
out soon, as time permits.


One question does remain, why didn't apt-get refuse to install the 
application, or pull in the correct library?


On 10/2/18 11:29 PM, deloptes wrote:

Bob McGowan wrote:


Hi,

I have a high def (4K) mp4 video I would like to put on a Blu-Ray disk,
to play in a standard Blu-Ray player.

So I did the Google search and found several posts, all of which
mentioned an application tsMuxeR, which is available for Linux and is in
the Debian repos.

However, it is a 32 bit application, but hey, no problem, I have
multi-arch configured, and I've been able to run some 32 bit apps
without issues.

Except this one.  The ldd command (is it ok to use the 64 bit command on
a 32 bit binary?) says the file is "not a dynamic executable", yet when
I run it, it complains about libraries not being found (which probably
answers the question about ldd):

tsMuxeR: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6:

But:

  $ find /usr/lib* -name libstdc++\*
  /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++fs.a
  /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++.a
  /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++.so
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6
  /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
  /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
  /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6
  /usr/libx32/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
  /usr/libx32/libstdc++.so.6

Only one directory in the above with 32 bit, so I tried adding it to
LD_LIBRARY_PATH:

  $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/libx32 tsMuxeR
  tsMuxeR: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6:

No joy.  And there is no file matching libstdc++.so.6 in /lib* or
/usr/local/lib, either

Have I misconfigured something with multi-arch?  Is there a bug I
couldn't find a reference too?

Any help or suggestions on other software to try?

Thanks,

Bob


The libcstdc++ you need should be in stretch

ii  libstdc++6:i386 6.3.0-18+deb9u1
i386 GNU Standard C++ Library v3

it provides
/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6

The /usr/libx32/libstdc++.so.6.0.22 is probably artefact from the past

regards

Burn Blu-Ray video on Linux

[Bob McGowan]

Hi,

I have a high def (4K) mp4 video I would like to put on a Blu-Ray disk, 
to play in a standard Blu-Ray player.


So I did the Google search and found several posts, all of which 
mentioned an application tsMuxeR, which is available for Linux and is in 
the Debian repos.


However, it is a 32 bit application, but hey, no problem, I have 
multi-arch configured, and I've been able to run some 32 bit apps 
without issues.


Except this one.  The ldd command (is it ok to use the 64 bit command on 
a 32 bit binary?) says the file is "not a dynamic executable", yet when 
I run it, it complains about libraries not being found (which probably 
answers the question about ldd):


tsMuxeR: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6:

But:

    $ find /usr/lib* -name libstdc++\*
    /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++fs.a
    /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++.a
    /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/6/libstdc++.so
    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6
    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
    /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
    /usr/lib64/libstdc++.so.6
    /usr/libx32/libstdc++.so.6.0.22
    /usr/libx32/libstdc++.so.6

Only one directory in the above with 32 bit, so I tried adding it to 
LD_LIBRARY_PATH:


    $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/libx32 tsMuxeR
    tsMuxeR: error while loading shared libraries: libstdc++.so.6:

No joy.  And there is no file matching libstdc++.so.6 in /lib* or 
/usr/local/lib, either


Have I misconfigured something with multi-arch?  Is there a bug I 
couldn't find a reference too?


Any help or suggestions on other software to try?

Thanks,

Bob

Re: List words separated by comma and without duplicates

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/29/2018 03:45 PM, David Margerison wrote:

On 30 April 2018 at 04:12, Antonio A. Rendina  wrote:

If you want to improve your bash skills you can read:
http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-Guide/html/

I suggest that to avoid poor and ancient, it would be
better to read current documents written by active experts.

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/
http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/

And, along the same lines, why do all the solutions I saw us I/O 
redirection in the shell to get input to commands that, at least in 
modern versions, can all read a file directly?


Bob

Re: [OT] debian (or debian like) terminal program for android

[Bob McGowan]

See as reference, what, John Hasler wrote on 02/10/2018 02:09 PM and 
02/10/2018 05:21 PM.


Which raises the question, what is wrong with "Termux" (I'm assuming you 
meant this when you listed "Terminux", as I can't find anything by that 
name, but could be wrong in my assumption).


Termux provides a BusyBox based basic environment, with the bash shell, 
that includes package management tools (pkg, apt) that let you install a 
large number of basic Linux applications, including Perl, file, ssh/scp, 
zsh and so on.


I also found, but have not tried, something called "GNURoot WheezyX 
(xterms), which may be more to your liking.


Bob


On 02/10/2018 01:46 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:

aside:
,
| Having such a time trying to google this.  It seems google has been
| dumbed down to the point where +word or "these words" no longer force
| those things to be in the hits.
`

Can anyone tell me if there is a serious terminal program for android
phones?

I mean a full OS and the basic commands.  Especially I'd like to have
ssh and scp among them.

What I've already tried and found lacking:

Terminux
simple sshd
ConnectBot
Material Terminal (Supposed to be an improvement over Terminal
   Emulator  for Android so didn't try that one)

Re: Segmentation fault in top -b1 -hc

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/08/2017 03:28 AM, to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
> On Mon, May 08, 2017 at 11:46:13AM +0200, Peter Ludikovsky wrote:
> > On 05/08/2017 11:19 AM, Valentin Bajrami wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> There is a segmentation fault when top is used as follow
> >>
> >> top -b1 -hc
> >>
> >> I think the args are not parsed properly.  The version used is:
> >> procps-ng version 3.3.10
> >>
> >> --
> >> Met vriendelijke groet,
> >>
> >> Valentin Bajrami
>
> > There's no package procps-ng [0].
>
> Indeed. There seems to be one props-ng floating around, but it doesn't
> come from Debian's official repos.
>
> To find out where that package comes from, try
>
>   apt-cache policy procps-ng-3.3.10
>
> (or however that package is really called, you can find that out
> with "aptitude search procps-ng" or something similar).
>
> HTH
> -- tomás
>
I just tried the OP's command line and got the following error:

$ top -b1 -hc
  procps-ng 3.3.12
Usage:
  top -hv | -bcHiOSs -d secs -n max -u|U user -p pid(s) -o field -w [cols]

I can say with assurance that I have not manually installed anything
related to procps or top.

And the policy for procps says:

$ apt-cache policy procps  
procps:
  Installed: 2:3.3.12-3
  Candidate: 2:3.3.12-3
  Version table:

Those version numbers match the numeric part of the 'top' output.

Could it be that Debian has just dropped the '-ng' from the name?

Bob

Re: Using -prune option of find to ignore hidden directories

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/03/2017 07:44 PM, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hmm, maybe I don't need a response to this--I think if I read Greg Wooledge's 
> post (next in the thread) and experiment (tomorrow or later ;-) with his 
> script, I'll get the idea...
>
> On Wednesday, May 03, 2017 10:29:08 PM rhkra...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Wednesday, May 03, 2017 04:22:57 PM to...@tuxteam.de wrote:
>>> FWIW, a trick to see what's really going on is to prepend an echo
>>>
>>> before all that:
>>>   echo find /home/richard -type d -name .*
>> That seems like a helpful trick, but I'm not sure what I should see.
>>
>> On my (Wheezy) system, I tried that, i.e.:
>>
>>
>> echo find /home/ -type d -name .*
>>
>> and
>>
>> echo find /home/ -type d -name '.*'
>>
>> and, in both cases, I got the same result:
>>
>> find /home/ -type d -name .*
>>
>> From what you wrote (below) I expected to see something different, maybe
>> more like the following, at least for the case with the .* not within
>> single quotes:
>>
>> find /home/ -type d -name   ...
>>
>> I presume you see the same thing on your system, so I'm missing something
>> (and not ready to try a lot of experiments atm (near bedtime).
>>
>> Any clarification will be welcomed!
>>
>>> (for the example above). Of course you won't think of that if you
>>> are't suspecting shell expansion in the first place, but I find
>>> it very instructive to see what the shell is "seeing". That'll
>>> help memory for the next time (it does for me, at least).
>>>
>>> cheers
>>> -- t

What directory were you in when you ran the command?  If you were in
your home directory, the .* should have expanded into ". .. ", if you were in some other directory you might
only see the ". .." (dot dotdot).

When I ran it in my home directory, I saw everything from .ICEauthority
to .xsession-errors.

Bob

Re: shutdown fails to power off host

[Bob McGowan]

On 01/17/2017 02:39 AM, Hans wrote:
> I remember this discussion from sime time ago. Debian has changed a real 
> poweroff from "halt" to "halt -p". The second one is according to the manual.
> 
> As far as I remeber, "shutdown" is just a wrapper fpr the halt command, but I 
> am not quite sure. 
> 
> But one thing was cleared: To poweroff a debian systenm, the command "halt 
> -p" 
> is recommended.
> 
> Besides: This behaviour is also now in kali linux integrated, which was also 
> using the command "halt" for a long time. But now it's "halt -p", too, also 
> on 
> the livefile.
> 
> Best
> 
> Hans
> 

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions and insight to the problem.

In my case:

1.  The problem was with *any* "shutdown", from the command line, via
halt or shutdown, or through menus of the window system.

2.  The comment by j...@jretrading.com about unmount issues rings a bell,
I think I saw something about failure to sync at one point.

3.  I did try 'halt -p', same result.

4.  There have been two or three updates since I sent my original
question, and the system is now halting and powering off as expected.

Bob

Re: shutdown fails to power off host

[Bob McGowan]

On 01/04/2017 10:59 PM, Bob McGowan wrote:
> I have done a search of the debian-user archive, using the same text as
> the subject, and found several references to emails with similar
> problems.  However, no exact solution was proposed.
> 
> And this actually only happens on one of the two systems I have Debian
> installed on.
> 
> I'm using testing (stretch).
> 
> When I shutdown my desktop system, the screen displays messages from
> systemd (I presume), the last of which is "Reached target Shutdown".
> 
> It then just sits there.  I have taken to using a power strip with a
> switch as a way to quickly turn the host off, once it has reached the
> target.
> 
> On my laptop, I see the same message, followed by powering off the system.
> 
> Tonight, I happened to take longer than usual to get to my desktop
> system, and while writing down the exact wording of the message, the
> kernel panicked.
> 
> My laptop is around ten years old, an HP Pavilion dv9000, the desktop is
> about half that age, a home built "gamer" level hardware system.
> 
> Any ideas what I should be looking for?  The fact the kernel panics on
> my desktop would imply to me there is a kernel configuration issue of
> some sort, but I have no idea where to start.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Bob
> 

My apologies, I failed to mention:

I'm using Xfce4 as my windowing system on both hosts.

And I'm using the 'shutdown' menu option from the "Action Buttons" panel
plugin.

Bob

shutdown fails to power off host

[Bob McGowan]

I have done a search of the debian-user archive, using the same text as
the subject, and found several references to emails with similar
problems.  However, no exact solution was proposed.

And this actually only happens on one of the two systems I have Debian
installed on.

I'm using testing (stretch).

When I shutdown my desktop system, the screen displays messages from
systemd (I presume), the last of which is "Reached target Shutdown".

It then just sits there.  I have taken to using a power strip with a
switch as a way to quickly turn the host off, once it has reached the
target.

On my laptop, I see the same message, followed by powering off the system.

Tonight, I happened to take longer than usual to get to my desktop
system, and while writing down the exact wording of the message, the
kernel panicked.

My laptop is around ten years old, an HP Pavilion dv9000, the desktop is
about half that age, a home built "gamer" level hardware system.

Any ideas what I should be looking for?  The fact the kernel panics on
my desktop would imply to me there is a kernel configuration issue of
some sort, but I have no idea where to start.

