[OFFTOPIC] Re: About dash as sh
> Do shells suffer UB? I always thought that was a C thing.
UB is a standard concept when defining programming languages.
Most if not all programming languages have some form of UB or another in
some part of the spec. C is special w.r.t to UB in two ways:
- UB is not relegated to corner cases that virtually never happen (like
the UB recommended by Jeffrey for sh), as is usually the case.
Instead almost all programs in actual use rely on UB during their
normal execution and in many cases it's somewhere between hard and
impossible to avoid.
- Modern C compilers like to optimize code based on the assumption that
UB never happens.
The combination of the two makes it particularly entertaining.
Stefan
Re: OT - list mail claimed to be "known" spam!
[ Sent directly to debian-user@lists. ] > FWIW, this reply goes to list because I expect high probability Stefan would > not > see it otherwise. Most mailing list posts flow through to me unimpeded. Not so > with Stefan's. AFAICT, every one of his is captured by Earthlink.net's "known > spam" folder. The only ways I can see them are via the web archive, and by > opening > webmail, so that I can extract them from "known spam". My crystal ball suggests it's because I [read and] send them via Gmane, and of course Gmane can't DKIM-sign my messages (and neither can my NNTP client). Stefan
Re: mounting external hard drive from rescue mode shell?
> Relevant laptop is so old I don't know if it can boot from a physical USB > device. I was suspecting that simplest thing would be copying suitable image > to hard drive and let GRUB earn its keep ;} Indeed my trusty old Thinkpad X30 doesn't boot from USB keys (tho in theory it can boot from a USB floppy reader), so I use one of two alternative options: - Boot using the Grub on the X30's own HDD, and then ask Grub to boot the kernel+initrd found on the USB key (this is my favorite solution). - Copy the USB key's kernel+initrd to the /boot partition on the X30's HDD and boot from that. - Take the HDD out of the X30 and connect it to my desktop via some HDD<->USB adapter. Then do what I need to do to it from the comfort of my desktop computer, typically using `chroot` along the way (this is the second best). Stefan
Re: mounting external hard drive from rescue mode shell?
> Rather than creating a customized Debian Live image, I install Debian onto > a USB flash drive or onto a 2.5" SATA SSD connected via a USB-SATA adapter > cable: +1 It's pretty easy to make a simple Debian install on some old USB key you have lying around and it comes really handy. Stefan
Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file
> Yes, I realise that. The times are being displayed by the gettys,
> controlled by the /etc/issue format string. Jobs are being run
> by cron, logs written by rsyslogd, and so on. And the term is … ?
Maybe there simply isn't such a term. The subject is sufficiently
complex/delicate that there can't be a term for every single situation.
Stefan
Re: About dash as sh
> When the shell is using standard input and it invokes a command that > also uses standard input, the shell shall ensure that the standard > input file pointer points directly after the command it has read when > the command begins execution. > > But I consider this clause is misguided, it should apply only when the > input is a tty. And if it's not a tty, you get some kind of Undefined Behavior? I don't think I'd like that because I don't think the benefit would be worth the UB troubles. > Relying on it is a terrible idea. I'd tend to agree. Stefan
Re: RTC, was Re: System time/timezone
> If your system only boots one operating system, and never changes its > default time zone, then it makes no difference whether the RTC is set > to UTC or local time. The OS will use the same assumptions when reading > and writing to the RTC, so everything will remain correct. Of course, the famous exception is if your machine is OFF during the switch to/from DST. IIUC there are hacks in Windows to try and handle it "correctly", but I believe they can also misfire in some cases. Don't know if GNU/Linux bothers with it: it's just a lot simpler and more sane to use UTC so you never need to worry about it. And of course, NTP is your friend: several of my machines don't even have an RTC and I haven't really felt like they are missing something. Stefan
Re: System time/timezone, was Re: Maximum size .bash_aliases file
>> It's *theoretically* possible for some daemons to be configured to use >> a different time zone, or to be hard-coded to use UTC. I've never seen >> this, but it could be done. > In view of that, I think it's reasonable to drop the "default", > and go with "system time zone", ie the time zone that the system > clock it set to. Funny, because I think on the contrary that the word "default" is key: it conveys the information that this is just the time zone used by default when converting a time to a human readable form. You can drop "system" on the other hand, AFAIC. Stefan
Re: CD/DVD is obsolete or deprecate at 2025?
> And some of the BIOSes of old PCs are not able to boot from USB...
