Changing keyboard layout fails

[David Niklas]

Hello,
I installed debian, 12.4.0 on 2 laptops.
One of them, a 2023 ASUS Zenbook 15" 7735U, I cannot change the keyboard
mapping on. Changing it on the other works like a charm. I initially set
them up as dvorak, for my own ease, and now I want it to be qwerty. I have
temporarily worked around the problem by using setxkbmap.

I followed the guide here: https://wiki.debian.org/Keyboard , using as
root,

# dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
# service keyboard-setup restart
# udevadm trigger --subsystem-match=input --action=change

In the config files, I can see the correct values in
/etc/default/keyboard

Having worked with Gentoo Linux at one point in time, I read their guide.
Based on that info, I checked /etc/vconsole.conf and adjusted it from
dvorak to qwerty without effect.

I also tried (un)setting dvoark and qwerty layouts including doing
multiple reboots without effect. I also tried installing the console-data
package which was recommended elsewhere and set qwerty layout without
effect.

I'm flat out of ideas as to why the keyboard layout will not change.





Anyone know how to change the keyboard layout on Debian?

Thanks!

Re: How to file a proper bug report

[David Niklas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:20:54 +1100
Ben Finney  wrote:
> t.j.duch...@gmail.com writes:
> 
> > I have a user question on how to file a proper Debian bug report under
> > certain circumstances.  
> 
> Thank you for taking the care to find out what information is needed for
> a good bug report.
> 
> Your specific use cases seem to involve non-free software (Steam games
> are, I assume, non-free in general, though there may be some exceptions)
> so that makes it particularly difficult to diagnose problems.
> 
> If there are reproducible behaviours, it can be helpful to run the
> program under ‘strace’ and reproduce the behaviour, to get an extremely
> verbose log of system calls being made at the time when the behaviour
> occurs.
> 
> When that is reproducible, it might be helpful to have two separate
> ‘strace’ log outputs: one from the environment where you don't get the
> buggy behaviour, one where you do.
> 

I watch the mesa-dev ML. What you want to do is to log and post from both
systems the following:
1. Xorg log (Typically called Xorg.0.log) from /var/log.
2. Run the program dmesg from the cmdline and log it to a file.
   HINT: Redirect to a file with > FILE. As in: PROG > FILE.txt
3. Install apitrace (cmdline command: apt install apitrace )
4. Run the program wile apitrace'ing it. (Normally you run the command in
   the terminal wine example.exe) COMPRESS the output it will be HUGE!!!
   HINT: apitrace wine example.exe | xz -9ecvCsha256 > FILE.txt.
5. Uname -a (This, in particular, will give you the kernel version.)
6. Programs and versions (wine, mesa, llvm, xorg, example.exe, libdrm).
   Typically you run from the cmdline: PROG --version; apt show PROG.
   The proprietary game will not accept this method of course.
7. Fill out a bug with this info at: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/. Use
   attachments liberally with the add attachment feature. You can comment
   and attach several times for 1 bug so not everything has to be in the
   first post.
   Describe your problem throughly.
   Don't post screen shots unless you have to.
   See these for examples:

https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=91251
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=73739

Be aware that they might ask you to try a custom kernel/mesa/etc.. If you
cannot do this they might need a copy of the game in question. They are
friendly and will walk you through the above if you ask them to.

No, I have not run the above to check for errors but it looks correct and
I did check the man pages.

Thanks for your report,
David
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POLL Do you want RTX? Cross-website-post.

[David Niklas]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

Hello,
I heard from 1 of the people that do HW reviews that AMD was considering
implementing their very own RTX and looking at what people think of RTX.
I created a poll on LQ:
https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5962219
and in the past 23 hours have gotten 5 votes! :(
I am posting to this ML and several other places in hopes of
getting a better turnout.
Thanks for you vote.
Please comment on the actual LQ poll page not this email.

David
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Re: Getting rid of Wilber

[David Niklas]

On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 11:30:19 -0700
"James H. H. Lampert"  wrote:
> Hmm. I'm all for customizing UIs (my preferred Open Office icon is a 
> manual typewriter, my preferred Firefox icon is one I found with the 
> eponymous fox chewing on a Microsloth Imploder logo, and my preferred 
> Thunderbird icon has the eponymous bird carrying a bottle of T-Bird), 
> but what have you got against Wilber?
> 
> --
> JHHL


Quick, where can I find the "eponymous fox chewing on a Microsloth
Imploder logo"?

Thanks!

OT: Hurricane

[David Niklas]

There is only one thing worse than a *CAT 5* hurricane headed towards
Florida.
Another one behind it.

And there is only one thing worse than 2 powerful hurricanes headed
towards Florida.
If you're still there.

All of the above is happening to me.
Those of the prayer inclined nature might try a little of it.

I'll be offline for awhile.

BTW: This is the first time since 2004 or 2005 that Florida's panhandle
has been hit, so no, it's not time to have a global warming "I told you
so party" on the mailing list.

Thanks,
David

Re: Btrs vs ext4. Which one is more reliable?

[David Niklas]

On Sat, 29 Jul 2017 04:59:40 +
Andy Smith  wrote:

> > My understanding is that the only thing that prevents silent
> > corruption in ext4 is the hard drive CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check
> > Error). Is that enough for a server?  
> 
> No, not with multi-terabyte devices. CRC doesn't detect well enough,
> also errors can happen at different places that CRC can't always
> detect.

I use RAID5 and reiserfs the only problem I've had so far is RAM
corruption (Ugh!). reierfs is very reliable, does not loose data in the
presence of being unmounted unsuccessfully, WHICH XFS DOES REALLY
BADLY(I think I even saw a video in which an fs dev said that xfs does
this on purpose so that an sensitive data does not remain on the drive).
I also tried fat32, but in the presence of being unmounted incorrectly
you'll get some data loss, but not corruption, that is to say that fat32
seems to behave like an atomic fs; either the data is on the drive or not.
Same with ext4 except that I have gotten many corruptions if it's not
properly unmounted. Nilfs2 seems to have a bug someplace in the kernel
(4.9), but I've not yet narrowed it down. I don't know anything about
others then those listed above.