Thanks,

Bob

Re: Purpose of fsck at boot (was: Skipping fsck during boot with systemd?)

[Bob McGowan]

On 12/10/14, 3:41 AM, Frédéric Marchal
frederic.marc...@wowtechnology.com wrote:

Le Wednesday 10 December 2014 11:10:52, Frédéric Marchal a écrit :
 Le Wednesday 10 December 2014 09:49:51, Gian Uberto Lauri a écrit :
  You run fsck on power up because the 'system does not remember' if it
  was shut-off cleanly or not. If the disks are clean and the last check
  is not too old, fsck just report this and does nothing. Else it takes
  care of the safety of your data.
 
 Are you implying that the only purpose of fsck at boot is to recover
from
 an unclean shutdown?
 
 To my understanding, errors creeping into the file system are
unavoidable
 in the real world, even without serious system crashes.
 
 On the computer I'm using here (Debian Wheezy), automatic fsck at boot
has
 been disabled from the beginning. At this time, the root partition has
been
 mounted 249 times since the last check. Presumably, fsck assumed, from a
 casual glance at boot time, that there was nothing to fix.
 
 Yet, running e2fsck -n -f /dev/disk/by-uuid/whatever reports several
errors
 such as orphaned inode list, block bitmap differences, wrong free blocks
 count, inode bitmap differences, wrong free inodes count.
 
 Are these errors not supposed to be fixed by a periodic deeper file
system
 check?

Following this post, I restarted the computer in single user mode. I had
to 
ifdown eth0 before I could mount -o remount,ro /dev/sda3 but then I could
run 
e2fsck -f /dev/sda3 on the boot/root partition.

And surprise! No error at all!

I restarted the computer in normal mode and, for sure, e2fsck -n -f
/dev/sda3 
reports the same errors as above.

Is it an artifact induced by the ext4 journal?

Frederic


I don't think so, I expect it is an artifact of a running, dynamic, in
use file system.

There will be 'cached' data in RAM OR in the journal that is more recent
and up to date than data stored on the hard disk.

The fsck programs all operate on hard disk storage, not cache or journal,
so they will report inconsistencies on a read/write file system because
some portions of disk storage will be out of sync with respect to other
parts.

When you boot a system, fsck is run while the root file system is mounted
read only, just as when you did the re-mount in single user mode.  The
disk data is fully up to date and hence no errors are reported.

By the way, there may be some confusion over the '-n' option.  This makes
e2fsck operate in read only mode, but the file system itself may be
read/write.  You only get a read-only file system when it is explicitly
mounted read-only.

You are probably aware of this, but I wanted to make it clear, for others
reading this.

Bob


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Re: Qsynth working, Fluidsynth not

[Bob McGowan]

On 11/14/14, 12:00 PM, Francesco Ariis fa...@ariis.it wrote:

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 09:28:23PM +0100, Francesco Ariis wrote:
 Now to the problem; when I try to use fluidsynth instead of qsynth, MIDI
 events are recognised (I can see them with -v option), but no sound
comes
 out of the speakers.

I think I found the problem: I will answer myself in case someone
experience
the same behaviour.

Apparently, qsynth spawns an instance of jackd which isn't killed when you
quit the program (I don't really know why).
Killing the process (jack) and starting fluidsynth does it.


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I had just installed timidity, when I saw this post, and decided to take a
look at these tools.

What I found shows both qsynth and fluidsynth depend on jackd, since I did
not have jackd installed and both refused to run, with the same error
message, to the effect that jackd could not be found or started.

It would seem that these two packages should depend on the jackd package,
but don't.

I also discovered that neither of them seem to work with jackd2, they only
seem to work with jackd1.  However, since I could not get jackd2 to run at
all, via qjackctl, the issue is probably not with qsynth/fluidsynth.

I'm on Debian wheezy (7.7, according /etc/debian_version).

Bob


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Re: Two Z Shells

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/3/14, 6:31 PM, John Aten welcome.to.eye.o.r...@gmail.com wrote:

* PGP Signed by an unknown key

Hi all,

I just installed z shell through:

#apt-get install zsh zsh-doc

Before installing, I looked for it with which and whereis. I got nothing
from which, (it now lists /usr/bin/zsh) and when I typed whereis zsh it
only returned:

# whereis zsh
zsh:
#

I notice now that /etc/shells lists two Z shells;

/bin/zsh
/usr/bin/zsh

I was wondering why this might be?

Thanks,

J


If a user has a login startup script or shell scripts that refer to
/bin/zsh, or to /usr/bin/zsh, they can be run without having to modify
them, after copying to the new system.

Note that there is only one file containing code.  As mentioned by Alexis,
the names you mention are links to the true executable, so there is only
one Z shell present on your system.

Bob


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Re: 'motion' does not save movies, only still pics

[Bob McGowan]

On 9/25/14, 7:12 AM, Rob Owens row...@ptd.net wrote:

I tested 'motion' on Wheezy yesterday.  It detects motion and takes still
shots, but it is not creating movies out of the still shots.

I have set:

# Use ffmpeg to encode mpeg movies in realtime (default: off)
ffmpeg_cap_new on

and

# Gap is the seconds of no motion detection that triggers the end of an
event
# An event is defined as a series of motion images taken within a short
timeframe.
# Recommended value is 60 seconds (Default). The value 0 is allowed and
disables
# events causing all Motion to be written to one single mpeg file and no
pre_capture.
gap 60

Can anybody confirm that movie output works on Wheezy?

One thing that may be a factor in my case is that my test webcam is very
slow.  I am only getting one picture every 2 or 3 seconds when motion is
detected.  I have framerate set to 2 fps.  Maybe motion is aware that my
pics are too far apart in time and is deciding not to combine them into a
movie.

-Rob


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I should have added a caveat to my original response, I hadn't actually
tried it, since my needs pointed me to a more feature full system.


Looking at the 'gap' description, I wonder if you need to set it to '0' in
order to get a movie?

Bob


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Re: security camera software

[Bob McGowan]

On 9/24/14, 6:43 AM, Rob Owens row...@ptd.net wrote:

I need to set up a couple usb cameras to record video based on motion
detection.  I prefer ease of setup to a large feature set, since this is
expected to be only temporary.  I want to only record when there is
motion, so I don't have hours of footage to search through.

A quick search shows recommendations for a package called 'motion'.  Does
anybody here have any experience with that, or can anybody recommend
something better?

-Rob


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I've looked into video surveillance also and only found 'motion', as the
simple interface.

The only other tool I've found is zoneminder, which is web based and much
more complex.

Bob


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Re: mount inconsistencies

[Bob McGowan]

On 5/12/14 8:52 AM, Jochen Spieker m...@well-adjusted.de wrote:

Hi folks,

this looks very weird to me. My wheezy system claims that a filesystem
is mounted, but the mount directory appears to be empty and umount fails
because the filesystems is not mounted, after all:

| # grep backup /etc/fstab
| /dev/mapper/backup-decrypted  /srv/backup  ext4
noatime,nodiratime,barrier=1,noauto,nodelalloc  0 0
| 
| # mount | grep backup
| /dev/mapper/backup-decrypted on /srv/backup type ext4
(rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
| 
| # df -h /srv/backup/
| FilesystemSize  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
| /dev/mapper/backup-decrypted  2.5T  1.8T  699G  72% /srv/backup
| 
| # ls -la /srv/backup/
| total 8
| drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 4096 Oct 21  2011 ./
| drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4096 Oct 22  2013 ../
| 
| # umount /srv/backup
| umount: /srv/backup: not mounted

I don't think it's important, but the filesystem is encrypted using LUKS
on top of an LVM volume:

| # grep backup /etc/crypttab
| backup-decrypted/dev/mapper/backup2-lvol0   none
noauto,luks,cipher=aes-cbc-plain:sha256

Interestingly, when I mount /srv/backup again, I can see its contents
and umount it afterwards. But only once. Complete transcript:

| # mount /srv/backup/
| 
| # ls /srv/backup/
| abattoir/  abattoir-winxp/  cupcake/  jigsaw/  lost+found/  mail/
manowar/  _manual/  xenhost/
| 
| # mount | grep backup
| /dev/mapper/backup-decrypted on /srv/backup type ext4
(rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
| /dev/mapper/backup-decrypted on /srv/backup type ext4
(rw,noatime,nodiratime,nodelalloc,data=ordered)
| 
| # umount /srv/backup
| 
| # umount /srv/backup
| umount: /srv/backup: not mounted

Do you have any ideas what's wrong?

Regards,
J.
-- 
I will not admit to failure even when I know I am terribly mistaken and
have offended others.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
 http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html


Has your system recently crashed, or had to be powered down forcefully?

The contents of /etc/mtab may be out of date and reporting conditions that
existed before a forced power down.

On the other hand, if /etc/mtab is a symlink to /proc/mounts, it should be
current.

If /etc/mtab is not a symlink, you may want to make it so.

You can also look at /proc/mounts directly and see what it says.

I'm not sure if any of this will actually help explain any root causes,
but may point in the right direction.

Bob


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Re: bash quoting problems

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/08/2011 04:43 PM, Andreas Berglund wrote:

Hi!
I have a problem with the following sed snippet
sed -i s|^\( *PATH=\)\(.*\)|\1$ADD:\2| ~/profile-test
I need soft quotes in order for $ADD to expand and I also need to math
against one doublequote in the regexp in for $ADD to be put in the
corrct place. Does anyone know how to do this?




You may want to consider putting the sed script in a file and using the 
-f script (or --file=script) option instead.


No quoting needed. ;)

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Re: Wicd Wireless Woes

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/24/2011 02:09 PM, Wayne Topa wrote:

On 05/24/2011 05:04 PM, Wayne Topa wrote:

On 05/24/2011 11:33 AM, Bill wrote:

Hi folks,

I'm having problems connecting to my wireless access point using wicd.
Wicd seems to be running ok. I can connect and disconnect from my wired
network at will. Wicd also detects a variety of wireless networks in my
neighborhood, including my own, but won't connect. It claims there's a
bad password, but I've triple checked that. It's correct.

I'm including the relevant information from the wicd log below. I hope
someone can point me in the right direction. Wicd is complaining about
a variety of things, any of which could be the real cause of the
problem.


After a re-read of your OP, I have more questions, mainly how are you
starting wicd? I ask that because I have reviewed my squeeze logs where
I did have problems getting wide to associate, and find no reference to
wicd-cli in them.

I start wicd on a console with wicd-curses and in X with wicd-gtk. My
logs show no wicd-cli calls at all.

Hope this helps, some

WT



My old eyes are seeing things.  Forget the wicd-cli  I read it wrong!!!
wpa-cli != wicd-cli.

Sorry for the noise
And for replying to you directly.  Iceweasel just dropped the
reply-to-list button and I didn't notice it until after I hit send.  G




I've missed earlier emails on this subject, so this may have been said 
and found wanting.


In Ubuntu land, there have been many references to this type of problem. 
 The bottom line appears to be that 'wicd' and 'network-manager' get 
installed together (that is, when you install 'wicd', 'network-manager' 
is not removed), and they interfere with each other.


Remove *all* packages related to 'network-manager' that are installed. 
This has worked for me on several different Ubuntu/Kubuntu releases.


I don't know what the Ubuntu references are, that info's all on my home 
system.


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Re: Finding Library Dependencies - MxEasy Security Camera Software

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/09/2011 05:19 AM, cac...@quantum-sci.com wrote:
 On Sunday 8 May, 2011 08:27:27 godo wrote:
 it's happened sometimes that some package missing in testing or sid but 
 from my experience it will come in few days or week.

