Questions on nonfree software

[Charles Chambers]

Is the firmware-9.0.0-amd64-DVD-1 the right media to use during
installation if I have hardware that requires the nonfree repository?

I'm trying to puzzle through an offline installation.

Google Chrome

[Charles Chambers]

I just had google-chrome-stable update to Version 46.0.2490.71-1 via 
System update.  There's an open bug I reported to Google on this exact 
version.  I checked bugs.debian.org and find that google-chrome-stable 
has no package maintainer within the Debian organization to which bugs 
are reported.


The open bug (#544160) is here:

Google bug report 



Two questions:

1)  How do I find and turn off the repository that google-chrome-stable 
is coming from so that it doesn't update until Google is able to fix the 
bug?  I REALLY like and use Chrome heavily.


2)  Is there anyone to report this to?

Charlie

Debian 8.2 and Drupal7

[Charles Chambers]

As an introduction, I have a basic install of Drupal7 on a minimal
Debian computer (system utilities only, with dependencies provided
through Aptitude) without a graphic interface. Where I'm trying to get
to is the installation of a Drupal package.

I can browse to the Apache start page with http:// on my local
network at this point.

>From the Debian wiki, for setting up a single site/application, I get an
error message when I issue the line:

ln -s /etc/drupal/7/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/drupal7.conf

which is due the the fact, apparently, that the soft link exists (from
/etc/apache2/conf-available as:

/etc/apache2/conf-available/drupal7.conf -> ../../drupal/7/apache2.conf

Next I issue the lines of:

a2enconf drupal7

service apache2 reload

And get  no error message

When I browse to http:///drupal7, I get an error page from
Drupal7.  The first part reads:

PDOException: SQLSTATE[42S02]: Base table or view not found: 1146 Table
'drupal7.semaphore' doesn't exist: SELECT expire, value FROM {semaphore}
WHERE name = :name; Array ( [:name] => variable_init ) in
lock_may_be_available() (line 167 of
/usr/share/drupal7/includes/lock.inc).PDOException: SQLSTATE[42S02]:
Base table or view not found: 1146 Table 'drupal7.semaphore' doesn't
exist: SELECT expire, value FROM {semaphore} WHERE name = :name; Array (
[:name] => variable_init ) in lock_may_be_available() (line 167 of
/usr/share/drupal7/includes/lock.inc).

How do I fix it?

Second question. If I am installing a single application under Drupal7
(CiviCRM is the package), what directory/subdirectory should I unzip
CiviCRM into to start? CiviCRM makes its own directory structure and
includes a web-based installer if you unzip it to a specific location.

Third question. What is the brower URL for that location? In other
words, after unpack CiviCRM, I need to browse to that web-based
installer. What would that URL start with?


TIA for any assistance you can provide.


Charlie

Fwd: Debian 8.2 and Drupal7

[Charles Chambers]

Let me be clearer...it's early...

When I browse to http:///drupal7, I get an error page from
Drupal7.  The first part reads:



 Forwarded Message 
Subject:Debian 8.2 and Drupal7
Date:   Tue, 15 Sep 2015 07:20:08 -0700
From:   Charles Chambers <ccha...@gmail.com>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org



As an introduction, I have a basic install of Drupal7 on a minimal
Debian computer (system utilities only, with dependencies provided
through Aptitude) without a graphic interface. Where I'm trying to get
to is the installation of a Drupal package.

I can browse to the Apache start page with http:// on my local
network at this point.

>From the Debian wiki, for setting up a single site/application, I get an
error message when I issue the line:

ln -s /etc/drupal/7/apache2.conf /etc/apache2/conf.d/drupal7.conf

which is due the the fact, apparently, that the soft link exists (from
/etc/apache2/conf-available as:

/etc/apache2/conf-available/drupal7.conf -> ../../drupal/7/apache2.conf

Next I issue the lines of:

a2enconf drupal7

service apache2 reload

And get  no error message

When I browse to http:///drupal7, I get an error page from
Drupal7.  The first part reads:

[snip]

Install from writeable USB

[Charles Chambers]

Subject:
Re: Install from writeable USB
From:
Brian a...@cityscape.co.uk
Date:
06/01/2015 06:19 AM

To:
debian-user@lists.debian.org


Your first post was to debian-user. Your reply was sent to debian-boot,
where most people on this list will not see it. The reply has been made
visible by bouncing it to -user. Please ensure any further mails come
here.

Sorry.

 On Sun 31 May 2015 at 16:48:51 -0700, Charles wrote:

 The results from

 fdisk -l /dev/sdb

 after:

 dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=4M count=60  sync
 dd if=debian-7.8.0-[arch]-netinst.iso  sync

  for both a i386 and amd64 netinst image, correct?