Yes, I've been really busy trying to find a good FS.

> The worst I've seen on the zfsonlinux list in the last couple of
> years is people reporting abnormally low performance in their
> configuration.
> 
> Cheers,
> Andy
> 

Actually, I've read that zfs can only mount on a *totally* empty
directory.


Also, my use case is at home where the power can and *does* fail. I also
find myself using the latest kernel and oftentimes an experimental driver
for my AMD graphics card, hence my need for a *very* stable fs over
sudden unmount.


Sincerely,
David

Re: Laser Printer recommendation...

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 8 Aug 2017 20:00:29 +0100
Brian  wrote:
> On Tue 08 Aug 2017 at 13:01:30 -0500, Doug wrote:
> 
> > It always amazes me that people who get a driver made specifically
> > for a device, a driver that has significantly more capability than
> > one that came with their Linux os,
> > would refuse to use it. It hasn't cost them anything, just as the
> > Linux os hasn't cost them anything, so it is FREE. (Don't tell me
> > they paid for it with the printer--they
> > couldn't have bought the printer without subsidizing the driver, so
> > essentially it is free.)  Same goes for video drivers. It's like
> > trying to swim with one hand tied behind your back.  
> 
> It's strange, isn't it, that some people do not want to knuckle under
> and do what they are told is best for them. The same people want some
> control over the goods they own and the services they use. Wierdos.
> 
> Ignore them and join the hive.
> 

Well, on top of being able to use a pretested and know good
non-proprietary driver there are other reasons

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/06/printer-tracking-dots-back-news

Not to mention that some people think that proprietary drivers utilize
more ink than their FLOSS counterparts, and if Amazon reviews is any
indication, then manufacturers *do* want you to use more ink and newer
printers *do* use more ink. The question is, do manufacturers use
drivers, firmware, or both to achieve this end?

Sincerely,
David

Re: If Linux Is About Choice, Why Then ...

[David Niklas]

On Fri, 7 Apr 2017 14:27:40 -0400
David Niklas <do...@mail.com> wrote:

> On  Mon, 13 Mar 2017 12:30:11 -0700
> Patrick Bartek <nemomm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The Linux mantra has always been "choice," plethoras of choices. So
> > why at install time, is there no choice for the init system?  You get
> > what the developers decide. Yes, you can install a new one -- I've
> > done it and it works -- but only after the install.  It'd be a lot
> > easier, if there were a choice to begin with just like whether you
> > want a GUI and which one.
> > 
> > Now, I know with LFS, you get to choose everything, etc.  But is a
> > choice of init at install time so outrageous that no one ever
> > considered it or is it technically unfeasible or something else.
> > 
> > Just curious.
> >   
> 
> Because this reply is so late I'm CC'ing you off list.
> 
> I sympathize, I run Gentoo Linux and us OpenRC. I plan on running
> Devuan, a Debain derivative that supports lots of different init
> systems. Why no one looks at their project and sees the people involved
> when making a statistic up for the amount of dissatisfied systemd users
> I don't know.
> 
> Sincerely,
> David

Oops,
The topic may be old but it does appear to be alive and well.
Also I sent to the list instead of CC'ing.

Sincerely,
David

How to change where PXE booting looks for files with UEFI

[David Niklas]

On Wed, 15 Mar 2017 13:53:08 -0600
Joshua Schaeffer  wrote:
> Ahoy,
> 
> I've been learning how to setup PXE booting to install an OS image on a
> 100% UEFI system (CSM completely disabled). I use Debian 8 as my DHCP
> server (ISC DHCP) and as my TFTP server (tftpd-hpa). I also use the
> Debian netboot installer to provide the PXE environment including the
> bootnetx64.efi file (I use it to serve pxelinux.0 as well).
> 
> I'm able to get to menu screens with PXE on UEFI and BIOS, but I have to
> have specific files in certain directories for UEFI and I don't know
> how to change the defaults. With BIOS I'm able to control the
> directories and files that are served by changing the
> pxelinux.cfg/default file. For BIOS I put my debian-installer directory
> (which contains the boot screen, menus, etc) under gtk. So I just have
> lines like this in my pxelinux.cfg/default file:
> 
> path gtk/debian-installer/amd64/boot-screens/
> default gtk/debian-installer/amd64/boot-screens/vesamenu.c32
> 
> However, I can't figure out how to tell UEFI to look in specific
> directories. Instead I've been left with just having to create a symlink
> from the default directory that bootnetx64.efi looks in to point to the
> actual directory that my GRUB files exist.
> 
> How do you configure UEFI PXE booting to use different directories then
> the defaults?
> 
> Let me try to explain what I'm seeing a little better:
> 
> This is my TFTP server. The base directory is /srv/tftp:
> 
> root@broodwar:/srv/tftp/pxeboot# ls -l
> total 48208
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp   435712 Mar 15 10:38 bootnetx64.efi
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp4 Sep 28 11:10 centos
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp4 Sep 28 11:10 debian
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp8 Sep 28 11:16 fedora
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp  120 Sep 17 10:04 gtk
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp   116624 Sep 28 09:30 ldlinux.c32
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp25372 Sep 30 10:40 memdisk
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp 29360128 Sep 13  2016 mini.iso
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp 19370928 Sep 13  2016 netboot.tar.gz
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp   16 Sep 28 11:17 opensuse
> -rw-r--r-- 1 tftp tftp42988 Sep 13  2016 pxelinux.0
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp  248 Sep 30 10:31 pxelinux.cfg
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp   20 Sep 28 11:17 ubuntu
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp   32 Sep 30 09:40 windows
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp   52 Sep 17 10:04 xen
> 
> You can see that under the base directory I have a pxeboot directory
> which can serve both pxelinux.0 and bootnetx64.efi. I also have a gtk
> folder which is where the debian-installer folder resides under (this
> has items like my boot screens and menus as well as GRUB related files
> for UEFI). So, when booting via BIOS I tell my pxelinux.cfg file to
> look under the gtk folder as shown above. bootnetx64.efi however is
> looking for the following files:
> 
> 
>- debian-installer/amd64/grub/x86_64-efi/command.lst
>- debian-installer/amd64/grub/x86_64-efi/fs.lst
>- debian-installer/amd64/grub/x86_64-efi/crypto.lst
>- debian-installer/amd64/grub/x86_64-efi/terminal.lst
>- debian-installer/amd64/grub/grub.cfg
> 
> I know this because this is what is reported in the tftp log files. I
> have to have a symlink called debian-installer in my root directory
> (/srv/tftp/debian-installer) pointing to my gtk folder
> (srv/tftp/pxeboot/gtk/debian-installer).
> 
> root@broodwar:/srv/tftp/pxeboot# ls -l ..
> total 4
> drwxr-xrwx 1 tftp tftp 128 Jan 23 15:24 cisco_config
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  29 Mar 15 12:34 debian-installer ->
> pxeboot/gtk/debian-installer/
> drwxr-xr-x 1 tftp tftp 242 Mar 15 12:33 pxeboot
> 
> How do I tell bootnetx64.efi to just look directly in that folder
> instead of looking at the default location?
> 
> Thanks,
> Joshua