 If you are in hurry try with sid version and if there is not to much 
 dependencies I think it wont be a problem.
 
 I've found libsdl1.2debian-all in Ubuntu Natty, which this software was 
 packaged for, and the only two operative files in it are:
 /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0
 /usr/lib/libSDL-1.2.so.0.11.3
 
 There is a libsdl1.2debian-all for Debian Testing, which I'm running, but 
 it's not built for amd64 yet.  There is a libsdl1.2debian-all for squeeze, 
 and it has exactly what Natty's has.
 
 And the kicker is that libsdl1.2debian (no -all) which I have installed, has 
 these exact files with these exact names as well.  So I think the software is 
 looking for the package name with -all, and when it doesn't find it it fails. 
  I overrode dependencies and installed it anyway, but inexplicably it does 
 everything but show video.
 
 There is a way to determine what libraries are required by an executable, but 
 I don't remember what it is.
 
 

You want to use:

  $ ldd filename # or libfilename.so or /full/path/lib/libfilename.so

The output will look something like this:

linux-gate.so.1 =  (0xb76f4000)
libclntsh.so.11.1 = not found
libc.so.6 = /lib/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 (0xb7557000)
/lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb76f5000)

Notice here that the second library is not found.  If you see this,
search for the not found file and put its absolute directory path in
LD_LIBRARY_PATH and repeat the command.

For any library used that is not found in a standard location
(minimally /lib:/usr/lib but may include /usr/local/lib), repeat the ldd
on that library to be sure its dependencies are resolved.

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Re: Problem with chmod

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/10/2011 05:18 AM, Gorka wrote:
 Parent directory is /
 
  
 
 Aparently it changes permissions to 777, but suddenly they turn into
 7001 again. There is some kind of persistency. Chown works well, but
 chmod works so.
 
--deleted other suggestions for brevity--
 

Try creating a new directory somewhere else, copy the files into it and
see if you can change the permissions there.

Since you've created a bootable setup on a pendrive, it is possible that
the root is a ram disk and this could (I suppose) be an issue.  So you
may want to run 'mount' with no arguments to see what devices are
associated with mount points, and choose one that points to the pendrive
itself.

Or, if the pendrive is not mounted, you may be able to mount it manually
and then do the mkdir/copy.

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Re: fullscreen video with mencoder

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/02/2011 11:36 AM, Leonardo Ruoso wrote:
 2011/4/30 Jeffrin Jose ahiliat...@yahoo.co.in
 mailto:ahiliat...@yahoo.co.in
 
 On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 03:04:37PM -0400, Rob Owens wrote:
  I think he wants the black bars.  What he doesn't want is for the
 video
  to get stretched to fill the screen, wrecking the aspect ratio in the
  process.
 I do not want the black bars. I need the picture to be
 fullscreen without getting stretched.
 
 Then you need to crop it
 
 left and right... 
 
 
  
 
 
 --
 software engineer.
 department of computer science
 rajagiri school of engineering and technology.
 
 


This suggestion confuses me.  The image has black bars, indicating it is
not wide enough with its aspect ratio to fill the width, but it is
filling the height.

To get it to fill the width without changing the aspect ration implies,
I think, cropping top/bottom, not left right, doesn't it?

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Re: Ubuntu Crossgrade

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/25/2011 03:14 PM, Steven Rosenberg wrote:
 On 04/21/2011 03:14 AM, David Sanders wrote:
 Hello List,

 I'm just returning to Debian after a long absence over in Ubuntu land.
 The upcoming train-crash that is the Unity UI, and some over-political

--deleted--

 
 I personally would never do this. Reinstall, I say.
 
 

Generally, I agree.  There are some things that could copy over,
specifically any locally compiled code, so long as libraries,
particularly glibc, match, and of course scripts and configuration files
(though you need to be careful with the config files).

I have moved, several times, between various distributions, for various
reasons, by backing up everything of interest (/home/*, /usr/local/*,
any files in /etc that I've modified, and so on), and restoring them as
a set under, for example /oldstuff, so I can test everything and copy
functioning stuff back in place easily.  Anything that doesn't work is
deleted.

There are simply too many interdependencies to trust a hybrid system.

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Re: Gdm login failing I could not start your session

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/17/2011 07:50 PM, dbu.sat.nobrai...@antichef.com wrote:
 How can I restore full gnome login? Only a gnome-failsafe session
 works now.
 
 /var/log/gdm/:0.log shows:
 FATAL: Module fbcon not found
 SELinux disabled on system, no enabling in X
 
 $HOME/.xsession-errors shows:
 /etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
 load s .profile
 /etc/gdm/Xsession: Executing gnome-session failed, will try to run 
 x-terminal-emulator
 
 I may have deleted files accidentally (sudo-ed too fast). But I've already 
 upgraded lenny to squeeze and then re-installed many gnome packages. The 
 problem remains.
 
 Thanks for your help.
 
 S. Taylor
 

Just some thoughts, which may not help, depending on how this all
happened.  I had a similar problem with a home directory that belonged
to me but really didn't.  ;)

Be sure your login account name is the owner of all files in your home
directory and that this user has read/write permissions for regular
files and read/write/execute permissions for directories.

If that doesn't help, you may want to consider creating another user
account and use it to confirm whether a new login setup works or not.

If it works, you know you have all the right software installed, and you
can then focus on configuration differences.  If it doesn't work, then
you need to figure out which package(s) is(are) missing and install them.

I'm not sure about the best way to figure out what might be missing.
You could try listing the dependencies of the gnome meta-package(s) and
then check for these packages and reinstall any that are missing.

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64 bit debian, 32 bit app and libaio.so.1 dependency

[Bob McGowan]

Hi, all,

I have a Perl based application tool set that uses DBD::Oracle libraries
from the Oracle 11 instant client package.  The DBD was compiled in a 32
bit environment.

Now there's a user who wants to run it on a 64 bit system, which at
least requires the installation of the 'ia32-libs' package.

However, 'ia32-libs' does not include a 32 bit version of libaio.so.1,
which is required by the Oracle 11 libraries.

I could supply a 32 bit copy of it with the Oracle 11 libraries, but it
seems to me there should be a better solution, based on standard package
management tools.

There was some discussion for improving 32 bit library support in 64 bit
architectures in June 2010 and thereabout (David Kalnischkies is perhaps
lead developer?), but based on what I found, this may still be a future
feature.  Mention was made of an 'ia32-apt-get', but that is not
available on the 64 bit Debian system (fyi, it's 6.0.1, in case that's
relevant).

So, is there a way currently to get a 32 bit library installed in a 64
bit environment using apt-get or aptitude, outside of the basic 32 bit
support package?

Thanks,

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Re: 64 bit debian, 32 bit app and libaio.so.1 dependency

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/07/2011 01:25 PM, Sven Joachim wrote:
 On 2011-04-07 22:10 +0200, Bob McGowan wrote:
 
 I have a Perl based application tool set that uses DBD::Oracle libraries
 from the Oracle 11 instant client package.  The DBD was compiled in a 32
 bit environment.

 Now there's a user who wants to run it on a 64 bit system, which at
 least requires the installation of the 'ia32-libs' package.

 However, 'ia32-libs' does not include a 32 bit version of libaio.so.1,
 which is required by the Oracle 11 libraries.
 
 It does, according to
 http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/amd64/ia32-libs/filelist.
 
 Sven
 

OK, I was basing my statement on what the end user had said, and did not
verify it myself.

Thanks for the reference.

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Re: 64 bit debian, 32 bit app and libaio.so.1 dependency

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/07/2011 01:21 PM, George Standish wrote:
 On 11-04-07 04:10 PM, Bob McGowan wrote:
 Hi, all,

 I have a Perl based application tool set that uses DBD::Oracle libraries
deleted details
 So, is there a way currently to get a 32 bit library installed in a 64
 bit environment using apt-get or aptitude, outside of the basic 32 bit
 support package?

 Thanks,

 I have had good personal success using the getlibs script to install
 32bit libraries on 64bit systems (mainly for gaming purposes in my
 case), it utilises apt tools but is certainly a hack.
 
 You can see the Debian forum post at
 http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=17215 for further details.
 
 George
 

I'll look into this, if needed.  Sven's post indicates I need to be
looking at other issues, I think.

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Re: labeling swap partitions, a question

[Bob McGowan]

On 03/24/2011 10:49 AM, Paul E Condon wrote:
 I'm looking into using partition labels on my wheezy boxes. In the course
 of doing this, I notice that one can uses a partition label to specify
 which partition is to be used for swap in the swapon command and one can
 specify a label string to be written onto a partition in mkswap. But, I
 can't find a way to read/verify whether there is already a label on an
 existing swap partition. Is there a way to read? How?
 
 TIA
 
 
grep swap /etc/fstab
LABEL=swap1   noneswapsw,pri=10   0
LABEL=swap2   noneswapsw,pri=10   0

/sbin/swapon -s
FilenameTypeSizeUsedPriority
/dev/sda2   partition   979956  70041
/dev/sdb2   partition   979956  70001

/sbin/blkid -o value -s LABEL /dev/sd[ab]2
swap1
swap2

If you don't use a specific /dev/??? value, blkid will print all LABEL
values.  If you want the UUID, use that in place of the LABEL argument
to the -s option.

You may need to be root to run swapon.  You will need to be root to run
blkid as it needs to read disk devices.

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Re: boot loader

[Bob McGowan]

On 03/24/2011 09:30 AM, shawn wilson wrote:
 not sure of the topicality of this here but...
 
 i've got a computer with ntldr messing up. since i don't have a windows
 xp disk, i have no way of fixing this (besides torrent). so, i was
 hoping to find some sort of quick install that just shoved grup on the
 system and made a minimal partition for /boot (and whatever else is
 required for grub).
 
 as it is, i can't find anything that does this. so i'm curious of
 everything that grub depends on? just /boot or do i need some config
 files in /etc and do i need any binaries for it? i'm not interested in
 maintaining grub from the system (it would just be maintained from a
 boot cd if at all). i just need it to boot and work. i'm going to use
 gparted to make a ~10 meg partition (i think that's all i should need).
 
 ... unless anyone knows of a system that does all of this for me, then
 i'll just let it ride and not worry about anything?

Check out Smart Boot Loader (http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/) or Master
Boot Loader (http://mbldr.sourceforge.net/) instead.

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Re: JACK configuration

[Bob McGowan]

On 01/16/2011 11:15 AM, Robert Blair Mason Jr. wrote:
 Hi all,
 
 I am attempting to record audio on my laptop.  To this end, i've installed 
 Ardour/JACK.  I have *finally* managed to get ALSA to work.  However, I now 
 have a problem - the sound that is wired into the Mic In jack on the front of 
 the laptop will play back (so basically my laptop is functioning as a 
 speaker), but I can't seem to figure out how to get JACK to connect.  Can 
 anyone help me configure JACK so that the input will go to Ardour?  The 
 connection graph shows that system:capture1 and system:capture2 are wired to 
 go to Ardour:Audio In 1 and Ardour:Audio In 2, respectively (so it seems like 
 this should work).  However, when the Ardour is prepped for record, the 
 volume bars that indicate input volume are relatively static, while I can 
 hear sound being played back.  After recording, the track is silent.
 
 Portions of the output of amixer that look relevant:
 
--deleted--

I'm not sure the ALSA settings are relevant, because ...

 Any help would be much appreciated.
 