Indeed, tho I suspect those machines are 20 years old or more (at least,
all my machines that are <20 years old support booting from a USB key
drive, while of the two older machines I have (both 21 years old), one
of them doesn't support booting from a USB key (tho it supposedly can
boot from USB floppy)).
Stefan
Re: CD/DVD is obsolete or deprecate at 2025?
>>> Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other >>> versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary >>> download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment >>> will happen? >> AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on >> a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to >> change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned >> onto optical media. > Just a question : why should we ditch the cd or dvd just because some guys > said that's it was obsolete or inferior to the usb keys et al ? AFAICT nobody in this thread suggested to ditch CD or DVD. Can we stick to the actual discussion, please? Stefan
Re: CD/DVD is obsolete or deprecate at 2025?
> No! Some of us want to keep using DVD and not be pushed away
In which sense would it push you away.
I'm not suggesting any change to the ISO files themselves.
Only changes to the doc to clarify that these are images that are
expected to be used on USB flash dirves (and they also work on CD/DVD,
including virtual ones for VMs).
The intention is to avoid confusing those users who intuitively skip the
parts talking about CD/DVD images because they don't have a CD/DVD
reader/writer (or don't want to use it).
Stefan
Re: CD/DVD is obsolete or deprecate at 2025?
> Is there a chance to change in next versions i.e. Debain 13 or other > versions an assembly specifically for a USB flash drive as primary > download? Do you think the time has come? When do you think this moment > will happen? AFAIK, all the so-called CD/DVD images work just fine when "burned" on a USB flash drive. So I think the question is whether it's time to change the doc to stop suggesting that those images should be burned onto optical media. Stefan
Re: can't connect to eduroam due to SSL3 unsupported protocol
> Under Debian/unstable, I can't connect to eduroam due to the following > reason: AFAIK, while "the eduroam" looks like one thing it's just a bunch of local wifi networks, each one administered mostly independently and with different configurations. By and large, if you can connect to eduroam at one place it's likely it'll also work elsewhere but it's not always the case. Stefan
Re: NVidia 340 video driver in Bookworm?
> In real life no one wants to care of it! Nvidia not, because this > costs money and the developers not, because this is Nvidia and > proprietrary (what is not quite correct, because the kernel-module, > which is the part, that can not be build, is open-source). Since you say it's "open source", then "anyone" should be allowed to update the code to adapt to the new kernel code. IOW *you* can fix it, or if you don't have the time/energy you may be able to find someone else to fix it (potentially paying them for it). Stefan
Re: Thinkpad T14 Gen 5, touchpad not detected
> I just installed Debian Testing on my new Thinkpad T14 Gen 5 and I found out > that the touchpad is not actually detected by the system. Maybe it's the same issue as the one posted very recently under the subject: Touchpad not detected by kernel on ThinkPad X13 Gen5 - Stefan
Re: What DE to replace GNOME with?
> while being on old-old-stable still (buster) and preparing for an > upgrade to bookworm, i noticed, that GNOME once again lost compatibility > to my preferred extensions, giving me a hard choice to either go on with > my outdated system as long as possible, or find a replacement and change > my ways of working. Not really an answer, just a side note: AFAIK, the concept of "DE" doesn't exist at a technical level. You *can* mix and match things from various "DE"s. There are occasional dependencies between components of "DE"s, but each one of them is a PITA which I think should be treated as a bug. Stefan
Re: "Repeaters", etc.