As someone who is curious about PXE, did you ever figure this out?

Thanks,
David

If Linux Is About Choice, Why Then ...

[David Niklas]

On  Mon, 13 Mar 2017 12:30:11 -0700
Patrick Bartek  wrote:
> The Linux mantra has always been "choice," plethoras of choices. So why
> at install time, is there no choice for the init system?  You get what
> the developers decide. Yes, you can install a new one -- I've done it
> and it works -- but only after the install.  It'd be a lot easier, if
> there were a choice to begin with just like whether you want a GUI and
> which one.
> 
> Now, I know with LFS, you get to choose everything, etc.  But is a
> choice of init at install time so outrageous that no one ever
> considered it or is it technically unfeasible or something else.
> 
> Just curious.
> 

Because this reply is so late I'm CC'ing you off list.

I sympathize, I run Gentoo Linux and us OpenRC. I plan on running Devuan,
a Debain derivative that supports lots of different init systems.
Why no one looks at their project and sees the people involved when
making a statistic up for the amount of dissatisfied systemd users I don't
know.

Sincerely,
David

Using source packages to bring some programs up to latest version

[David Niklas]

Hello,
I've used Debian on and off but now I have a pocketchip from
https://nextthing.co/
and it uses debian and I'm not about to switch.
I follow several projects closely (nano, lynx, a few others), and what I
want to do is to tell apt to:
1. Download the latest and greatest source code of version of package X
2. Resolve all dependencies of package X downloading source code
3. Resolve packages that depend on X and download source code
4. Compile sources and install X and dependencies.

I realize that several of theses steps may make up one actual command and
visa-versa.
What I'm trying to do is to avoid running pieces unstable or testing
software (except for the package I asked for (such as nano)), while
still having a few newer packages.

Thanks,
David

Re: Low Level Format of 1.4 Mb Floppy Isn't Happening Solved.

[David Niklas]

On Sun, 15 Jan 2017 23:04:14 +
Brian  wrote:
> On Sun 15 Jan 2017 at 15:36:08 -0600, Martin McCormick wrote:
> 
> [A trip down Memory Lane snipped]
> 
> For those who may want to use Plop boot manager, it is far quicker and
> more reliable to do so from GRUB on the hard disc. The Plop website has
> details. Struggling with a pile of floppies is no fun and a floppy which
> works today ivery likely not to do so next month.
> 
Actually, I've had to transfer data from an old windowz to another
windowz system and I found that all the spare floppies I had lying around
contained correct file systems (and I'm assuming correct files too).
So, long term storage seems to work fine for floppies, but transfering
lots of data does not work so well (the floppies wear out).

Sincerely,
David

Subject: firefox + flashplayer on slow pc

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 20 Dec 2016 23:10:52 +0100
deloptes  wrote:

> I have an older notebook with ATI. (Actually I gave it to a friend)
> Recently I updated to OS is ubuntu 16.04 from 12.x.
> 
> glxgears looks good, but after installing later firefox when watching
> some YT it slows down and video breaks. even lowering quality to 360 is
> not very good.
> 
> I installed older version of FF and it was much better but still not
> good.
> 
> Do you have any idea how I can improve this?
> 
> thanks
I have an ATI 7780 card on Gentoo linux, kernel 4.8.15 with amdgpu-ucode
20160628, new kernel amd drivers (FLOSS ones), FF 50.1.0, and gnash
0.8.10_p20160329-r1
I can't complain, they are very stable and good. AMD is making great
progress on this front IMHO, though not all features are implemented.

BTW: FF *always* eats CPU cycles. Try qupzilla.

Sincerely,
David

Re: OT: Read-Only NFS-mounted Debian System for Library Kiosk PCs, using KACE K2000 as PXE?