Please note, this is by memory and it's been a while, I would need a
little time to be able to verify my sound system setup.  With that caveat:

First, to confirm that you have in fact set up to record:

1.  IIRC, Ardour by default only has things set up for a pass through
type of operation, which matches what you've described.  Again, IIRC,
you will need to create a recording track and connect it between the
master out and master in channels.

I will verify exactly what I have set up as soon as I can and let you
know the various settings.

2.  If you believe things should be working because you've made
connections, it may be you haven't gotten things correctly armed.  In
the main window, in the controls section for the track you intend to
record on, there is a small round icon, which must be selected to arm
the track.

In the top section, there is also a round icon in a button (a bit larger
than the one mentioned above ;), to the right of the playback button.
You must select it next.

Then, select the playback button to start processing.  If everything is
working, you should now see a light colored ribbon being created
across the screen for the recording track only, and there should be two
lines (assuming stereo input), inside the ribbon.  If volumes are high
enough, the lines should show amplitude variations.

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Re: permissions all zero when using 'cp'

[Bob McGowan]

On 12/29/2010 05:56 PM, Martin Lorenz wrote:
 Dear Gurus,
 
 i recently noticed some errors at my mail-server and so I tried to drill
 it down with my limited abilities.
 
 what I found is really strange:
 
-deleted-

 r...@x:/tmp# ls -altr
 insgesamt 20
 drwxrwxrwt  2 root root  4096 29. Dez 15:06 .X11-unix
 drwxrwxrwt  2 root root  4096 29. Dez 15:06 .ICE-unix
 drwx--  2 mlo  users 4096 29. Dez 21:38 ssh-VkxmJ15962
 - - -rw-rw-r--  1 root root 0 29. Dez 21:47 test
 drwxr-xr-x 21 root root  4096 29. Dez 22:06 ..
 drwxrwxrwt  5 root root  4096 29. Dez 22:22 .
 
 notice the file test
 
 r...@x:/tmp# cp test test.bak
 r...@x:/tmp# cp -p test test.bak2
 r...@x:/tmp# ls -altr
 insgesamt 36
 drwxrwxrwt  2 root root  4096 29. Dez 15:06 .X11-unix
 drwxrwxrwt  2 root root  4096 29. Dez 15:06 .ICE-unix
 drwx--  2 mlo  users 4096 29. Dez 21:38 ssh-VkxmJ15962
 - - -rw-rw-r--  1 root root 0 29. Dez 21:47 test.bak2
 - - -rw-rw-r--  1 root root 0 29. Dez 21:47 test
  
 drwxr-xr-x 21 root root  4096 29. Dez 22:06 ..
 - - --  1 root root 0 29. Dez 22:22 test.bak
 drwxrwxrwt  5 root root  4096 29. Dez 22:22 .
 
 now kindly notice test.bak and test.bak2
-deleted-

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but the ls output lines for these
files look odd, having extra '- ' characters at the start.

Older 'ls' commands (not Gnu) might do this, if the file name contained
a literal carriage return character, but the 'ls' on my system prints a
question mark for non-printing/graphic characters.

You could try the '-b' option and see what that prints.  The Gnu ls uses
backslash escapes (\r, \b, \octnum etc.).  This might help in searching
strace output, if you do try Bob Proulx's suggestion, since you would
know the actual character to look for.

Also, you ran the above as root.  Since the original file is readable by
all, what happens if you do the copy as a regular user?

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Re: Web calendar sharing in Evolution

[Bob McGowan]

On 12/30/2010 04:34 AM, Kousik Maiti wrote:
 Hi list,
 I want to share calendar for local LAN.I try to find documentation
 regarding this,but don't get any good solution.Some solution is there
 but that is for google calendar.As I don't connect to internet that is
 not applicable  for me. Anybody  help?

I can't help with what you want, but maybe you can help me ;)

I've been looking for the google calendar solution documentation but
have been quite unsuccessful at finding anything.

Can you provide the references you found?

 
 Thanks in advanced.
 
 -- 
 Wishing you the very best of everything, always!!!
 Kousik Maiti(কৌশিক মাইতি)
 Registered Linux User #474025
 Registered Ubuntu User # 28654

Many thanks, and Happy New Year.

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Re: Off topic question about grep

[Bob McGowan]

On 11/09/2010 06:00 AM, Jochen Schulz wrote:
 ~Stack~:

 But that would match against 9_asD which begins with a number (not what
 I wanted). So I tried:
 [_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*

 I realize that the expression won't do what I mistakenly thought I
 wanted it to do. What is puzzling to me is that my hard disk usage
 peaked, my cpu jumped, and grep took almost two minutes to return an
 exit code of 1 (no match). :-/
 
 What was your exact command line? Did you quote the regular expression?
 My guess is that the shell interpreted the '*' character for you and you
 ended up with a command line like this:
 
 $ grep [_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]file1 file2 file3
 
 where file1 etc. are the files in your current directory. That's why
 grep took so long to finish and it didn't find anything because file1 is
 part of your regexp.
 
 J.

To be pedantically correct ;)

grep [_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*

The shell will expand the above into space separated values, based on
matches to the glob pattern.  The first match will become the pattern
used by grep, searched for in the remaining file names.  Try this:

  echo grep [_a-zA-Z][_a-zA-Z0-9]*

to see what the shell does in any particular case.  For example, I got:

  grep 00firefox-files_before 01cache.list ... xxyy

The ... in the above is 57 files.  58 files counting the xxyy were
searched for the pattern 00firefox-files_before, which is actually a
file name and so not likely to be found in any of the files searched.
If you want to prove this, try:

  ls  files
  grep *
  files:00firefox-files_before

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Re: what is the use of -c parameter of column(1), can you demonstrate with an example?

[Bob McGowan]

On 11/02/2010 05:01 AM, Chris Jackson wrote:
 Zhang Weiwu wrote:
 
  from man column(1)

  -c  Output is formatted for a display columns wide.

 Try:

 almust...@orphalese:~$ echo aaa bbb | column  -c 20


 expected result (17 spaces):

 aaabbb

 actual result:

 almust...@orphalese:~$ echo aaa bbb | column  -c 20
 aaa bbb

 Confusing. Or do I misunderstand the purpose of column(1)?

 Thanks.
 
 
 -c is for the total number of columns. Having said that, I can't get it
 to actually do anything, so I could be wrong.

The question is, What is a column?

In the case of -c, I think it's one character.  As in a terminal window
of 80 columns and 24 lines.

For the column command, it looks like it's a line of input.

So, to use another poster's suggestion, but running in a terminal window
that has been widened to 155 columns x 25 lines:

  ls -l | sed 1d | column

I got one column, looking just like the ls -l would have, minus the
first line.

I tried -c 40, no difference.  But a -c 250, I got two columns, with
wrapping of the long lines.  Each column was a list of complete lines
from from the ls:

  -rw-r--r-- 1 ... filename   drw-r--r-- 2 .. dirname

And so on.

 
 You could perhaps use awk:
 
 http://unstableme.blogspot.com/2008/12/awk-formatting-fields-into-columns.html
 
 (bit fugly) or, depending on exactly what you need, look at pr(1).
 
 --
 Chris Jackson
 Shadowcat Systems Ltd.
 
 

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Re: text-only login is root?

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/21/2010 05:26 PM, post id wrote:
 
 
 --- On Thu, 10/21/10, David Jardine da...@jardine.de wrote:
 

--deleted apology--

 On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 02:49:03PM -0700, post id wrote:
 I've set up a minimal system on one of my machines and
 used no login 
 manager -- I login at the prompt and type startx to
 start the 
 graphical session. Now I read a claim that if one
 didn't use a login 
 manager to log in and start X, then one  was logging
 in with root 
 privileges. 


--deleted on purpose--

 You don't get a command prompt because you haven't logged
 out of the 
 X session.  
 
 And since that X session was started in that screen
 it's still there running when I do a ctrl+alt+f1.
 The login manager doesn't use a screen to start X, so
 it doesn't show up on a screen, right?
 
 So what's the following that appears on the screen?:
 Entering Restore TV
 Restore TV PLL
 Restore TV HV
 Restore TV Restarts
 Restore Timing Tables
 Restore TV Standard
 Leaving Restore TV

--and some more--

Your login is on tty1, where you then run startx.

The startx script runs the xserver on another tty, tty7 is one (I think
the usual) place.

So, when you use Ctl-Alt-F1 you'll go back to tty1, where you've logged
in and are running 'startx'.

But if you use Ctl-Alt-F[2-6] you'll get to one of tty2 - tty6, and
you'll see a login prompt (assuming you have more than one virtual tty
set up for login).

All that output on tty1 is simply startx telling you what it's doing.
Which is a good thing ;) because if there are problems, the relevant
error message will be there, too.

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Re: photo printing

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/19/2010 11:25 PM, Johann Spies wrote:
 My question is simple:
 
 Are the lower cost colour laser printers worth while for printing
 photo's?
 
 Regards
 JOhann

There are issues besides cost to consider.

Modern color laser printers can do a decent job with color photos but
can only print on standard papers, so no glossy/matte/... finish
selections.

Inexpensive lasers will generally not handle paper larger than legal (US
8.5 x 14 inches), so no large print ability either.

I too like HP for photo printing, I recently bought an HP B8550,
because, besides the standard print sizes (from 4x6 in. to 13x19 in.),
it can also handle non-standard sizes, up to 13x44 in.

So, if you don't care about paper surface type or size, a laser printer
may well be a very good choice.  It will also be faster ;)

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Re: avogadro plugins

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/18/2010 10:03 PM, Jerome BENOIT wrote:
 Hello List,
 
 On 19/10/10 03:50, Bob McGowan wrote:
 On 10/18/2010 05:55 AM, #ZHAO LINA# wrote:
 Hi,

 I have just install the avogadro package on my amd64 Squeeze desktop.
 Now I would like to play with some avogadro plugins.
 I have succeeded to built one (packmol) as regular user, but I do not
 know how to make it plugged by avogadro:
 any hint is warmly welcome.

 Thanks,

 lina

 A web search for 'Avogadro software' found a wiki home page, with a link
 to a developer's page.  That page have links to a number of other pages,
 one of which discusses plugins.

 Perhaps that will help.
 
 that will certainly help a confirmed developer,
 not a newbie: to install firefox plugins,
 it is not necessary to be a developer,
 we can expect the same for avogadro.
 
 Jerome
 

But, the OP said I have succeeded to built one ... which would imply
downloading code and at least enough developer knowledge to do a build.

I'd assume if I downloaded the *code* for a Firefox plugin, there would
be steps I'd need to follow in order to build and install it, which
would, I'd think, be part of the documentation on the Firefox
developers' page(s).

I would expect to have to do something different than the download and
install used from within Firefox.

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Re: USB

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/18/2010 03:43 AM, Ted Wager wrote:
 I just dd'd a Debian .img file to a usb stick and it boots ok..I then put
 another partition on the stick for persist..Anyone tell me how I make the 
 Debian install see the persist partition ?
 
 

You could try:

  boot from the the usb stick;
  determine the device name used by the kernel to mount /
  use cfdisk to view device partitions (to be sure everything looks OK)
  add the persist partition to /etc/fstab
you may want to create directory in / for it to mount on, or
just use a mount point in /media/
  mount the partition

This is all standard stuff, you should be able to find details about
each step in your documentation.

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Re: avogadro plugins

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/18/2010 05:55 AM, #ZHAO LINA# wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I have just install the avogadro package on my amd64 Squeeze desktop.
 Now I would like to play with some avogadro plugins.
 I have succeeded to built one (packmol) as regular user, but I do not
 know how to make it plugged by avogadro:
 any hint is warmly welcome.
 