> I'd like to shop for such a device, but I don't know what it's called. I think it's called a "wireless bridge". Any device with a wifi card and (at least) an ethernet port can do that. So "any" wifi router will do the trick, as long as you can get it to run a firmware that's not hopelessly restricted. I'd recommend you look at the routers supported by OpenWRT. Of course, if you can do it with cables (ethernet/powerline/younameit) it's probably going to work better, but I guess you know that already. Stefan
Re: Solution for KVM via a cat 5 connection
> Has anyone had experience using a KVM setup (at least one HDMI and two USB > ports) and using cat 5/6/7 between user and the computer? I don’t need to > handle multiple computers or high-def video movies, just programming and > office work. I need a bit more distance from my computer which must stay in > a closet, and conventional KVM equipment won’t work. You can do it without KVM, but using another computer connected to your screen/keyboard/etc... E.g. use some cheap/small/silent local machine (e.g. Banana Pi) which you connect to your local devices (screen etc...), connect that machine to your "real" machine in the closet via ethernet, and then use either a remote X session or some other such "remote desktop" protocol to connect to the real machine in the closet. This setup can be described as a [thin client](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client) The advantage is that it's all standard components, can work over any network config, ... Stefan
Re: moving some packages back to bookworm stable
>> > # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin >> >> I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll >> need things like >> >> apt install libc-bin/bookworm > > To install a single backported (or other release) package, > apt-get install packagename/releasename > > and to install a backported package plus dependencies which > are also from that specific release, use > apt-get -t releasename packagename But that's not the whole story of what `-t` does since the above does not explain why his attempt to use `-t` to downgrade some packages resulted in `apt` saying " is already the newest version". Stefan
Re: moving some packages back to bookworm stable
> I needed to install a version of sendmail from testing a while back to > test it. Downgrading Debian packages is not well supported, by and large. So installing `testing` packages into a `stable` install is manageable (tho it itself can bring trouble) but going back to `stable` afterwards tends to be a lot more complicated. Transitions like the t64 transition going on right now in `testing` make it yet more troublesome. I recommend the use of snapshots when you want to try such a thing with the intention of "going back" later. > # apt install -t=bookworm db-util db5.3-util libc-bin libc-dev-bin I can never remember exactly what `-t` really does, but I suspect you'll need things like apt install libc-bin/bookworm to state more explicitly what you want. Maybe you can do something like apt install $(apt-show-versions | sed -n 's|/testing.*|/stable|p') - Stefan
Re: Continuous integration with Debian virtual machines
> Anyone know a hosting service, like GitHub or GitLab, offering recent Debian
> virtual machines to run tests ?
I'd expect most of them do, but at least SourceHut does according to
https://man.sr.ht/builds.sr.ht/compatibility.md#debian
Stefan
Re: Debian bookwork / grub2 / LVM / RAID / dm-integrity fails to boot
> I found this [1], quoting: "I'd also like to share an issue I've > discovered: if /boot's partition is a LV, then there must not be a > raidintegrity LV anywhere before that LV inside the same VG. Otherwise, > update-grub will show an error (disk `lvmid/.../...' not found) and GRUB > cannot boot. So it's best if you put /boot into its own VG. (PS: Errors > like unknown node '..._rimage_0 can be ignored.)" Hmm... I've been using a "plain old partition" for /boot (with everything else in LVM) for "ever", originally because the boot loader was not able to read LVM, and later out of habit. I was thinking of finally moving /boot into an LV to make things simpler, but I see that it'd still be playing with fire (AFAICT booting off of LVM was still not supported by U-Boot either last time I checked). Stefan
Re: Dovecot correct ownership for logs
> If you have read permission on a directory but *not* execute permissions, > then the only thing you can do is read the contents of that directory -- > the filenames and their inode numbers. You cannot stat() the files, > so you can't see who owns them or even what kind of files they are. > Just their names. Never found a situation where this as useful. > If you have execute permission but *not* read permission on a directory, > then you can access the files within the directory, but only if you > already know their names. You can't read the directory to get their > names. This OTOH is very handy, making the filename into a kind of "passwd" to access the file's content. Stefan
Re: Markup in mail messages
>> Actually I've been tempted to teach my mail reader to transform HTML >> into some lightweight markup (yeah, you need a bit of heuristics for >> that ;-) -- say Org, but why not its poor sister Markdown. > Please don't settle for markdown. I would love a org filter! > org-mode just handles tabular data admirably :) Just beware that Org's code is generally written under the implicit assumption that the Org document is trusted, so if you try to reuse parts of Org's code to do the rendering be extra mindful of the potential for security holes. [ This applies to many other ELisp packages, of course; it's not exclusive to Org. ] Stefan
Re: Markup in mail messages
> When this sort of subject comes up (as it does, every so often), I wonder > why `text/markdown` isn't offered as a mime type for sending emails. FWIW, last time I tried to send `text/(x-)markdown` messages, I discovered that many "popular" MUAs do not display those at all (they treat them as attachments, for example), contrary to what the RFCs say they SHOULD do. So, yes, I encourage you to send more of those, and if your recipients don't like the result, try and get them to complain to their MUA's authors (most of those MUAs are of course proprietary and are not very ... responsive, but that's all we can do). The stupidest case I bumped into is Github where replying by `plain/text` email lets you add comments to an issue, but `text/markdown` replies are simply sent to `/dev/null` even though Markdown is the standard format they use in the web interface. Stefan
Re: sudo echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward [was: How to run automatically a script as soon root login]
> $ su - > Password: > # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward > # ^D > logout > $ > > I don't need no stinkin' sudo :-) And if you only have `sudo`, but not the root password, of course: % sudo zsh -l # echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward # ^D logout % Stefan
Re: How to run automatically a script as soon root login
> You don't need to, but I definitely think he does.