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 6 Dec 2016 08:01:26 -0600
Kent West  wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 6, 2016 at 1:45 AM, emetib  wrote:
> 
> > kent,
> >
> > i just looked up quest k2000 and there is no mention of linux at all.
> >
> > are you looking at changing the whole system and putting linux on it?
> > trying to have microsoft give a tftp linux image?
> >
> >  
> 
> The K2000 is a "System Deployment Appliance", originally developed by a
> company named KACE, bought by Dell, and recently sold to Quest.
> 
> It's basically for building/scripting and distributing computer images.
> For example, you buy 100 new Dell computers for your company. You have a
> standard Windows 10 image you've built, that has MS-Office and Firefox
> and Chrome and Adobe Creative Cloud and company-emblazoned screen
> savers, etc. You tell the K2000 to push this image to your 100 new
> Dells and rename them and add them to the domain, and you're done.
> 
> You can do the same for your new Macs, putting test lab images on the 10
> Macs headed to the testing lab, developer-friendly images for the 6
> coders, presentation-friendly images for the 4 classroom-podium Macs,
> and the Solitaire-only image for the CEO's MacBook. Push a button; BAM!
> The Macs are imaged and ready to be delivered.
> 
> The K2000 has a PXE boot system built in, so that we can configure our
> campus-wide DHCP server to feed the K2000's IP address to client
> computers that are booted to the network; the K2000 then feeds a PXE
> image of some sort to the client PC/Mac, which is typically a
> stripped-down Windows BartPE-type image or a slim Mac OS X image, that
> gives just enough functionality over the network to then run hardware
> diags or disk partitioners or the imaging process.
> 
> It's my understanding that the K2000, although not natively supporting
> other OSes, can be made to boot pretty much any system image. But it
> takes tinkering, and although I didn't expect there to be many
> tinkerers in the world that had the tinkering skill-set to work with
> both Debian NFS/remote booting and the K2000, I thought if any place
> would have the expertise it would be debian-user.
> 
> Just as a quick recap: I'm looking to have the K2000 offer a Debian
> NFS/remote X session to Dell PCs when they netboot, so that I can
> configure some library diskless read-only kiosks allowing library
> patrons to run a web browser, maybe open a document editor, and print.
> I could accomplish the Debian kiosk setup by installing on the local
> drive, but then I'll have multiple machines to maintain, whereas a
> netboot remote-NFS setup would be a configure-once-configure-everywhere
> situation, and would remove the necessity of having and imaging the the
> local drives.
> 
> It's okay that no one here knows how; I knew it was a long shot, but
> thought I'd ask.
> 
> Thanks!
> 

I recommend you try the linuxquestions.org folks.
If you ever get it working consider contributing how you did it. Perhaps
at the linux documentation project (ldp).

Sincerely,
David

Is this really the way to get your name out? (was: Mr. Turritopsis Dohrnii Teo is Looking for Information Technology-related Job Opportunities World Wide)

[David Niklas]

Every so often I see something very much like this on the debian mailing
list.
I want to know, do people really get a job this way?
Is this list really intended for these kinds of emails?

Sincerely,
David

On Wed, 16 Nov 2016 15:37:37 + (UTC)
debian-user-digest-requ...@lists.debian.org wrote:
> Dear Sir/Madam,
> 
> My academic and educational qualifications are now reflected in my
> email signature.
> 
> I am an entry level/junior/beginner Information Technology (IT)
> Specialist/Systems Engineer/Linux Server Administrator/Helpdesk
> Support/Computer Technician available for hire anywhere in the
> world!!! Prospective employers, businesses and companies in any part
> of the world please feel free to contact me for my curriculum
> vitae/resume.
> 
> Thank you very much!
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> 

Re: Why? -- "A Modest Proposal"

[David Niklas]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2016 17:08:23 + (UTC)
debian-user-digest-requ...@lists.debian.org wrote:
> On Thursday 17 November 2016 14:41:23 Richard Owlett wrote:
> > On 11/16/2016 8:52 AM, Lisi Reisz wrote:  
> > > On Wednesday 16 November 2016 14:13:49 Richard Owlett wrote:  
> > >> There exist SOC  projects to encourage/mentor
> > >> fledgling programmers.
> > >> Considering the state of documentation, esp man pages, why no SOD
> > >>  projects for potential tech writers.  
> > >
> > > There is no obvious pay-off for Google - or anyone else with
> > > money.  And it isn't fun.  
> >
> > I don't know how Google internally justifies sponsoring SOC projects.
> > I can see their PR department seeing benefits to their corporate
> > image.
> > Their personnel department may see it as a pool of potential  
> 
> I would think that both these are valid.
> 
> > recruits.
> > I know nothing of the quality of code produced by these projects,
> > nor of its monetary value. None of the SOC projects I've seen
> > mentioned in various fora have been of more than passing interest.  
> 
> Debian and LibreOffice both find Google's SOC useful.  I don't
> specifically know about other projects.
> 
> > As to "fun", one man's purgatory may be another's nirvana {or
> > points between}.  
> 
> No.   The problem here is that the overlap between highly competent
> technical people (who find tech fun) and people who love writing, and
> find writing fun, is so small.  I personally know one, and he is not a
> developer.  Developers love developing.  Writers love writing.  Neither
> regards the other as occupation as fun.
As someone who has his foot in both worlds I think you misunderstand us
both.
Developers need time to develop, writers need time to write. Both need
the motivation to do both.
So, If I want to develop I can't write and visa-versa.
It is also very worthwhile to point out that in order to do either one
must be in the correct state of mind. My coding improves 100% when I have
recently re-read the code and have planned out in my mind the future
events that will take place in the code. Same with a book. It's typically
called "The zone".

> > The intended point of my second paragraph [which obviously wasn't
> > made as nobody commented on it ;] was a sketch of how to attract
> > technically oriented high school students to tech writing.  
But the desire to do anything is a long term yearning. It does not just
pop-up as some would assume. Though i must confess that it seems that
many of the people my age seem to have only the goal of making money in
mind.