 Thanks,
 
 lina

A web search for 'Avogadro software' found a wiki home page, with a link
to a developer's page.  That page have links to a number of other pages,
one of which discusses plugins.

Perhaps that will help.

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Re: Excellent bootable usb - How to Duplicate?

[Bob McGowan]

On 10/08/2010 06:31 AM, Thomas H. George wrote:
 On Thu, Oct 07, 2010 at 08:40:19PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 10/07/2010 07:21 PM, Thomas H. George wrote:
 I created this bootable 4Gb usb stick: Debian Lenny, 2.6.25.15 kernel.
 gnome, wacom mouse installed, network connection ok.
 one partition, 1.4Gb used and 2.5Gb available.

 I did it a year ago and I have lost my notes.  I know that the creation
 involved a mixure of Debian Live and debxo (One Laptop per Child)

 How can I create clones of this usb stick?


 dd?
 
 When I tried dd it transferred all the files into a partition just large
 enough to hold them - 97% full.  There is free space for another
 partition but this is a rather inflexible solution.
 
 The stick has a single large partition with the operating system and a
 slew of programs occupying a little more than a third of the space.
 Additional programs can be installed if needed.
 
--deleted stuff--

The command you ran should have looked something like this:

  dd if=/dev/sd? of=/dev/sd? bs=1024K

where sd? would be something like sdc and sdd, respectively.  You may or
may not have used the bs= as there is a default for it.

What device names did you use?  To use dd and get the whole stick,
including partition table setup, you need the whole disk device name, a
single file name.  But, you said ...it transferred all the files ...,
which leaves me wondering how you did the input spec for dd.

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Re: Debian based NAS? What to buy?

[Bob McGowan]

On 09/02/2010 02:12 AM, Jochen Schulz wrote:
 Mariusz Sielicki:
 On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 11:43:02PM +0200, Jochen Schulz wrote:
 What mainboar, CPU and case do you use? I am currently searching for a
 similar solution as well. I am considering to buy a Mini-ITX Atom board,
 but it's hard to find a decent case with enough space for 3-4 hard
 disks.

 For home NAS and HDPC I got this one: Asus AT3IONT-I deluxe:
 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131635
 (4 x SATA 3.0Gb/s, WiFi 802.11n, Bluetooth, D-Sub, HDMI, optical S/PDIF)
 
 That looks almost perfect, but I would prefer the most recent Atom
 (D510/525). Jetway offers some interesting boards as well. And the main
 problem is finding a Mini-ITX case with space for the hard drives and a
 regular-size optical drive.  And I am unsure whether a laptop-style PSU
 would deliver enough power for this setup. I would definitely prefer a
 fanless PSU and add one or two case fans instead. Or could I just buy an
 ATX case instead?
 
 J.

If the ITX allows or has an external eSATA connection, you could use
eSATA external disk enclosures to extend capacity.

It does mean at least an extra package/power supply and so on.

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Re: Fascinating problem with bash

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/24/2010 04:09 AM, Oliver Schneider wrote:
 Hello Cameron, Bob,
 
 As soon as I read this paragraph I saw the problem. I confirmed it
 looking at the code. It's a common problem.

 This construct:

 some_cmd | while read var ; do
 OTHER_VAR=...
 done

 will result in OTHER_VAR being unset at the completion of the loop. That
 is because the while command is on the right-hand side of the pipe
 meaning it runs in a subshell. At the end of the while loop, the
 subshell exits and any vars it sets will go away with it.
 Okay, that is surprising indeed, as SHLVL is not being adjusted to reflect
 that fact, according to my findings. But thanks a bunch for pointing that
 out.  It's surely more elegant to use this method than to write to a
temporary
 file.
 
 Also thanks to Bob for providing the links. Very useful, noted them down.
 
 
 Thanks a lot,
 
 // Oliver

All this got me to wondering, so I looked at the two links Bob provided.
 And, I did some tests of my own.

First, I think there's an error on the SubShell page, in the example
of the difference between a subshell and a full child process, at
the end.  The author uses double quotes for the subshell, then single
and double quotes for the child process.  It's the single quotes that
prevent evaluation of $a, not the child process versus subshell.

If you use single quotes in the subshell line, the $a is printed as is:

  $ (echo 'a is $a in subshell')
  a is $a in subshell
  $

Since the double quotes in the child process example are not needed,
removing them and replacing the single quotes with double quotes results
in output with $a replaced by it's value, 1.

  $ sh -c echo a is $a in child
  a is 1 in child
  $

Getting quoting right in shell scripts is often difficult.  ;-)

This is the code used for my testing.  Note I use double quotes only and
backslashes when I want to quote specific single characters to prevent
evaluation.  The quoting forces the use of 'eval' in the 'while' loop's
first echo, to force variable substitution to happen when the loop is
run, otherwise the output would be strings, $$ and $SHLVL, literally.


  #!/bin/bash

  SHLVL=1 # I'm using ksh which is setting this to 2, in GUI env.
  # This also means you may not want to trust the value, in some cases.
  for n in 1
  do
echo iteration: $n pid1 is $$ SHLVL is $SHLVL
echo $n | while read m
do
  MyVar='while loop'
  eval echo iteration: $m and pid2 is \$$ SHLVL is \$SHLVL
  bash -c echo parent is $$ I\'m \$$ SHLVL is \$SHLVL
  if [ $MyVar ]
  then
echo $MyVar
  else
echo MyVar is empty
  fi
done | cat # Just to put the loop between two pipes.
if [ $MyVar ]
then
  echo $MyVar
else
  echo MyVar is empty
fi
  done


The results of a run:


   iteration: 1 pid1 is 23853 SHLVL is 1
   iteration: 1 and pid2 is 23853 SHLVL is 1
   parent is 23853 I'm 23857 SHLVL is 2
   while loop
   MyVar is empty


The only point where SHLVL, and $$, get 'reset', is in the explicit
execution of 'bash -c'.

I believe this suggests modern shells are maintaining the functionality
of a subshell, but are running things in the current process, for
reasons of efficiency.

Or, I'm completely off my rocker (possible) and not getting it (also
possible).  If there's a better explanation, I'd like to see it ;)

Thanks,

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Re: Why do i get this when trying to list files on usbkey?

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/13/2010 12:26 PM, James Stuckey wrote:
 stuc...@debian:/mnt/usb$ ls
 ls: cannot access σ┼G╖╓┴½.cα▄: Input/output error
 ls: cannot access £ñ└╠üî└t.Θö£: Input/output error
 ls: cannot access çlmφnxo.3S░: Input/output error
 ls: cannot access iε('▓3.αg8: Input/output error

--deleted repeated I/O errors--

 Please reply to me and not the list, since I'm not subscribed.

OK, including you as well as the list.

This could be a corrupted file system.  Try running an fsck -t vfat
and see if that fixes the problem.

Otherwise, I would be inclined to suspect connector or cabling issues.

Does the USB device work in other systems?  If it does, I'd look at the
hardware on your system, first.

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Re: Enabling remote logon - any decent intro docs?

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/13/2010 01:51 PM, AG wrote:
 Hi all
 
 I have a guest account on my machine and want to enable that user to
 access that profile from another Debian machine on my LAN.  This task is
 called remote networking, right?  And as far as I can tell OpenSSH is
 probably the way to go.  How can I give this user the experience (i.e.
 desktop, icons, files, etc.) from the LAN machine that they would get if
 they were logged in directly?

Using ssh will not give you the full desktop experience.  In normal
use, you just get a line/text oriented, terminal interface.

You can enable ForwardX11 and ForwardX11Trusted in ~/.ssh/config and
get ssh to create a DISPLAY value for the remote that will point back to
your machine.  You could then type in some graphical command, such as
'iceweasel' and it would open using your local display.  This does mean
you must be running an X server on the local machine, which is not
necessarily the case if the local machine runs a Windows or Mac OS.

 
 I'm sure that this is reasonably straight forward, but I can't seem to
 find a coherent answer in a language I can understand.  I'm not hugely
 technical and most docs that I've come across seem to assume computer
 wizardry above my ability.  I'm not expecting others to do the work, but
 just would appreciate a sign-post to some decent (newbie-friendly?)
 documents that will enable me to give a remote user a local experience
 of their user account while retaining a reasonable degree of security.
 
 Any ideas?  Thanks very much

I think you want to enable remote graphical login via kdm/gdm.  I'm not
sure how to set this up, but the man pages for kdm and gdm both mention
remote logins using the XDMCP protocol.

Perhaps this will at least give you a starting place for searching.

 
 AG
 
 

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Re: Wifi GNOME network manager version into KUbuntu, Debian pinning method, etc. ; jor debian

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/07/2010 11:44 AM, giovanni_re wrote:
 KUbuntu 10.4,
 
 =
 Failing to get wifi to connect to access point.  It can see APs, but
 fails to get dhcp via command mode,  fails connect with wicd.
 
 =
 It has been suggested (on KUbuntu list?) to remove the KU network
 manager package,  that might get wicd  console command wifi working.
 
--deleted--
 

My apologies for an Ubuntu/Kubuntu question/answer on a Debian list.
But, this could also be an issue in Debian, depending.  See explanation.

I think the problem with recent Kubuntu *and* Ubuntu *upgrades* is that
they allow both wicd and network manager to exist simultaneously on a
system.  This is the cause for failures, in my opinion.

Let me explain:

When I first tried out 'wicd', on a system with Network Manager
installed, I simply had the installer process the new package.  And the
installer forced the removal of network manager.

I recently upgraded to the latest Kubuntu release.  My 'old' setup was
using wicd, and nw was *not* installed.

After the upgrade, networking failed in odd ways.  After some research,
I found that the upgrade had installed network manager while leaving
wicd in place.

I removed nw and wicd now works as expected.  I think nw would have
worked 'as expected' had I removed wicd instead.

I don't know if this is an issue for Debian or not, as I don't know how
much of the Debian upgrade/installation configuration is kept 'as is' in
Ubuntu/Kubuntu.  And I have not done an upgrade of a wireless based
Debian system.

However, if you simply remove the KDE frontend for nw and install the
Gnome one (with all the related dependencies), or install wicd instead,
there should be no issue with updates to the *existing installed*
packages, hence no pinning should be needed.  This is how I'm doing it
and everything continues to work well.

The only thing that could be a problem would be a future upgrade,
assuming the installer processing is not fixed.

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Re: Block size recommendations

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/11/2010 09:45 AM, Bill wrote:
 Hi folks,
 
 What's a good block size to use with tar? ie -b --blocking factor
 
 In a hard disk to hard disk and DVD backup scheme, the term 
 block size gets used in at least six different ways. There are
 the blocks on the source hard disk - in this case 512B in size 
 (at least until next year when the 4kiB drives will arrive). There
 are the blocks in the source partition formats, in this case 
 1kiB and 4kiB in size. There is the tar blocking factor which
 defaults to 20 (x512=10240 which is ancient, and some use 
 2048x512 which yeilds 1miB.) And then there is the block size
 on the destination partitions which I'll probably set to 8kiB,
 and the block size on the destination disk itself - again 512B. 
 And let's not forget the block size on the DVDs when I burn them. 
 So it's a tad confusing to know where to set the blocking factor
 for tar. 
 
 On the source disk fdisk -l reveals cylinders of 16065 x 512B
 for a total of 8225280 bytes. Now since 16065 factors as 119 x
 135, I figure I could theoretically use a blocking factor with
 tar of anywhere between 1 and 135. 20 is the default but 
 realistically what block size should I use?
 