^^
[ Oh, bias, when will you leave me alone? ]
Stefan
Re: How to run automatically a script as soon root login
>> > echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward >> This doesn't sound right. Maybe you should investigate why you're > No need to “investigate”, the answer is obvious: in You don't need to, but I definitely think he does. Stefan
Re: How to run automatically a script as soon root login
> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
>
> work only if I'm root. It does not work using sudo.
This doesn't sound right. Maybe you should investigate why you're
seeing this behavior, rather than work around the problem.
`sudo` *is* root.
Stefan
Re: Lightweight Emacs for container?
> Is there some package, or a simple workaround, that will allow me to use
> a basic Emacs without all the cruft?
I think the usual answers look like:
- Use Zile (or some other small Emacs-inspired editor).
- Use Tramp (i.e. run Emacs outside the container and access the
container's files as a kind of remote host).
Stefan
Re: Zoom in the official repo is outdated
Jeffrey Walton [2024-04-24 20:13:57] wrote: > On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 7:13 PM Van Snyder wrote: > >> On Wed, 2024-04-24 at 16:42 -0300, Luiz Romário Santana Rios wrote: >> >> Hello, >> >> >> (Please cc me when replying as I'm not subscribed to the list) >> >> >> 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 was expected to use zoom for a meeting. The zoom app didn't work at all >> in Debian 10, completely refusing even to open a window. I at first started >> with the zoom support in Firefox, but it didn't have a button to select >> high resolution for the camera, so the meeting host asked me to run in the >> app. >> >> I re-opened the session on a different computer that is running Debian 12. >> The app worked OK on that computer. >> > > Related, if you control the venue, then you might consider using Jitsi. > Jitsi is open source, and it does not have the obscene terms of service > that companies like Google, Microsoft and Zoom push onto people using their > service. With Jitsi, your meeting data is yours. It is not used internally > for other products, and it is not shared with partners like the Big Tech > companies do. There's also BigBlueButton (more featureful than Jitsi, but apparently harder to install/setup/maintain) and I also heard good things about Galène https://galene.org/ (which is apparently the simplest to install/setup/maintain and the least demanding on the server). Stefan
Re: [OFFTOPIC] youtube-dl blocked?
> The site https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html
> is blocked?
Now that you got answers, a question: what made you post this here?
AFAICT this has nothing to do with Debian (if you use Debian, you'd
more naturally install that tool from `apt` which won't fetch it from
Github).
Stefan
Re: Subject: Glitchy sound in Steam games after hard drive upgrade
> I doubt the new drive is slower than the old drive:
Overall, agreed. Tho AFAICT the new drive spins slower (5400rpm vs
7200rpm), so it has a slightly higher rotational latency. This means
that in *some* cases it can be slower.
Now, I have no idea whether that's the cause of the glitches.
Stefan
Re: Debian non-free-firmware policy making OS misleading and Free Software unfriendly
>> > Do you have any suggestion as to which list would be better to contact? >> > Original: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/04/msg00324.html >> Maybe `reportbug debian-installer`? > but perhaps without all the deception crap, unless you really mean > to impugn the developers' motives. Yup, better try to make the developers/maintainers your friends, so you may get them to do something with which they disagree just to make you happy, rather than refuse to do something out of spite, even tho they know it's right. Stefan
Re: Subject: Glitchy sound in Steam games after hard drive upgrade
> Recently I decided to upgrade its storage capacity, and replaced > its 500GB hard drive (which was pretty large at the time I bought > it) with a 4TB drive. I did an install from scratch using a > network install CD, then copied my /home partition (using rsync) > from the old drive. [...] > (Side question: is this an acceptable way to upgrade a hard drive?) It's acceptable enough that we'll keep talking to you. Personally, assuming the 500GB drive was basically full, I suspect I'd have just done a `dd` copy of the 500GB drive to the new drive, followed by a quick `gparted` run to resize on-the-fly the partitions (in order to get access to the extra 3.5GB). > Everything works great with one exception: > when I fire up Portal the sound gets glitches about once a second. > This only happens with Steam games; I can play MP3s and videos > with mpv and the sound is perfect, as it is when watching YouTube > videos. If I swap the old drive back in everything is fine. I suspect the difference is that the Steam games keep your machine very busy whereas playing a video isn't nearly as demanding, so the machine ends up too busy to refill the sound buffer before its empty. As for why this happens with the new disk and not with the old disk, ... AFAICT it can be either due to the new install such as a difference in the configuration and/or installed software (e.g. one using pulseaudio and the other pipewire), or due to the new hardware, presumably because some operations are slower. Can you boot with both disks connected? If so, can you try to boot off of the 500GB and then use the /home from the 4TB drive (and vice versa)? I think you should be able to do that by booting to "rescue" where (after entering the root password) you'd do something like umount /home mount /dev/the/other/home/partition /home exit I'd tend to think that a modern 4TB drive should be no slower than a 500GB drive, no matter the operation, but maybe the new drive has a particularly small cache, or maybe it's shingled and the Steam game makes a fair amount of writes to the disk which ends up affecting the reads needed to fetch the next chunk of sound? Stefan
Re: Debian non-free-firmware policy making OS misleading and Free Software unfriendly
> Do you have any suggestion as to which list would be better to contact?