> See my paragraph above.  And then there is the educational system which
> here anyway tends to separate the techy from the arty very young.
> >  
> > > You could always make a start.  Have you?  This is, after all, open
> > > source. And the Wiki is, well, a Wiki. ;-)  
> 
> The point I was trying to make, and frequently try to make, is that in
> Open Source you have to say "This needs doing, I must do it."  It is no
> good saying "Someone else must do it."  Someone else invariably won't.
Good point.

> >
> > I don't see myself as having the technical competence to create
> > wiki content that would do more harm than good.
> >
> > I do try to contribute by asking focused questions and when
> > relevant draw on 50+ years of troubleshooting to document how I
> > came to ask a question. Several here question whether I've
> > achieved either.  

When I first started learning Linux every error or warning was horrible
and ambiguous in my mind, this came from my experiences with windowz [1].
By explaining how to cope with these errors and figure out how to trouble
shoot you could be solving an inordinate amount of time and effort, both
for the beginners and this list.
OpenSuse, my first distro, has filters built into it's syslog program to
get rid of all the excess baggage that the programs that it uses throw
out all day long. Think about how much better it would be if people knew
how to fix the problems instead of bit bucketing the messengers.

> You could - some people do - gather all that together and put it in the
> Wiki.
> 
> That in itself doesn't contribute to the pool of documentation, at
> least not directly.  The pool of knowledge, yes, but the pool of
> "documentation", no. I try to answer and help here, but could never
> actually write something technical.  But you (and others) are missing
> my point.  In all voluntary activities, you only get done what someone
> wants to do and enjoys doing.  
> 
> Besides,  many of those doing jobs are totally incompetent.  The
> publicity department (which I think is PAID) of the FSF thinks that
> Africa is a country in Europe-Asia and that it is an evening's outing
> away from the ISLAND of Great Britain.  (She didn't suggest which
> mode(s) of transport she was suggesting I should use.  I don't think
> she knew that GB is an island.  She didn't know that Africa is a
> separate continent, after all.)
> 
> We need education first, 

[CFP] FOSDEM 2017, RTC devroom, speakers, volunteers neeeded

[David Niklas]

## BTW: You may already have received a copy as
## this message requests people to forward.

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2016 11:09:12 +0200 (CEST)
From: FOSDEM RTC Team 
To: ekiga-l...@gnome.org
Subject: [Ekiga-list] [CFP] FOSDEM 2017, RTC devroom, speakers,
volunteers neeeded


FOSDEM is one of the world's premier meetings of free software developers,
with over five thousand people attending each year.  FOSDEM 2017
takes place 4-5 February 2017 in Brussels, Belgium.  https://fosdem.org

This email contains information about:
- Real-Time communications dev-room and lounge,
- speaking opportunities,
- volunteering in the dev-room and lounge,
- related events around FOSDEM, including the XMPP summit,
- social events (the legendary FOSDEM Beer Night and Saturday night
dinners provide endless networking opportunities),
- the Planet aggregation sites for RTC blogs

Call for participation - Real Time Communications (RTC)
===

The Real-Time dev-room and Real-Time lounge is about all things involving
real-time communication, including: XMPP, SIP, WebRTC, telephony,
mobile VoIP, codecs, peer-to-peer, privacy and encryption.  The dev-room
is a successor to the previous XMPP and telephony dev-rooms.
We are looking for speakers for the dev-room and volunteers and
participants for the tables in the Real-Time lounge.

The dev-room is only on Saturday, 4 February 2017.  The lounge will
be present for both days.

To discuss the dev-room and lounge, please join the FSFE-sponsored
Free RTC mailing list: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc

To be kept aware of major developments in Free RTC, without being on the
discussion list, please join the Free-RTC Announce list:
http://lists.freertc.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

Speaking opportunities
--

Note: if you used FOSDEM Pentabarf before, please use the same
account/username

Real-Time Communications dev-room: deadline 23:59 UTC on 17 November.
Please use the Pentabarf system to submit a talk proposal for the
dev-room.  On the "General" tab, please look for the "Track" option and
choose "Real-Time devroom".  https://penta.fosdem.org/submission/FOSDEM17/

Other dev-rooms and lightning talks: some speakers may find their topic is
in the scope of more than one dev-room.  It is encouraged to apply to more
than one dev-room and also consider proposing a lightning talk, but please
be kind enough to tell us if you do this by filling out the notes in the
form. You can find the full list of dev-rooms at
   https://www.fosdem.org/2017/schedule/tracks/
and apply for a lightning talk at https://fosdem.org/submit

Main track: the deadline for main track presentations is 23:59 UTC
31 October.  Leading developers in the Real-Time Communications
field are encouraged to consider submitting a presentation to
the main track at https://fosdem.org/submit

First-time speaking?


FOSDEM dev-rooms are a welcoming environment for people who have never
given a talk before.  Please feel free to contact the dev-room
administrators personally if you would like to ask any questions about it.

Submission guidelines
-

The Pentabarf system will ask for many of the essential details.  Please
remember to re-use your account from previous years if you have one.

In the "Submission notes", please tell us about:
- the purpose of your talk
- any other talk applications (dev-rooms, lightning talks, main track)
- availability constraints and special needs

You can use HTML and links in your bio, abstract and description.

If you maintain a blog, please consider providing us with the
URL of a feed with posts tagged for your RTC-related work.

We will be looking for relevance to the conference and dev-room themes,
presentations aimed at developers of free and open source software about
RTC-related topics.

Please feel free to suggest a duration between 20 minutes and 55 minutes
but note that the final decision on talk durations will be made by the
dev-room administrators.  As the two previous dev-rooms have been
combined into one, we may decide to give shorter slots than in previous
years so that more speakers can participate.

Please note FOSDEM aims to record and live-stream all talks.
The CC-BY license is used.