 I'm partial to a fast backup, but where lies block size 
 compatibility? Or is there such a thing? Ideally I'd like to 
 maximize disk-to-disk throughput for my backups.
 
   b. 
 
 

For disks or devices that care about things like cylinders and blocks,
use a block size that is a common multiple of the source/destination
physical block size.  For the numbers you mention above, that's 512B.

What you want to avoid is the case of having to read some block twice,
say, for example, once for the first half and again for the second half.
 If you have cylinder/track/block based disk devices, you might want to
consider using a blocking factor equal to the size of a track, multiple
tracks, or even a cylinder, for the same basic reason of keeping the
read/write heads in one part of the disk as long as possible and without
having to repeat the same positioning multiple times.

Generally, the bigger the better, as regards throughput.  But, you don't
want to set a size so big that you don't have enough RAM to handle it.
You could, theoretically, pick a size that would force disk swapping,
which would have a very negative impact on throughput.  ;)

Not that this should be an issue for modern systems with gigabytes of
RAM.  But then, modern systems also have disks that generally use LBA,
as Boyd mentioned, so the positioning argument isn't so meaningful.

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Re: match across line using grep

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/05/2010 06:49 PM, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
 On 2010年08月04日 04:55, Bob McGowan wrote:
 In fact, the LC_ names all seem to be specific to things
 that would not necessarily impact the regex operation.
   
 It is not totally true. The encoding part might. If it is UTF-8, in
 theory, [:digit:] should match more than 0-9. It might, for example,
 mache 一-十 (Chinese digits).
 

My point is that changing only the LANG environment variable changed the
way 'grep' dealt with the newline character.  I admittedly did not use a
very strict interpretation or understanding of the LC_ variables, you
could say I arbitrarily decided to go top down in trying changes.

Either way, I got lucky, the first choice changed the be behavior.  The
others may also change things, but it didn't seem relevant to try every
one, as changing one was enough to prove the point.

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Re: repair partition: wrong size

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/05/2010 07:07 AM, hugo vanwoerkom wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I just noticed that the partition sizes on my usb disk are wrong.
 
 debian:/# fsck -f /dev/sdb2
 fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
 e2fsck 1.41.3 (12-Oct-2008)
 The filesystem size (according to the superblock) is 1953905 blocks
 The physical size of the device is 487974 blocks
 Either the superblock or the partition table is likely to be corrupt!
 Aborty? yes
 
 These are the sizes reported:
 
 debian:/# sfdisk -l /dev/sdb
 
 Disk /dev/sdb: 9729 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track
 Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0
 
Device Boot Start End   #cyls#blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1   *  0+972 973-   7815591   83  Linux
 /dev/sdb29731215 2431951897+  83  Linux
 /dev/sdb3   121629181703   13679347+  83  Linux
 /dev/sdb4   291997286810   547013255  Extended
 /dev/sdb5   2919+   3891 973-   7815591   83  Linux
 /dev/sdb6   3892+   4864 973-   7815591   83  Linux
 /dev/sdb7   4865+   97284864-  39070048+  83  Linux
 
 
 sdb2 an sdb3 are wrong, they both ought to be 7815591.
 
 How does one repair that?
 
 Hugo
 

Have you tried the '-b' option, to use an alternate superblock?

If the primary has been corrupted, using an alternate would/should fix
the issue, assuming the alternate is OK.

See the man page for e2fsck for a way to figure out where the alternates
were created.

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Re: match across line using grep

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/03/2010 05:39 AM, Andre Majorel wrote:
 On 2010-08-03 19:37 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
 On 2010???08???03??? 17:53, Andre Majorel wrote:
 $ printf 'a\nb' | grep -zo a.*b

 (The above should output something /if/ -z would make egrep
 not consider \n as string terminator. But it has produced no
 output)
 
 But grep -z does. This would seem to be an undocumented
 limitation of -o.
   

 No it doesn't.

 $ printf 'a\nb' | grep -z 'a.*b'
 $
 
 You're welcome. What version of grep ?
 

The -z sort of does/doesn't work for me.  If I do this:

$ perl -e 'print a\nb\0'| grep -z 'a.*b'
$

There's no output.  But change it like this:

$ perl -e 'print a\nb\0'| grep -z 'a'
a
b$

It found, and printed, the newline containing string.  I would suspect
the regex engine is still honoring '. (dot) does not match newline'
convention but is OK with literals, if present.

If, instead of using the '.*' pattern, I embed a literal newline, it
also works:

$ perl -e 'print a\nb\0'| grep -z 'a
 b'
a
b$

And just to prove the point, it does work with multiple null terminated
lines:

perl -e 'print a\nb\0not here\0'| grep -z 'a
 b'
a
b$

I'm using GNU grep 2.5.3

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Re: match across line using grep

[Bob McGowan]

On 08/03/2010 11:28 AM, Andre Majorel wrote:
 On 2010-08-03 09:57 -0700, Bob McGowan wrote:
 On 08/03/2010 05:39 AM, Andre Majorel wrote:
 On 2010-08-03 19:37 +0800, Zhang Weiwu wrote:
 On 2010???08???03??? 17:53, Andre Majorel wrote:
 $ printf 'a\nb' | grep -zo a.*b


--deleted--

 Fun, eh ? Maybe the answer is in there :
 
   $ locale
   LANG=
   LC_CTYPE=en_US
   LC_NUMERIC=POSIX
   LC_TIME=POSIX
   LC_COLLATE=C
   LC_MONETARY=POSIX
   LC_MESSAGES=POSIX
   LC_PAPER=POSIX
   LC_NAME=POSIX
   LC_ADDRESS=POSIX
   LC_TELEPHONE=POSIX
   LC_MEASUREMENT=POSIX
   LC_IDENTIFICATION=POSIX
   LC_ALL=

This does appear to be the issue.  My settings are:

$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC=en_US.UTF-8
LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE=C
LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NAME=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=en_US.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=en_US.UTF-8
LC_ALL=

 
 There's no output.  But change it like this:

 $ perl -e 'print a\nb\0'| grep -z 'a'
 a
 b$

 It found, and printed, the newline containing string.  I would suspect
 the regex engine is still honoring '. (dot) does not match newline'
 convention but is OK with literals, if present.
 

I did a sub-shell and reset all the variables to match yours, and,
bingo, the wildcard worked.

Looking through the list of names, nothing seems 'obvious' as a single
contributor.  In fact, the LC_ names all seem to be specific to things
that would not necessarily impact the regex operation.

So, I picked LANG as a starting point and reset it, *only*, to empty.
And got lucky.  That is, apparently, the variable that affects how the
regex is handled.

-- 
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US Internationalization


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Re: Checking burned image is ok

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/27/2010 01:50 AM, Mathieu Malaterre wrote:
 Hi there,
 
   I am looking for a way to check I did burn my debian installer iso
 properly. I am trying:
 
 $ cmp /dev/cdrom debian-505-powerpc-netinst.iso
 
   This works on CD-RW, but it fails on CD-R with the following:
 
 cmp: /dev/cdrom: Input/output error
 
 Has anyone seen this before ? How else could I check the CD-R is
 actually properly burned ?
 
 Thanks !

Others have posted regarding using check sums.

The advantage to using 'cmp' is you get a byte by byte, exact match check.

If that's what you want or need, use Cesar Garcia's suggestion to get
the parameters of your CD image and use dd to read the disk, only
instead of piping the output to md5sum, do this:

  dd  | cmp - debian.iso

which compares the stdin from dd with the file.  This will avoid the
error you noted above.

The problem with using cmp directly on the device has to do with how
the device driver handles what would be considered EOF.  All that
happened in your cmp run was an attempt to read beyond the end of the
device.  Unless 'cmp' produced a files differ: byte , line yyy
type of message, the 'cmp' actually succeeded in properly comparing the
two images.

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Re: wicd with WPA2 fails

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/15/2010 03:28 AM, Paul Scott wrote:
 On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 12:25:26PM +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:
 On 2010-07-15 12:15 +0200, Paul Scott wrote:

 On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 11:40:27AM +0200, Sven Joachim wrote:

 It might be better to put away wicd for a moment and invoke
 wpa_supplicant directly with the -d switch.  You may have to set the
 ssid first with iwconfig(8).

 I have read the man page.  I apparently need a valid wpa_supplicant.conf 
 file.  The only one 
 I can find (/etc/dbus-1/system.d/wpa...) doesn't seem to be valid.  I get 
 lots of errors 
 about that file when I supply the -D -i and -c parameters.

 There are several sample configuration files in the
 /usr/share/doc/wpasupplicant/examples directory.  The wpa-psk-tkip.conf
 file could be a good starting point.

 
 Thanks.  I'll try that in a few hours.
 
 Paul
 

One thing I've done a few times, that may help here, is to create a
temporary wrapper script to run some command.

That is, go to the executable file location, rename it, say xx.orig, and
create a short script named xx, that will start the xx.orig with the
debug options you want.  You probably want to use as the last arg the
form $@ (include the quotes), which will supply any arguments from the
script to the real program exactly as they were given to the script.

In case there's some std* output from the original that doesn't get
written to a log file, you can add this at the top of the script, to
capture that output in your own log file:

  exec /tmp/xx.orig.$$.log 21

Or just put everything after the 'exec' above, after the xx.orig command
line.  The advantage of using the 'exec' form is that any output the
script generates for any problem will also be written to the file
(syntax errors, other commands failing, etc).

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Re: thinking of installing amd64 Debian: what is its current state?

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/12/2010 10:19 PM, H.S. wrote:
 I am thinking of reinstalling my Debian system with Testing for amd64
 architecture. Currently I have 32 bit Debian installed on my AMD 64 bit
 AM3 socket motherboard.
 
 I understand that I just have to reinstall my system with the correct
 architecture install media. My /home is on a separate partition so I
 supposed I do not need to touch it. Correct?
 
 What packages would cause me trouble in 64 bit Debian? I do not use
 acroread and flash player can work with ndiswrapper. Other than these
 two, are there any other packages that won't run on this arch
 installation? Is there a wiki which keep track of these things regarding
 the 64 bit version?
 
 Thanks.

As others have said, I too am using 64 bit Debian on an AMD system and
have had no issues with software.

For at least some 32 bit software, you can install 32 bit libraries
which will allow you to run them directly.

My system is not with me, so I can't give you the exact package name,
but I think if you search for 32 bit support on 64 bit system, or
something similar, you should find what is needed.

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Re: Photo time are wrong

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/13/2010 09:24 AM, T o n g wrote:
 Hi,
 
 I use to get correct file time for my photos from my digital camera. But 
 recently they are all wrong now, shifting by about 3 hours. 
 
 The camera is the same. Something get changed on Debian side? How can I 
 fix it? (photos are from mounted SD card via SD card reader).
 
 Thanks

The first thing that comes to mind is, did you recently change batteries
in the camera?  Some cameras lose their memory and need to be reset,
though this is usually from a 'default' that is off by more than a few
hours.

Another possibility is the batteries are getting low on power?

In any case, you can use 'exiftool -CreateDate file.ext' to get the date
and time the camera was set to when the photo was taken.  If this
doesn't match the values you expect to see, either, then the problem is
in the camera.  If it is what you expect and it doesn't match the date
and time *on the SD card*, there's something odd going on with the
camera.  If the two dates match but the value after copying/moving to a
Linux fs (presuming you attempted to preserve, or the tool you use
preserves, the file modification time), then something is amiss on the
Linux side.  You may need to verify your locale settings.

If you find the date displayed by exiftool is OK, you can use exiftool
to rename the files, based on the date and time of creation or even have
it set the modification times (a la 'touch').