> Original: https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2024/04/msg00324.html
Maybe `reportbug debian-installer`?
Stefan
Re: Debian non-free-firmware policy making OS misleading and Free Software unfriendly
> If Debian is going to continue promoting itself with those "Our Philosophy" > and "Why Debian" pages, there should at least be opt-ins during the > installation process of every Debian download, as well as prominent warnings > of the new policy on the download pages. Agreed. It should be easy to adjust the installation process with an extra step whether to include/install non-free-firmware or not. It's also an opportunity to raise awareness of the problem. Stefan
Re: LibreOffice removed from Debian
> Actually, if I understand correctly, LibreOffice will really be
> removed on some architectures (armhf ppc64el s390x mips64el riscv64).
Stefan
Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
> It has been known to happen that drivers implement workarounds for issues
> in the hardware itself, so that hardware bugs do not get tripped (or are
> tripped less often).
You make it sound like it's a rare occurrence, but it's actually
quite common. Most of it is discrete so you'll rarely be exposed to it,
but `grep bugs /proc/cpuinfo` is one of the places where you can see it
being somewhat documented.
Stefan
Re: removed foreign architecture
> In any case, I wouldn't recommend using precompiled code from
> a for-profit company: if they don't distribute the source code, it
> clearly means they're not proud of their code and have something
> to hide.
And of course, the same applies for a non-for-profit company, tho
somehow it seems that lust for money is a strong motivator to try
and take advantage of such situations.
Stefan
Re: removed foreign architecture
>> ...printer manufacturer(s) only provided Linux drivers for 32bit. >> The one I'm using that does or did so is Brother. I haven't checked >> lately to see if it has changed its policy. > I just got a Brother printer two days ago and everything they provide > is 32-bit. In any case, I wouldn't recommend using precompiled code from a for-profit company: if they don't distribute the source code, it clearly means they're not proud of their code and have something to hide. Stefan
Re: Why LVM
> If I have a hot-pluggable device (SD card, USB drive, hot-plug SATA/SAS > drive and rack, etc.), can I put LVM on it such that when the device is > connected to a Debian system with a graphical desktop (I use Xfce) an icon > is displayed on the desktop that I can interact with to display the file > systems in my file manager (Thunar)? In the past: definitely not. Currently: no idea. I suspect not, because I think the behavior on disconnection is still poor (you want to be extra careful to deactivate all the volumes on the drive *before* removing it, otherwise they tend to linger "for ever"). I guess that's one area where partitions are still significantly better than LVM. Stefan "who doesn't use much hot-plugging of mass storage"
Why LVM (was: HDD long-term data storage with ensured integrity)
David Christensen [2024-04-08 11:28:04] wrote:
> Why LVM?
Personally, I've been using LVM everywhere I can (i.e. everywhere
except on my OpenWRT router, tho I've also used LVM there back when my
router had an HDD. I also use LVM on my 2GB USB rescue image).
To me the question is rather the reverse: why not?
I basically see it as a more flexible form of partitioning.
Even in the worst cases where I have a single LV volume, I appreciate
the fact that it forces me to name things, isolating me from issue
linked to predicting the name of the device and the issues that plague
UUIDs (the fact they're hard to remember, and that they're a bit too
magical/hidden for my taste, so they sometimes change when I don't want
them to and vice versa).