Volunteers needed
=

To make the dev-room and lounge run successfully, we are looking for
volunteers:

- FOSDEM provides video recording equipment and live streaming,
  volunteers are needed to assist in this
- organizing one or more restaurant bookings (dependending upon number of
  participants) for the evening of Saturday, 4 February
- participation in the Real-Time lounge
- helping attract sponsorship funds for the dev-room to pay for the
  Saturday night dinner and any other expenses
- circulating this Call for Participation to other mailing lists

See the mailing list discussion for more details about 

Re: Interesting audio problem

[David Niklas]

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016 09:44:53 deloptes <delop...@gmail.com>
> David Niklas wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:48:12 deloptes wrote:
> > Thanks all, deloptes questioned me the most thoroughly so I'm
> > replying to him.
> >   
> >> David Niklas wrote:
> >>   
> >> > Hello,  
> >> 
> >> Hi David,
> >>   
> >> > I'm not running debian, rather Gentoo, but this happens with any
> >> > distro and sound card (so far), so I figured this is as good a
> >> > place as any to start (though linuxquestions is a close second).
> >> > 
> >> > My sound card is currently (according to lspci), an ATI/ATI SBx00
> >> > Azalia (Intel HDA), though I used another ATI card on another MB
> >> > before the MB broke (the MB was a lemon). Both cards are built into
> >> > the MB.
> >> > 
> >> > The said problem also happens independent of the audio playing app.
> >> > 
> >> > The problem is this, if I plug an audio jack for my headphone into
> >> > the jack the whole way then I get a lot less volume on the
> >> > channels. I don't think it's a decrease in the bass, though it
> >> > might be.
> >> > 
> >> > Now, if I pull the headphone jack out, just a bit, it plays
> >> > everything fine.
> >> > ***
> >> > This is a little odd, and I might just dismiss it as a random
> >> > quirk of my machine, but now it has happened to my laptops
> >> > headphone jack too.  
> >> *
> >> Did you try with different cables/jacks? What type of jack is it -
> >> perhaps you soldiered yourself, or perhaps some special headphones -
> >> just asking? In my opinion it might be either hardware - jack is
> >> shortening, or some odd setting somewhere, but if latter it wouldn't
> >> be same on different board. Anyway for the case it is not the jack
> >> itself we would need some additional info. In debian  
> > Yes, I'm pretty certain that this is a hardware problem. I've tried
> > different headphones to no avail. The jack is built into the MB.
> > I was curious if others have experienced this, maybe all I have to do
> > is open the plastic jack case on the MB and adjust something. I'd try
> > this without your help but I, frankly, don't know if it would
> > work/what I'm doing and I want to know what I'm doing when messing
> > with the MB.  
> 
> What we meant was not the female jack on the board, but the male jack of
> your head phones or amplifier. Some vendors do not follow the standards
> (like Apple).
> The female jack on the board should be standard though - unless you use
> some exotic hardware.
> 
> > 
> > <>  
> >> cat /proc/asound/cards  
> > 0 [PCH]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
> >  HDA Intel PCH at 0xc061 irq 28  
> >> cat /proc/asound/card*/codec*
> >> cat /var/lib/alsa/asound.state
> >> 
> >> Please attach or upload somewhere.  
> > They are attached
> >   
> 
> This is well known Codec: Realtek ALC282
> I'm just not sure if you have Line-In jack there. I mean if you can
> record stereo from external source.
> This would explain why you hear only one line. You can check easily the
> specs of your mainboard. I couldn't find stereo capture and I'm not an
> expert.
> 
> I found this here
> http://mailman.alsa-project.org/pipermail/alsa-devel/2014-January/071161.html
I'd have to look at this later, it's a bit beyond me at first glance.

> Could be that you need to try recent kernel version
As I mentioned, this did not occur when I fist used my computer (brand
new, see the part above with stars), and as I've had this problem for
3.18 -- 4.1 of the linux kernel on my laptop and 2.6 -- 4.1 on my desktop
I hardly think it's a matter of upgrading.

> >> 
> >> Another option would be a setting to turn off speaker when you plugin
> >> headphones.  
> > Why? And there are not speakers, at least on my desktop. The laptop
> > speakers I mute when using headphones, they used to auto mute, but now
> > the computer thinks the hp are always attached so I turned that off.
> >   
> >> > 
> >> > Also, I've recorded some audio from an old cassette tape onto my
> >> > computer (cassette tape players are getting hard to find), and some
> >> > of the said audio I somehow got to require that the headphone jack
> >> > be fully plugged in to play correctly. [scratches head] I with I
> >> > knew how I did t

Re: Interesting audio problem

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 28 Jun 2016 10:48:12 deloptes wrote:
Thanks all, deloptes questioned me the most thoroughly so I'm replying to
him.

> David Niklas wrote:
> 
> > Hello,  
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> > I'm not running debian, rather Gentoo, but this happens with any
> > distro and sound card (so far), so I figured this is as good a place
> > as any to start (though linuxquestions is a close second).
> > 
> > My sound card is currently (according to lspci), an ATI/ATI SBx00
> > Azalia (Intel HDA), though I used another ATI card on another MB
> > before the MB broke (the MB was a lemon). Both cards are built into
> > the MB.
> > 
> > The said problem also happens independent of the audio playing app.
> > 
> > The problem is this, if I plug an audio jack for my headphone into the
> > jack the whole way then I get a lot less volume on the channels. I
> > don't think it's a decrease in the bass, though it might be.
> > 
> > Now, if I pull the headphone jack out, just a bit, it plays everything
> > fine.
> > 
> > This is a little odd, and I might just dismiss it as a random quirk of
> > my machine, but now it has happened to my laptops headphone jack
> > too.  
> 
> Did you try with different cables/jacks? What type of jack is it -
> perhaps you soldiered yourself, or perhaps some special headphones -
> just asking? In my opinion it might be either hardware - jack is
> shortening, or some odd setting somewhere, but if latter it wouldn't be
> same on different board. Anyway for the case it is not the jack itself
> we would need some additional info. In debian
Yes, I'm pretty certain that this is a hardware problem. I've tried
different headphones to no avail. The jack is built into the MB.
I was curious if others have experienced this, maybe all I have to do is
open the plastic jack case on the MB and adjust something. I'd try this
without your help but I, frankly, don't know if it would work/what I'm
doing and I want to know what I'm doing when messing with the MB.