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Re: su and environment.

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/08/2010 02:27 AM, Sthu Deus wrote:
 Good day.
 
 The following:
 
 $ su -c 'abc' -l anotheruser
 
 but it returns
 
 -su: abc: command not found
 
 The abc is in the anotheruser's path, but it seems option '-l' does not
 work here.
 
 How I can accomplish the goal (without manually specifying complete
 path)?
 
 
 Thank You for Your time.

The above command line worked for me.  What system are you using, which
shell?

Is this other user's path really getting set?  Is 'abc' executable and
is the content runable (in other words, if it's a script and it begins
with '#!/bin/bash', is bash really in /bin, or if it's binary, is the
binary runable for the system you're on)?

You might want to try using the 'echo' or 'env' commands to validate the
environment variables PATH and HOME.  You may also want to try running a
normal system command such as 'date', to see if that works.

Good luck.

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Re: martian sources iptables

[Bob McGowan]

On 07/01/2010 05:34 PM, cosme wrote:
 Hola
 
 He puesto un iptables en Debian lenny y cuando lo reinicio me aparece un
 sin número de mensajes con martian sources.
 
 Qué significan 
 
 Jul 1 19:00:47 ns1 kernel: [ 5631.909505] martian source 192.168.13.83
 from 192.168.13.14, on dev eth0
 
 Jul 1 19:00:47 ns1 kernel: [ 5631.909505] ll header:
 ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:00:30:4f:14:84:d7:08:06
 
deleted repeating examples

I don't speak Spanish, though I can read enough to figure some of this
out.  I hope you can handle English ;)

And debian-user-span...@lists.debian.org would be more appropriate for
your request, in any case.

You should look up 'martian packet' on wikipedia for details.
Basically, they are packets from illegal source addresses:  private
network values or unallocated address ranges are a couple of examples.

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Re: remark from dd

[Bob McGowan]

On 06/30/2010 10:07 AM, peasth...@shaw.ca wrote:
 Given
 r...@dalton:/home/peter# dd if=disk2 of=/dev/fd0 bs=36k
 dd: writing `/dev/fd0': No space left on device
 41+0 records in
 40+0 records out
 1474560 bytes (1.5 MB) copied, 40.9183 s, 36.0 kB/s

  ^^^ standard 1.44 Mb floppy disk

 r...@dalton:/home/peter# 
 can anyone explain the remark No space left and the difference 
 between records in and records out?

There are 80 tracks on a 1.44 Mb floppy, each is 18k, so you told dd to
read 2 tracks at a time, for a total of 40 records.

But you did not tell how many records to write, so dd has to get that
dynamically.

The last track actually written fit exactly in the remaining space and
so did not trigger an EOF condition.  So 40 records were written
successfully.

The first byte of the 41st record written triggers the EOF condition and
the write fails.  The file 'disk2' is therefore larger than a standard
1.44 Mb floppy by at least one full record, since the in is 1+0 more
than the output.

If you added 'count=40' to your dd command, the in/out numbers would
match, but then you wouldn't know that the input was larger than the
output can hold.

 
 Thanks,... Peter E.

You're welcome ;')

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Re: Running KDE apps under GNOME

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/30/2010 04:44 AM, Merciadri Luca wrote:
 Andrei Popescu wrote:
 On Sun,30.May.10, 09:28:11, Merciadri Luca wrote:
   

 Xfce has an option to start Gnome and/or KDE services at startup. Maybe 
 Gnome has something similar?
   
 I do not know. I've just tried to find such an option by Googling, but I
 could not find any such option.
 

I don't recall, offhand, and don't have access to a Gnome system to
check, but I think Gnome has an auto start function, similar to KDE's
using $HOME/.kde/Autostart to run apps you want available when you login.

Perhaps you could start a terminal, run the KDE app in the background
and do a ps to get the KDE related support services listed.  You could
add these to the auto start list.

The only thing I don't know is if these 'support services' can start
stand alone or if a front end KDE app. is needed.

If this does work but things are still too slow, you might add a local
rc startup script in /etc/{init.d,rc2.d} to start the services at boot time.

None of this is tested, just some thoughts on alternate ways to get
things going.

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Re: Running KDE apps under GNOME

[Bob McGowan]

On 06/01/2010 11:01 AM, Merciadri Luca wrote:
 Bob McGowan wrote:
 On 05/30/2010 04:44 AM, Merciadri Luca wrote:
   
 Andrei Popescu wrote:
 
 On Sun,30.May.10, 09:28:11, Merciadri Luca wrote:
   

 Xfce has an option to start Gnome and/or KDE services at startup. Maybe 
 Gnome has something similar?
   
--deleted--
   
 Yes, but why not.
 
 $ ps -el | grep kde
 1 S  1000  4042 1  0  80   0 -  6385 -  ?00:00:00 kdeinit
 1 S  1000  4050 1  0  80   0 -  8178 -  ?00:00:10 kded
 

Sure, whatever works.  But it is possible that some portion of the
'service' does not have the string 'kde' in it.

Using my method, everything that got started would be listed (the diff
between the before and after ps output) and there'd be no doubt about
what was needed to run.

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Re: Still can't read DVDs/CDs

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/17/2010 01:35 AM, James Stuckey wrote:
 
 
 On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 7:01 AM, Zoran Kolic zko...@sbb.rs
 mailto:zko...@sbb.rs wrote:
 
   *What I'm doing to mount the media: *
   r...@debian:/home/stuckey# mount /dev/sr0
   mount: block device /dev/sr0 is write-protected, mounting read-only

--deleted--

 
 As another poster pointed, the device could be wrongly picked up.

--deleted--

 I just put a disc in, tried to mount it three times, and got three
 different results. Now it is mounted and /dev looks like
 http://paste.debian.net/73572/
 
 Now I've taken the disc out and dev looks like:
 http://paste.debian.net/73573/
 
 They look the same to me.

I'd suggest doing a long listing of the specific device you're using.

On my Debian box at work, I get:

brw-rw 1 root cdrom 3,  0 2010-05-04 17:11 /dev/hda
brw-rw 1 root cdrom 3, 64 2010-05-04 17:11 /dev/hdb

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Re: OO.writer can't its file.

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/14/2010 01:20 AM, Sthu Deus wrote:
 Good day.
 
 
 I can not open a file in 'oowriter' by 'edit' user, the program says, Write 
 error. The file could not be written. Running from console gives no 
 additional info. The version is 3.2.0-4.
 
 ls -l 1.odt
 returns:
 -rw-r--r-- 1 edit we 64145 2010-03-29 10:39 1.odt
 
 Therefore I see that the problem does not lay in permissions. Then what? - 
 Buggy oowriter?
 
 
 Thanks for Your time.
 

I see many good suggestions for things to check but didn't see this:
your temporary file storage area may be full.

Caveat, I'm using OOwriter 2.4 ...

Select Tools/Options menu, the resulting window, under the generic
OpenOffice.org element, has an item called 'Paths'.

This defines the location for various items, including where to store
temporary files.

Mine points to /tmp, but I don't recall if that is standard/default, or
if I changed it.  In any case, OOwriter created a directory with several
files in it, when I opened a document.

If your temp directory has not been cleaned up and is a regular
filesystem, OOwriter would be unable to create/open/write the temporary
files it uses.

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Re: Deleting some regexp/simple expression from lots of files in a secure way

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/14/2010 10:37 AM, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
 On Friday 14 May 2010 12:04:42 Merciadri Luca wrote:
 I have many text files (actually .tex files) which contain some
 sequence or regexp (it depends on the files) that I would like to
 remove. Is there a commandline/GUI for doing this massive edit?
 
 (sed -i -e s/$regexp// $file) for a single file.  (GNU sed only.)
 

If you're not comfortable with making the change in place (meaning
losing the original, in case you got something wrong in the script),
just add a SUFFIX to the -i option, as in '-i.bak', and sed will make
a backup copy, using the suffix as the extension appended to the file name.

 (find $dir -type f -exec sed -i -e s/$regexp// {} \;) for all files in a 
 directory.

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Re: Deleting some regexp/simple expression from lots of files in a secure way

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/14/2010 10:52 AM, Merciadri Luca wrote:
 Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. b...@iguanasuicide.net writes:
 
---removed on purpose---
 (find $dir -type f -exec sed -i -e s/$regexp// {} \;) for all files in a 
 directory.
 Thanks both. (@Andrei: it was in the content of the file, sorry not to
 have specified it before.)
 
 I am using the second command. The problem is that, for one set of
 files (that I have selected, no problem for this), I have to use a
 really simple expression: I need to find all the occurences of
 `\paragraph{}' and replace them with nothing (i.e. with `'). I know
 regexps, but replacing `$regexp' with `\paragraph{}' gives error
 messages. Any idea? Thanks.
 

In Boyd's example, you can see 'find' uses '{}' as a place holder, to be
replaced by each file name as it's found.

From the 'find' man page:

-exec command ;
Execute  command;  true  if 0 status is returned.  All following
arguments to find are taken to be arguments to the command until
an  argument  consisting of ‘;’ is encountered.  The string ‘{}’
is replaced by the current file name being processed  everywhere
 emphasis added:  ^^
it occurs in the arguments to the command, not just in arguments
where it is alone, as in some versions of find. ...

So, you get file names in both places.  Since file names are probably
relative paths, they will contain added slashes, which confuse sed.

I could not find any reference to how to make '{}' be handled literally
by find.

You could try using a '.*' or '.?' between the braces in the sed
expression and see if that stops find from replacing them.  Since they
both expand to a 'zero or ...', they will match '{}'.  The problem being
they will also match the longest '{...}' in the line, so all lines would
have to have no more than one pair.  As I don't do tex, I don't know if
this can be counted on or not.

sed does have a '-r / --regexp-extended' option, and some 'extended'
regex engines allow specifying a 'shortest' rather than 'longest' match,
but I don't have any experience with extended regex in sed, you will
have to experiment.

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Re: Automounting problems.

[Bob McGowan]

On 05/12/2010 02:55 AM, Chris Bannister wrote:
 On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 10:54:47PM -0700, Marc Shapiro wrote:
 I am now slapping myself on the head for being so STUPID!  Automount is 
 working just fine, and has been all along.  Automount does its thing as 
 soon as a device is ACCESSED, not plugged in.  I was plugging the flash 
 drives in and looking in /mnt to see if they were showing up.  The 
 weren't.  The weren't supposed to, either.  As soon as I executed ls 
 /mnt/lexar lo and behold, there was the listing and everything was 
 working just fine.

 I think I'll slap myself on the head, again.
 
 Not so fast! :) How are you supposed to access them if you don't know
 what they will be labelled as?
 
 What does ls /mnt/TABTAB do?
 
 Are you supposed to carry round a scrap of paper with the mount labels
 written down?
 

No...

Generally, you set up an auto.xxx file to create a mount point in some
specific directory that is not /media.  For example, with xxx being 'usb':

 auto.usb: zodiac -fstype=vfat,rw,user,noauto,gid=backup,umask=002 \
   :/dev/disk/by-id/usb-ROCKCHIP_USB_MP3_USBV1.00

And auto.master:

 /var/autofs/usb /etc/auto.usb --timeout=###

This setup associates the auto.usb file with /var/autofs/usb and the
device identified by the id with the name zodiac.  The timeout should be
set to some convenient value.

So, automount will mount that device on /var/autofs/usb/zodiac, when it
is accessed.

You then create a symlink from /media to the above name:

  cd /media; ln -s /var/autofs/usb/zodiac zodiac

You will then do something to access that name, like 'ls /media/zodiac'
to get it mounted.