Yes.

 for an i386 netinst ISO:

 Disk /dev/sdb: 15.5 GB, 15502147584 bytes
 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 14784 cylinders, total 30277632 sectors
 Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 Disk identifier: 0x178e0fca

Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1   *  64  567295  283616   17  Hidden HPFS/NTFS

1. Create a second partition with fdisk or cfdisk. 

Done.  By default, fdisk created a Type 83 partition.  I added mkfs.ext2 
/dev/sdc2 after physically removing/reinserting the drive to give it a file 
system.  This causes problems later on.  I changed the partition type to Type 7 
(HPFS/NTFS/exFat) and formatted as such because it mounts when I get to step 6.

1a. Mount the partition and copy preseed.cfg to it.

Done.  I also ran chmod 777 preseed.cfg to eliminate any possible permissions 
problems.  

2. Boot into the installer. Select expert mode from the Advanced menu.

Selected advanced options, cursor down to Expert Install.  Done.


 3. Press TAB and add file=/mnt/preseed.cfg to end of the displayed
   command.

Done.

 4. Boot the kernel.

Done.


 5. At the first screen switch to a console (ALT-F2). 'ls -l /dev/sdb*' 
  
   should help identify the second partition on the USB stick. Mount
   this partition; e.g: mount -t vfat /dev/sdc2 /mnt.

The first screen of the install is to select language, for which there is an 
option in preseed.cfg.  At this point, the install does not appear to be 
parsing preseed.cfg, but I haven't yet customized preseed.cfg.

However, setting the partition type of /dev/sdb2 to Type 7 lets me mount 
/dev/sdb2 on /mnt as vfat, so I have some progress.

6. Proceed with the install.

What makes it go?  The objective is a totally hands off install, but I exit the 
console and I'm still on the first screen of the Expert Install with the 
process awaiting input.



=

 

 For an amd64 netinst ISO:

 Disk /dev/sdb: 15.5 GB, 15502147584 bytes
 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1884 cylinders, total 30277632 sectors
 Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 Disk identifier: 0x42a6671b

Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1   *   0  454655  2273280  Empty
 /dev/sdb234404335 448   ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)

 Both look somewhat odd, but not so bad.

 I'd prefer using the amd64 image, if it gets that far.  The Dells are all 64-
 bit.

As above, but make sure the third partition starts after the end of the
first partition.

I tried.  Each and every attempt to create /dev/sdb3 ends up with the tool 
trying to replace /dev/sdb1.  I understand clearly that I may use space from 
sector 454656 to the end of the drive, but what tool best sets up that third 
partition?  I tried fdisk, cfdisk, GNU parted, Kparted, and Gparted.

Install from writeable USB

[Charles Chambers]

Hi, All:

I have a set of Dell Optiplex 620's for which I'd like to install Debian
entirely hands off from a writeable USB stick.  It would seem to me that
preseeding would figure into this process.

The problem I'm running into is that the isohybrid images are write only
(when you dd them to a USB stick), and I can't find anything else that
leads me in the right direction - which would be installing Debian from
a writable USB stick.

Has no one done this before?  It's pretty common in the Windows world.

If the netinst image is the starting point, are any packages included
with the image that shouldn't be strictly necessary just to accomplish
the install and apt?  System utilities and KDE desktop both are
variables when one is preseeding...



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Re: Netinst with preseed

[Charles Chambers]

On 05/27/2015 07:20 AM, Philip Hands wrote:
 Charles Chambers ccha...@gmail.com writes:

 Hi, Phil:

 And I've looked further.

 There's a step by step out there that describes the following steps:

 1)  Wipe USB drive.

 2)  Copy (via dd) boot.img to it.
 I'm guessing that boot.img is an image of a VFAT file system, with
 something like grub4dos on it (which supports booting ISO images from
 the filesystem).

 That's a completely different thing from dd-ing the ISO itself.

 For it to work, the ISO needs to be able to find it's own image on any
 old file system (which ours are built to do).

 If that floats your boat, fine.

The boot.img is extracted from boot.img.gz, which is found at, for
example, here:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/

 3)  Copy installation ISO (netinst in this case) to it via cp.  The
 partition that gets the ISO *is* writeable at this point and beyond,
 which is progress.

 4)  Add preseed.cfg and whatever else in the space that's left
 (packages, firmware drivers, etc).

 5)  Boot and install.

 At this point I'm inspecting the USB after completing step 2.  The
 partition scheme imposed by the dd of boot.img is:

 Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 16008609792 bytes
 64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 15267 cylinders, total 31266816 sectors
 Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
 Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
 Disk identifier: 0x20ac7dda

 This doesn't look like a partition table
 Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot  Start End  Blocks   Id  System
 /dev/sdb1   ?  3224498923  3657370039   216435558+   7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
 /dev/sdb2   ?  3272020941  5225480974   976730017   16  Hidden FAT16
 /dev/sdb3   ?   0   0   0   6f  Unknown
 /dev/sdb450200576   974536369   4621678970  Empty

 Partition table entries are not in disk order

 

 Remounting the drive gives me this tidbit:

 /dev/sdb on /media/Debian Inst type vfat
 (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=utf8,shortname=mixed,showexec,utf8,errors=remount-ro,uhelper=udisks)

 

 Notice the lack of a partition identifier (/dev/sdb instead of
 /dev/sdb1).