<>
> cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [PCH]: HDA-Intel - HDA Intel PCH
 HDA Intel PCH at 0xc061 irq 28
> cat /proc/asound/card*/codec*
> cat /var/lib/alsa/asound.state
> 
> Please attach or upload somewhere.
They are attached

> 
> Another option would be a setting to turn off speaker when you plugin
> headphones.
Why? And there are not speakers, at least on my desktop. The laptop
speakers I mute when using headphones, they used to auto mute, but now
the computer thinks the hp are always attached so I turned that off.

> > 
> > Also, I've recorded some audio from an old cassette tape onto my
> > computer (cassette tape players are getting hard to find), and some
> > of the said audio I somehow got to require that the headphone jack be
> > fully plugged in to play correctly. [scratches head] I with I knew
> > how I did this, it's really odd.
> >   
> 
> There is no connection between these two. What means correctly?
There is a Microphone and "Line in" jack on my desktop and a line out on
the player (wasn't this kinda obvious?).

> > So, my questions are:
> > 1: What causes this?
> > 2: How might I rerecord the audio files so they play right on a
> > computer without this problem without using the now broken tape
> > deck?  
> 
> It's just like normal recorder - set up input output level and record.
> If your mixer or pulseaudio are not set up properly you could have
> issues with the volume. I would check both. There are also cases where
> the settings for specific audio chips are broken or misaligned - it
> might also need attention. Just post the specs of your audio card and
> setup and there will be perhaps someone with the same who could compare
> and share
> 
> regards
I thought of that, but I'm not certain how to tell the computer whether
to record what the computer is playing (don't want), vs. telling it to
record from the Mic/line in.





state.txt.gz
Description: application/gzip


codec.txt.gz
Description: application/gzip

Interesting audio problem

[David Niklas]

Hello,
I'm not running debian, rather Gentoo, but this happens with any distro
and sound card (so far), so I figured this is as good a place as any to
start (though linuxquestions is a close second).

My sound card is currently (according to lspci), an ATI/ATI SBx00 Azalia
(Intel HDA), though I used another ATI card on another MB before the MB
broke (the MB was a lemon). Both cards are built into the MB.

The said problem also happens independent of the audio playing app.

The problem is this, if I plug an audio jack for my headphone into the jack the
whole way then I get a lot less volume on the channels. I don't think
it's a decrease in the bass, though it might be.

Now, if I pull the headphone jack out, just a bit, it plays everything fine.

This is a little odd, and I might just dismiss it as a random quirk of
my machine, but now it has happened to my laptops headphone jack too.

Also, I've recorded some audio from an old cassette tape onto my computer
(cassette tape players are getting hard to find), and some of the said
audio I somehow got to require that the headphone jack be fully plugged in to
play correctly. [scratches head] I with I knew how I did this, it's
really odd.

So, my questions are:
1: What causes this?
2: How might I rerecord the audio files so they play right on a computer
without this problem without using the now broken tape deck?

Thanks, David

Re: computer cann't shut down

[David Niklas]

Perhaps terminator has got to your machine?
Perhaps you may have disobeyed DRM and now they are out to get you!
Or, you may have been deemed a "threat to the free world".
(Just had to write those jokes).

Sincerely, David

Re: Good keyboard

[David Niklas]

Sorry for such a late post, I caught the flu and have only now caught up
with my emails. I've included the full quote.

On Sun, 14 Feb 2016 20:34:27 rlhar...@oplink.net wrote:
> On Sun, February 14, 2016 7:12 pm, Gary Roach wrote:
> ...
> >> I've been using a microsoft Ergonomic model 4000 v.1 for years. I
> >> love it. I recently looked around for a replacement ( turned out not
> >> to be the
> >> problem). I found that the newer Microsoft keyboards were garbage in
> >> comparison. The only one that came close was a Fellows for which I
> >> can not remember the model.  
> 
> I enjoyed using the thin Apple keyboard, but put it away a few years
> back when I could not figure out the proper xkb category; but I think I
> now know how to specify the keyboard to the Debian installer.
> 
> >> I spend a lot of time on the keyboard and much
> >> prefer the slanted ergonomic layout.  
> 
> I did not notice any comments on my comparison of a computer keyboard
> with
> a piano keyboard in this respect; but that also is something to
> consider.
> Who would suffer from poor "ergonomics" more than would the pianist?
> 
> >> I don't understand the fascination with the Dvorak keyboard. While I
> >> will admit that it is more efficient than the qwerty lay out, this
> >> really will come into play if you can type faster than 150 wpm or so.
> >> Who can?
I like dvorak because it lessens the amount of strain on you, thus you
will be less likely to get corporal tunnel syndrome. I'm young and try to
think ahead.

> Perhaps you should consider your definition of efficiency.  I live at
> the keyboard, and to me the measure of that which you term "efficiency"
> involves consideration of a number of factors, including fatigue,
> typographical error rate, and intuitiveness of the layout; the words per
> minute count is at the bottom of my list.
> 
> To me, one of the greatest benefits of the Dvorak layout comes in entry
> of text which incudes numerals.  With the Classic Dvorak layout, the
> keystrokes for numerals are instinctive; thus I seldom make an error.
I'm learning dvorak, but the numerals are all in the top bar with the
punctuation marks, only the home and adjacent rows are changed. Where are
your numerals? I just type loadkeys dvorak (there are only 3 dvorak
layouts, dvorak-ASCII, dvorak-Sun, and dvorak on my computer).