Stefan
Re: readonly installer, (SOLVED)
> I have a 128 MB USB flash drive from back in the day that includes a write > protect switch. There are few products today that offer that feature. Side note: AFAIK this "write protect switch" doesn't prevent writing. It just tells your card reader that you'd like to avoid writing to it. Whether it ends up doing what you want depends on the hardware exposing that info to the driver and the driver paying attention to it. Stefan
Re: HDD long-term data storage with ensured integrity
> The most obvious alternative to ZFS on Debian would be Btrfs. Does anyone > have any comments or suggestions regarding Btrfs and data corruption bugs, > concurrency, CMM level, PSP, etc.? If you're worried about such things, I'd think "the most obvious alternative" is LVM+ext4. Both Btrfs and ZFS share the same underlying problem: more features => more code => more bugs. Stefan
Re: making Debian secure by default
> Yes, it does. I was hoping for something simple but it's becoming > clear to me that there's no simple "make Debian secure for dummies" > checklist to follow. I think to a significant extent, Debian maintainers do aim to make Debian "secure by default", to the extent possible (i.e. based on what is expected to be a "normal/typical" use of the system). Admittedly, "dummies" is not really the target audience for Debian, so maybe the defaults aren't quite up to *that* task. Stefan
Re: Bookworm Networking Issues
> Can anybody suggest how to get the networking running? Have you searched the web for answered? I suspect searching for "get the networking running" or "fix my problems" will get you up and running in no time. Stefan
Re: Ethernet not working on a Dell notebook
> advantage. Plugged in cable is detected immediately. With dhclient running
> by ifupdown, it may take some minutes till next DHCP request is sent.
[ It can take *many* minutes. ]
You can use `ifplugd` to make it react to plugging/unplugging the cable,
in case you don't want to use NetworkManager.
Stefan
Re: Possible to feed a scan from HPLIP Toolbox to ocrmypdf?
> pdf. Also the quality of the scan with xsane is as poor as gscan2pdf. There
> must be something in HPLIP that makes better scans.
IIUC the scanning is done by the same library in the end, so it *should*
be possible to get the same quality with any tool. Maybe instead of the
resolution you need to change the color range?
Stefan
Aw: Re: very poor nfs performance
> Run the database on the machine that stores the files and perform > database access remotely over the net instead. ? yes, but this doesn't resolve the performance issue with nfs
Aw: Re: Re: very poor nfs performance
> Can you partition the files into 2 different shares? Put the database > files in one share and access them using "sync", and put the rest of the > files in a different share, with no "sync"? this could be a solution, but I want to understand why is it so slow and fix that
Aw: Re: very poor nfs performance
> You could try removing the "sync" option, just as an experiment, to see > how much it is contributing to the slowdown. If I don't use sync I got around 300MB/s (tested with 600MB-file) .. that's ok (far from great), but since there are database files on the nfs it can cause file/database corruption, so we would like to use sync option best regards Stefan
Aw: Re: very poor nfs performance
0% 0 0% 1 0% 0 0% getdevinfo layoutcommit layoutreturn secinfo_no test_stateid 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 1 0% 0 0% free_stateid getdevicelistbind_conn_to_ses destroy_clientid seek 2 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% allocate deallocate layoutstats clone 100% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% thanks for your help best regards Stefan
Aw: Re: very poor nfs performance
Hi Ralph, I just tested it with scp and I got 262MB/s So it's not a network issue, just a NFS issue, somehow. best regards Stefan > Gesendet: Donnerstag, 07. März 2024 um 11:22 Uhr > Von: "Ralph Aichinger" > An: debian-user@lists.debian.org > Betreff: Re: very poor nfs performance > > On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 10:13 +0100, Stefan K wrote: > > Hello guys, > > > > I hope someone can help me with my problem. > > Our NFS performance ist very bad, like ~20MB/s, mountoption looks > > like that: > > Are both sides agreeing on MTU (using Jumbo frames or not)? > > Have you tested the network with iperf (or simiar), does this happen > only with NFS or also with other network traffic? > > /ralph > >
very poor nfs performance
Hello guys, I hope someone can help me with my problem. Our NFS performance ist very bad, like ~20MB/s, mountoption looks like that: rw,relatime,sync,vers=4.2,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,namlen=255,hard,proto=tcp,timeo=600,retrans=2,sec=sys,local_lock=none The NFS server (debian 12) is a ZFS Fileserver with 40G network connection, also the read/write performance is good: fio --rw=readwrite --rwmixread=70 --name=test --size=50G --direct=1 --bsrange=4k-1M --numjobs=30 --group_reporting --filename=/zfs_storage/test/asdfg --runtime=600 --time_based READ: bw=11.1GiB/s (11.9GB/s), 11.1GiB/s-11.1GiB/s (11.9GB/s-11.9GB/s), io=6665GiB (7156GB), run=64-64msec WRITE: bw=4875MiB/s (5112MB/s), 4875MiB/s-4875MiB/s (5112MB/s-5112MB/s), io=2856GiB (3067GB), run=64-64msec Only one nfs client(debian 12) is connected via 10G, since we host also database files on the nfs share, 'sync'-mountoption is important (more or less), but it should still be much faster than 20MB/s so can somebody tell me whats wrong or what should I change to speed that up? thanks in advance. best regards Stefan
Re: indi Debian Astro
> I'm using debiain on a rock64 for astrophotography and noticed all the indi > packages except indi-eqmod are from 2022. > I was hoping for some updates to the drivers and some new drivers added like > the svbony drivers and zwo am5 driver. > How does one go about moving this forward? I suggest you start by looking at https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/indi and asking the maintainers mentioned there. Stefan
Re: ARMv7 problematic?