 I can copy the ISO to it.  I haven't run an install, but I have a
 machine next to this one that's identical, so it should not be too
 difficult.

 The biggest questions I have with this approach:

 1)  The drive has 16g of space.  How do I recover all 16g? 

 2)  How did you add a partition after Step 3?  My 16gig drive shows no
 space and four existing partitions, which is the limit.

 3)  Gparted and Kparted both show the USB as unallocated at the end of
 Step 2.  Why?
 Well, as I said above, you've just dumped a small VFAT file system on
 the drive.

 You could resize it to get at the whole drive (to answer 1) ).

Delete /dev/sdb2-4?


 I'm not sure that we look at the filesystem containing the ISO, when
 it's been loop-mounted (as would be the case here, assuming it works) in
 order to find a default preseed, but I guess that it's going to be
 mounted on /hd-media, so if not at least you ought to be able to specify
 it by it's path.

 As for question 3) well, you're copying (dd) a file system to the stick, and
 then copying an ISO into that file system, so you get no partitions.

Don't file systems exist only in partitions?

The file system comes in when you dd boot.img, and it creates four
partitions.  On the fdisk output, I have accomplished step 2.  Kparted
and Gparted both agree at that same point that there are no partitions,
but fdisk shows 4 partitions, thus none can be added.  I'm assuming that
the four partitions are embedded in boot.img and created as part of the
dd operation.

 I was describing dd-ing the ISO directly to the stick. Our ISO images
contain a partition table and boot loader as a bit of magic to make the
stick bootable. It turns out that one seems to be able to add
partitions, which is what I was on about.

I can double check that, but IIRC I tried and could not. 


The remaining issue would be getting the new partition mounted, and the
preseed.cfg therein used, preferably automatically.

The objective is a unattended USB install with an edittable preseed.cfg,
and optionally additional packages and firmware files included on the
media.  Windows does it with a customizable unattended.txt (I think) and
a system integration tool to select the installation options.

Re: Problem with Jessie, Chrome, and Icedove

[Charles Chambers]

Hi All:

Sorry I'm late in responding, but I went back to 7.8.

How did you install Jessie?

Brand new install onto formatted drive (not an upgrade). My mail is in
the cloud, so I don't worry about blowing away a drive unless my message
filters or contact list is not backed up.

Is icedove rebuilding the search database?

No.  This is a brand new install onto an Optiplex GX620, 2 gig RAM, dual
core processor, integrated video.  Drive formatted, no legacy data to
preserve, etc.  What would be typical for a basic corporate install as a
desktop.

That would slow things down until rebuilt. icedove: prefs - advanced -
Advanced Configuration, Enable Global Search and Indexer .  A normal
upgrade from wheezy won't need to rebuild that database. This jessie
laptop is a 2 Gb Acer, core 2 duo, Intel 965GM graphics chipset. With
chromium, icedove and iceweasel open as I type, cpu usage is 2%.

As I think I wrote earlier, mine is running like 100 percent on one of
the two cores, 30 percent on the other, and the core running at
saturation changes to the other one about every 3 minutes.

Running 7.8 right now, I have both cores generally under 10 percent. 
Momentarily it is higher when Icedove checks for mail, but 10 percent on
each is zippy enough to be usable.

Charlie



On 05/11/2015 02:31 PM, debian-user-digest-requ...@lists.debian.org wrote:
 On 05/11/2015 10:07 AM, Charles Chambers wrote:
  I had a bug when I installed Jessie, and I'd like to finish
  confirming it.
  
  This is happening on a Dell Optiplex 620GX with 2 gigs of RAM, and a
  dual core processor on the CPU.  It also has an Intel graphics
  adapter onboard.  It's a pretty common workstation in the corporate
  world, so I'm surprised that it's not working with Jessie.
  
  There are two issues:
  
  1)  The GPU process in Google Chrome takes up 50 percent plus of the
  CPU utilization  - not memory, CPU utilization - and on both cores.
  Nothing else can run, or one of the CPU cores will saturate and the
  computer slows to a crawl.
  
  2)  Additionally, when I run icedove (Thunderbird) by itself, I get
  one of the CPU cores at 100 percent utilization, and the second one
  runs between 30 and 50 percent utilization.  I can't run Chrome at
  the same time, and in Wheezy I used to have those two idling in the
  background while I'm working in foreground with whatever.
  