A simple 'ls /media' gives you the list of names that you've set up this
way.

To determine the name you need to use for the device path in the
auto.usb file, first do an 'ls' of /dev/disk/by-id before plugging the
device, and one after.  The new device name is what you use.

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Re: Questions about RAID 6

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/26/2010 04:33 PM, Mike Bird wrote:
 On Mon April 26 2010 14:44:32 Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote:
 the chance of a double failure in a 5 (or less) drive array is minuscule.
 
 A flaky controller knocking one drive out of an array and then
 breaking another before you're rebuilt can really ruin your day.
 

I've been out of the office and so come to this discussion a bit late -
my apologies if this has been mentioned ...

Greater redundancy can be had by putting disks on several controllers
rather than all on one.

If the rebuild fails due to a controller problem, it shouldn't affect
the disks on the other controllers.

 Rebuild is generally the period of most intense activity so
 figure on failures being much more likely during a rebuild.
 
 --Mike Bird
 
 

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Re: Where to find setup for env variable?

[Bob McGowan]

Paul Chany wrote:

Liam O'Toole liam.p.oto...@gmail.com writes:

  

On 2010-04-14, Paul Chany csanyi...@gmail.com wrote:



  

I have setup somewhere the JAVA_HOME environment variable, but
don't know where?
  

---SNIP---

Maybe /etc/environment?



Here on my GNU/Linux Lenny system this file is empty.

--
Regards, Paul Chany
You can freely correct me in my English.
http://csanyi-pal.info
  


Given that you have (presumably) installed some or all 'openjdk' 
packages, you could get a list of the installed files, per package, and 
see if any of the names listed point to anything of interest.


Files in /etc, /etc/... (where ... might be 'openjdk'?), files in /lib 
or /usr/lib that are not library files, etc. could either be the source, 
or point to other files to check.


This is a 'brute force' sort of technique, but it has helped me in a 
couple of cases where all else had failed.


Bob


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Re: How do I get the mbr package to do its job quietly?

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/08/2010 05:38 AM, Stephen Powell wrote:
 On Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:10:49 -0400 (EDT), Gerald wrote:
 Stephen, How about MBRWORK.
 This little program runs from a floppy or pehaps fron a CD.
 I have found it very useful
 
 Gerald, you replied to me personally instead of the list.
 Please reply to the list.
 
 There is no Debian package that I could find called mbrwork.
 I even did an apt-cache search mbrwork and got no hits.
 

I'm not sure Gerald understood your requirements.

A web search for MBRWORK indicates it is an MBR recovery/backup/restore
and more application.

Not the boot loader that you want  ;(

But perhaps useful info, in other contexts.  It appears to be a DOS only
tool.  It (and other freeware tools for DOS/Windows) can be found here:

  http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm

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Re: [OT] Ubuntu vs Debian forums (was recompiling the kernel with a different version name)

[Bob McGowan]

On 04/08/2010 07:17 AM, Stephen Powell wrote:
 On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 09:57:17 -0400 (EDT), bri...@aracnet.com wrote:
 On Thu, 8 Apr 2010 08:09:09 -0400 (EDT), Stephen Powell wrote:

 BTW, does anyone know why Ubuntu users seem to want to use the Debian
 forums?  Don't they have forums of their own?

 Yes they do, and in fact I find them helpful even though I'm running
 Debian :-)
 
 I have occasionally found a solution to a problem I'm having on Debian
 by searching the internet and finding the solution posted on an Ubuntu
 forum.  But I never *post* there because I run Debian, not Ubuntu.
 What I don't understand is why Ubuntu users *post* here, when they
 actually run Ubuntu.  According to the OP of this thread, he posted here
 because he posted on the Ubuntu forums first and no-one answered.
 I wonder how common that is, and why.  Ubuntu alleges a larger installed

--gone:-)

 

I run Ubuntu on my laptop, because I got tired of the manual Nvidia
setup every time the kernel changed.

But I use Debian at work and on systems that don't need any proprietary
stuff.

I've found some good technical help from Ubuntu forums, but it seems to
generally come from Ubuntu personnel rather than users.

So, Ubuntu seems to attract a less 'technical' group of users.

And, since Ubuntu uses Debian as its starting point, less technical
users could assume using Debian lists is OK.

The above is guess work based on observation, not critical analysis.

YMMV. ;)

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Re: Flash drive internal fragmentation.

[Bob McGowan]

Ron Johnson wrote:
 On 2010-03-24 12:07, Bob McGowan wrote:
 [snip]

 And, I used VFAT for the filesystem type:
 
 That's the key difference, since vfat is fat32.
 

Ah, yes.  Too long since I've dealt much with FAT of any sort, details
get forgotten ...

Thanks for the reminder.

 $ mount|grep sde
 /dev/sde on /var/autofs/usb/centon type vfat ...

 
 Try this:
 $ mount -lt vat
 

And for new things to learn ;)

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Re: Flash drive internal fragmentation.

[Bob McGowan]

R. Clayton wrote:
 --deleted background details--

 
   $ ls --block-size=1k -ls
   total 896
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton 18 2010-03-23 14:42 branniga.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-23 14:42 fig1.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig1.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-23 14:42 fig2.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig2.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-23 14:42 fig3.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig3.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  6 2010-03-23 14:42 fig4.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig4.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  5 2010-03-23 14:42 fig5.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig5.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  7 2010-03-23 14:42 fig6.gif
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-23 14:42 fig6.htm
   64 -rwxr-xr-x 1 rclayton rclayton  5 2010-03-23 14:42 list1.htm
 
   $ cd /home/dr-dobbs/articles/CUJ/1990/9001/branniga
 
   $ ls --block-size=1k -ls
   total 88
   20 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton 18 2010-03-21 08:32 branniga.htm
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-21 08:32 fig1.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig1.htm
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-21 08:32 fig2.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig2.htm
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  3 2010-03-21 08:32 fig3.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig3.htm
8 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  6 2010-03-21 08:32 fig4.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig4.htm
8 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  5 2010-03-21 08:32 fig5.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig5.htm
8 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  7 2010-03-21 08:32 fig6.gif
4 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  1 2010-03-21 08:32 fig6.htm
8 -r-x-- 1 rclayton rclayton  5 2010-03-21 08:32 list1.htm
 
   $  
 
 which meant my thumb drive space was getting eaten up by internal
 fragmentation.  I understand that flash storage has special needs for most
 efficient operation, but are block-size overages of an order-of-magnitude or
 more really necessary?  Can I remake the file system with smaller block sizes?
 How?  (It is unclear to me if sector size is the same as file block size.)
 What bad things happen to flash storage if the file system has 1k block size?
 
 This happened on a debian testing system updated weekly.
 
 

Curious ... I have a 4G flash drive and have had no issues with it,
except for file deletion using a GUI file manager.

And you didn't mention if the stick you're using was brand new/never
used or not.  If you've had files on it and then deleted them using a
GUI file browser, it may have simply moved them to a hidden trash
folder, which would not free up any space.

But you may have already checked that ;)

I tried the 'ls' command you used on my flash drive, and got this:

$ ls --block-size=1k -ls
total 23024
 500 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  498 2010-02-22 18:11 C1.jpg
 644 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  643 2010-02-22 18:11 C2.jpg
1160 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 1159 2010-02-22 18:11 C3.jpg
 852 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  852 2010-02-22 18:11 C4.jpg
4896 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 4895 2010-03-07 10:36 C5.jpg
3564 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 3561 2010-03-07 10:45 C6.jpg
 416 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  416 2010-03-14 16:35 C7.jpg
5076 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 5076 2010-03-13 02:43 C8.jpg
5916 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 5913 2010-03-13 03:04 C9.jpg

And ...

$ ls --block-size=8k -ls
total 2878
 63 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  63 2010-02-22 18:11 C1.jpg
 81 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  81 2010-02-22 18:11 C2.jpg
145 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 145 2010-02-22 18:11 C3.jpg
107 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 107 2010-02-22 18:11 C4.jpg
612 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 612 2010-03-07 10:36 C5.jpg
446 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 446 2010-03-07 10:45 C6.jpg
 52 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup  52 2010-03-14 16:35 C7.jpg
635 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 635 2010-03-13 02:43 C8.jpg
740 -rwxrwxr-x 1 root backup 740 2010-03-13 03:04 C9.jpg

It looks like the numbers are matching up OK (at least on my system - ls
--version says ls (GNU coreutils) 5.97 and still using etch [4.0]).

A couple of other differences:

My flash drive has no partition table, the filesystem is built on the
base device, like a floppy disk.

And, I used VFAT for the filesystem type:

$ mount|grep sde
/dev/sde on /var/autofs/usb/centon type vfat ...

I don't know if any of this is really helpful, though it may suggest an
alternative or two to play around with.

-- 
Bob McGowan


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Re: Unusable free space?

[Bob McGowan]

Steve Lamb wrote:
 Ron Johnson wrote:
 You're worried that that a mass renaming of partition numbers will
 cause your system to not reboot?  That's why LABEL and UUID are now
 used in grub (lilo is restricted to device names) and fstab.
 
 Call me a luddite but UUID  partition numbers for the simple reason
 I can manually write down numbers and be pretty sure I didn't transpose
 one of the 4 pieces of data required to get it to work.  Every time I
 see a UUID I just wanna thunk my head against the desk.
 
 

Which is why I use labels instead.  I can use labels that are words that
make sense WRT the usage of the partition:

  LABEL=debian_root
  LABEL=Vista_repair

...

I had to create the label myself, with something like e2label, initially
(installed before learning I needed this feature ;(

But if doing a new install, you can easily assign labels if you choose
the advanced partitioning method.

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Bob McGowan


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Re: /boot partition changes when it should not

[Bob McGowan]

Mario 'BitKoenig' Holbe wrote:
 Clive McBarton clivemcbar...@web.de wrote:
 and while the system is turned off. The online to offline comparison
 works fine, whereas the offline to online does not always work, hence
 
 What exactly does not always mean?
 Maybe it's just the periodic fsck which changes the mount count?
 Check your fstab for the last field (fs_passno). Set either this to 0 to
 disable periodic checks and/or use tune2fs -c and tune2fs -i to disable
 periodic full checks (not recommended, btw.).

But, for a read-only mounted FS, there should be no need to run an
fsck, ever, I'd think.

Hence, in this special case, disabling the checks should be the
exception that proves the rule ;0

 
 
 regards
Mario

This brings up the question, though, as to why these forced checks are
done in the first place.  The man page talks about failed hardware and
kernel bugs, etc., but ...

The feature doesn't exist for any other filesystem I've ever used and
doesn't seem to me to make much sense, given the difference in usage
between systems used as servers versus desktop/laptop environments.

A server may stay up and running for months, perhaps longer (?), whereas
personal system may be shut down every day.  So counts are quickly
reached in the personal system case, while time limits are probably not
only exceeded in the server case, they may be exceeded by substantial
amounts of time.

In the early days, when Linux was young, kernel bugs could easily be an
issue and doing frequent fsck runs may have been important.

Are things still that bad?

Just curious ;)

Note, I've used either xfs or jfs on laptops or workstations for some
time now, in large part to avoid the fsck, simply because it is time
consuming and got in the way.  I've tended to avoid using sleep or
hibernate, due to issues with my hardware not working well, though
things are getting much better with newer software and kernels.

Which means I need to periodically run fsck manually, to be sure things
are OK, but at least it's under my control.

-- 
Bob McGowan


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