> Building binaries when you have a 32-bit system and using a 64-bit kernel
> will never work.
And yet I do it every day,
Stefan
ARMv7 problematic? (was: How to upgrade the GLIBCXX and GLIBC to the specific version)
> He is most likely using armv7 and that comes with its own issues, ie > cpu type and floating point (hard/soft, neon and simd). aarch64 much > easier to build on. I'm using Debian armhf here on various machines (most of them with ARMv7 CPUs but some one of them with an ARMv8 CPU (and kernel)). I haven't encountered any particular problem (both in terms of using and installing Debian and in terms of "manually" building software from source) that seems related to ARMv7 vs ARMv8. Stefan
Re: SOLVED Re: Disk corruption and performance issue.
>>> You should not be running trim in a container/virtual machine >> Why not? That's, in my case, basically saying "you should not be running >> trim on a drive exported via iscsi" Perhaps I shouldn't be but I'd like >> to understand why. Enabling thin_provisioning and fstrim works and gets >> mapped to the underlying layers all the way down to the SSD. > > I guest you didn't understand the systemd timer that runs fstrim on > the host. How can the host properly run `fstrim` if it only sees a disk image and may not know how that image is divided into partitions/filesystems? Stefan
Re: medically smart watches
>> Well, I was merely hoping that someone might finally have come up >> with a working solution ... > Stop smoking, lose weight, have a healthy diet and exercise. And most importantly: be lucky! Stefan
Re: medically smart watches
> So the question I'm getting to is: Do we have a utility that can be paired > with whatever wifi/bluetooth this thing uses and would allow it to work? With a bit of luck it can be "paired" with your "2TB" SSDs? Stefan "sorry, couldn't resist"
Re: Journald's qualities
>>>> but what are the advantages of journald's representation compared >>>> to a naive one? >>> >>> in short: querability without text parsing. That's about it. >> >> They have to parse the binary format, so that's not in and of itself >> an upside compared to parsing CSV. >> >> I've made my share of bad design decisions that don't pan out. But >> there's always an upside to my decision (even when it turns out it >> speeds up only those cases which can never occur, because of some >> other aspect of the system). >> >> AFAICT the format is *not* just a plain sequence of log entries, so >> there's some additional structure which is intended to speed up some >> operations. >> >> IOW, even if contrived, there should be *some* use case where it >> does better than CSV, no? > > I can think of two possibilities, just offhand, in no particular order: > > * No need to parse the timestamps, et cetera, and take the risk that > someone put in one that's in a format you don't expect; the times are > stored internally in a consistent guaranteed format, so you can just use > internal reader functions (paired with, and updated alongside, the > internal writer functions) and be done with it. Can't think of any reason why the same wouldn't apply to CSV: if someone messes up the timestamps by hand, they're on their own. > * No need to worry about handling log entries that *contain* commas, or > whatever other element was chosen as the separator. That's just a very minor convenience issue and it does not require a structure any more complex than a plain sequence of log entries. Same for FSS, it doesn't seem to require the more complex structure used by journald. There must have been some other use-case they had in mind where they thought they could avoid the linear-time scan or something in a way that they expected would be algorithmically beneficial. I just can't see what it is they had in mind. Stefan
Re: Journald's qualities
> systemd's design philosophy, observed from the outside, goes > like this: Let's try and stick to the subject of the log representation in `journald`, because we all know about the varied opinions about SystemD. Being an "old-hand", I'm not in love of SystemD, but the thing does have its upsides. In the case of the format of `journald` logs, I don't see them. Stefan
Re: Journald's qualities