  Using the --disable-GPU command line parameter in Chrome cures the
  problem somewhat with Chrome by itself, but it's not a panacea.
  Short of recompiling icedove, I haven't found anything yet that fixes
  the problem with icedove.
  
  Anyone have any idea what changed from Wheezy to cause this?
  
 How did you install Jessie?  Is icedove rebuilding the search database?
  That would slow things down until rebuilt.
 icedove: prefs - advanced - Advanced Configuration, Enable Global
 Search and Indexer

 A normal upgrade from wheezy won't need to rebuild that database.

 This jessie laptop is a 2 Gb Acer, core 2 duo, Intel 965GM graphics
 chipset.  With chromium, icedove and iceweasel open as I type, cpu usage
 is 2%.

 No ideas about your chrome.

 Good luck!
 Ralph

Problem with Jessie, Chrome, and Icedove

[Charles Chambers]

I had a bug when I installed Jessie, and I'd like to finish confirming it.

This is happening on a Dell Optiplex 620GX with 2 gigs of RAM, and a dual core 
processor on the CPU.  It also has an Intel graphics adapter onboard.  It's a 
pretty common workstation in the corporate world, so I'm surprised that it's 
not working with Jessie.

There are two issues:

1)  The GPU process in Google Chrome takes up 50 percent plus of the CPU 
utilization  - not memory, CPU utilization - and on both cores.  Nothing else 
can run, or one of the CPU cores will saturate and the computer slows to a 
crawl.

2)  Additionally, when I run icedove (Thunderbird) by itself, I get one of the 
CPU cores at 100 percent utilization, and the second one runs between 30 and 50 
percent utilization.  I can't run Chrome at the same time, and in Wheezy I used 
to have those two idling in the background while I'm working in foreground with 
whatever.

Using the --disable-GPU command line parameter in Chrome cures the problem 
somewhat with Chrome by itself, but it's not a panacea.  Short of recompiling 
icedove, I haven't found anything yet that fixes the problem with icedove.

Anyone have any idea what changed from Wheezy to cause this?


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Jessie and Chrome

[Charles Chambers]

Hi, All:

I had a bug when I installed Jessie, and I'd like to finish confirming it.

Specifically, the GPU process in Google Chrome takes up 50 percent plus
of the CPU utilization  - not memory, CPU utilization.

Using the --disable-GPU command line parameter cures the problem somewhat.

Anyone have any idea what changed from Wheezy to cause this?


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Samba problems

[Charles Chambers]

I'm having a problem getting Samba set up on one computer, and any
pointers would be appreciated.

I have two computers, identical except that one has an 80 gig drive and
the other has a 250 gig drive.  Both have an external USB drive, which
is the drive I'm trying to share out across a home network.  Both have
the standard Debian Samba (2.3.5.6) installed on them.  One works
perfectly.  When the USB drive is present, it's shared; when it's
disconnected from it's computer, obviously, it's not available, but when
I connect it back up - BOOM - it's there.  My Windows 7 computer loves
it for a network drive.  The other one works not at all.

I've followed the setup as described at howtoforge.com for setting up
Samba, and my windows 7 computer just won't browse to it.

It's probably something careless on my part, but I can't figure it out.

Someone have time to start walking me through it?


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Apache2 and Debian

[charles chambers]

I'm trying to set up a web server under Debian, with Apache2, and i
don't understand the configuration. IThe original setup for Debian and
Apache2 has /var/www as the root of the web server. I've created a
number of folders below it for individual packages, such as:

/var/www/phpmyadmin
/var/www/phpmyedit
/var/www/mediawiki
/var/www/phpbb3

These all work fine.

Now I'm trying to move the default document root to /var/www/website,
and that's where the problem is coming in. I can read/display the
index.html file from http://localhost/ , but I cannot read/display *.php
from it. All I'm getting from any php files is the HTML; the php appears
to not be executing. PHP is loaded properly, or phpmyadmin, phpmyedit,
mediawiki, and phpbb3 wouldn't work, and they do.

So it's a configuration problem.

Anyone care to walk me through checking permissions and configuration
files, starting with a default document root of /var/www/website and
intending to serve out html and process PHP files from all folders below
that?


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USB Drive

[Charles Chambers]

I've just installed Debian 5.0 on an old computer, and I'm having
problems getting a backup USB drive to automount. 

I have a mount point set up at /media/usb, and I set it to be world
readable (drwxrwxrwx).

I plug in the drive (it normalLy reads no prblem under Windows7), and I
get an error message to the effect that a mount option is invalid.

I explicitly mount it (mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb in a root terminal),
and the permissions promptly go to read only for root and nothing for
anyone else (dr-x--) .  I ASLO get an error message that I do not
hvae the permissions to read the files on the drive at user level.

Can anyone suggest an  solution?




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