> Such was not the case forty years ago when I could type 120 wpm on
> QWERTY on a manual keybar typewriter.
Wow!


I was most particularly interested in weather the (clear), cherry key
switches last. No one mentioned them.
Being able to know what you get and improve/repair it is a big attraction
of opensource, be it HW or SW, at least for me.

Thanks, David

Re: Changing default XDB browser w/o GNOME etc.

[David Niklas]

On Tue, 15 Dec 2015 17:01:18 Christian Seiler wrote:
> The 'default browser' is actually not just a single setting. There are
> four main settings that are typically related to the question of
> 'default browser': what program is associated with the HTTP and HTTPS
> protocols and what program should open HTML and XHTML files. The
> typical checkboxes in programs such as Chromium that change this
> setting typically change all four (maybe some others as well), but you
> can in fact change them individually if you like. (Iceweasel/Firefox
> also includes text/xml for generic XML files in this list, but I'm
> going to skip that here, because I don't think it's sensible to open
> generic XML files in browsers.)

This is a late post, I know.
You can prevent *any* program from changing the setting by isolating the
involved file (if all else fails use strace or another trace), and then
use sudo chattr +i FILE .

Sincerely, David

Good keyboard

[David Niklas]

Hello,
If I'm remembering rightly, a while back (months), there was a
discussion about keyboards.
I noticed this one and wanted to know if it looks good and is worth $220
(the average BK goes for $100, so you can imagine my surprise), I'm
uncertain.
I'm I know that this might be an opinion matter.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/ugl/ultimate-hacking-keyboard

I don't need a new KB now, but the discount that is being offered will not
last forever.

Thanks, David

Re: sexist content in the package openclipart2-png

[David Niklas]

On Wed, 6 Jan 2016 15:09:34 Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 January 2016 11:46:09 Lisi Reisz wrote:
> 
> > On Wednesday 06 January 2016 15:45:22 Ric Moore wrote:  
> > > > jdd writes:  
> > > >> sexism - like describing women as men's toys should be prohibited
> > > >> (apart for historical work), and images may be such.  
> > > >
> > > > And disrespectful images of pasta should also be prohibited.  
> > >
> > > We've already been through this loop with Supertuxkart,  
> >
> > I don't remember Supertuxkart objectifying women to the extent of
> > equating them with pasta. :-/
> >
> > Lisi  
> 
> Being a long term DM-II diabetic, I'd like to see any images of pasta, 
> which I should not eat, excised from all of these image packages, 
> thereby removing the temptation. :-]>

You two are really funny.
This thread is kinda funny too, don't you guys have more productive things
to do then argue?
How about standing on your head and spitting pasta!?
My mother used to be concerned that my brother's Bionicles (LEGO plastic
figures), were standing in embarrassing positions (really).
She was afraid it would destroy my brothers self image (he was crazy
about them).

David

Getting strange char sequences in email

[David Niklas]

Hello,
I wrote to the clawws-mail mailing list some time ago about problems 
like in the quoted text below:

> Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2015 18:35:58 +0100
> From: =?UTF-8?Q?Sa=C5=A1a_Jani=C5=A1ka?= 
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Subject: Re: wine: Bad EXE format for...
> Message-ID: <1450373758.18611.5.ca...@atmarama.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
>
> On =C4=8Cet, 2015-12-17 at 11:30 -0500, The Wanderer wrote:
> 
> > Do you have the i386 architecture enabled, via 'dpkg --add-
> > architecture i386'?  
> 
> Yes.
> 
> > I have:
> >=C2=A0
> > $ dpkg --print-architecture
> > amd64
> > $ dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
> > i386  
> 
> Same here.
> 
> > $ apt-cache policy wine32  
> 
> $ apt-cache policy wine32
> wine32:i386:
> =C2=A0 Installed: (none)
> =C2=A0 Candidate: 1.8~rc4-1
> =C2=A0 Version table:
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A01.8~rc4-1 500
> =C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0=C2=A0500
> http://ftp.hr.debian.or= g/debian sid/main i386 Packages

They suggested that I ask on the list (debian), does anyone else get 
this problem, especially with a non-claws-mail non-web-site email client?
Does debian-user do anything special to their emails?

Thanks, David

Re: systemd-logind emitting messages

[David Niklas]

Hello,
I forget who asked how to copy lines from their terminal (Alt-F0-9),
and I know how and thought I'd share. Use gpm. On my system it's shift
left-mouse to highlight and shift right-mouse to paste to your prompt.
you cant then echo the output to a file, pipe, or directly into a
command, etc.
Someday I'll bear-hug the hacker who made it.

Your welcome, David

Re: CD DVD drive docs

[David Niklas]

   error No medium found before the drive LED stops blinking.
  Shouldn't this be reported to the kernel devs as a regression?
 There are kernel devs in reach ?  
Well there is a kernel dev mailing list. I've wanted to contact them at
least twice but my messages always get rejected because I have to use a
free mail server (as opposed to one on my own Linux box).
I really should sign up for the mailing list, despite the bulk of mail
that they send.

CD DVD drive docs

[David Niklas]

This is not exactly about debian, but I could not resist the
opportunity.
I noticed a user who knows much about CD and DVD drives and I'm curious
about what books or docs he might recommend to learn about the topic,
for if things continue as they are, it seems we will run out of people
with the know-how.

Also, I noticed this:
 Well, it actually does not work because it throws at dd an
 error No medium found before the drive LED stops blinking.
 I.e before drive and/or udev are done with inspection.
 I saw this regression on about half of my Linuxes.
 Not on 2.6.34. It really was a good kernel for optical drives.
Shouldn't this be reported to the kernel devs as a regression?

Thanks, David