>> Oh, that bug report is quite interesting, thanks. >> Makes one wonder why they don't use naive append-only "plain text" >> logs (tho with appropriate delimiters (maybe some kind of CSV) to make >> searches more reliable than with old-style plain text logs)? >> >> What are the advantages of journald's representation? >> I mean, to justify the slow search and large disk space usage, there >> is presumably some upside for some use cases. > > The advantage of binary format is that you have separate fields for > program, level etc and it is easier to filter by exactly what you want. > So "systemctl status servicename" just asks log subsystem for exactly > what it needs. That's why I said "with appropriate delimiters (maybe some kind of CSV)". Really plain text is what we had before, but it's not rocket science to have a "plain text" format with a reliably delimited set of fields, which is what I'd assume as the obvious naive choice. >> argument against Sqlite based on the size of Sqlite, > I'd argue that's not really technically relevant I did say "weak" >> but what are the advantages of journald's representation compared to >> a naive one? > in short: querability without text parsing. That's about it. They have to parse the binary format, so that's not in and of itself an upside compared to parsing CSV. I've made my share of bad design decisions that don't pan out. But there's always an upside to my decision (even when it turns out it speeds up only those cases which can never occur, because of some other aspect of the system). AFAICT the format is *not* just a plain sequence of log entries, so there's some additional structure which is intended to speed up some operations. IOW, even if contrived, there should be *some* use case where it does better than CSV, no? > It does have some features around FSS (signing logs) so for folks that > need it there isn't many alternatives as it would be hard to make > similar feature on database. That should be just as easy to add to a CSV-style representation, tho. > But on flipside inability to separate log into log rotation groups is > *nasty*. You basically can't have verbose service in the system as that > will rotate away any old logs of other services away. And looking for > those logs is also the worst case: It shouldn't be difficult to add a filtering step to the log rotation (just extract all the log entries, filter out the unwanted ones, and create a new log file with the result). Beside the obvious usual issues of atomicity, the only real problem I can imagine there is FSS for which you'd need to seal separately the groups that share differently filtering rules. > I guess another one being appendable log is that in case of crash it's > easier to recover than embedded database... AFAICT, CSV shares this property just as well. > One-service-per-file approach is honestly good enough for most stuff. > PITA to get chronological order though, every approach really have > some drawbacks and benefits. If you use a reasonable format with precise enough timestamps, you should be able to "weave" entries from separate files back into a coherent single chronology (assuming all those entries got their timestamps from the same journald in the first place). Stefan
Journald's qualities (was: Selective rotation of journald logs)
> [13:37:48]cthulhu:/var/log/journal☠ journalctl |dd of=/dev/zero bs=1M > 0+15442 records in > 0+15442 records out > 63643115 bytes (64 MB, 61 MiB) copied, 5,47791 s, 11,6 MB/s > du -h /var/log/journal/ > 337M /var/log/journal/44cf6f547971fc33309d1e9e02e7 > 337M /var/log/journal/ > > (I've raised a bug 8 years ago about it > https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/2460 ) Oh, that bug report is quite interesting, thanks. Makes one wonder why they don't use naive append-only "plain text" logs (tho with appropriate delimiters (maybe some kind of CSV) to make searches more reliable than with old-style plain text logs)? What are the advantages of journald's representation? I mean, to justify the slow search and large disk space usage, there is presumably some upside for some use cases. I can see some weak argument against Sqlite based on the size of Sqlite, but what are the advantages of journald's representation compared to a naive one? Stefan PS: FWIW, the only time I thought about the design of a log format, I was thinking along the lines of reducing redundancy, i.e. keeping a kind of "suffix tree" of past messages so as to replace the many repeated chunks of text with references to past log entries. Then I realized that I could get the same result much more simply by gzipping the files, which would naturally be done as part of log rotation
Re: partition reporting full, but not
> So the apparently missing space is perhaps taken up by btrfs snapshots.
Another possibility is a (few) large file(s) that is/are still open for
some process(es) but have been `rm` (`unlink`) so they don't have a name
any more.
Stefan
Re: f3tools vs Silicon Power 4T drive
>> One of the 1T samsungs in the md raid10 isn't entirely happy but mdadm has >> not fussed about it, and smartctl seems to say its ok after testing. >> Other than that the gui access delay (30+ seconds) problems I have did >> NOT go away when I moved /home off the raid to another SSD, so I may move >> it back. One of the reasons I ma rsync'ing this /home back to it every >> other day or so, takes < 5 minutes. > Please get a small SSD, do a fresh install, and test for the access delay. > If the delay is not present, incrementally add and test applications. > If you encounter the delay, please stop and post the details; console > sessions are best. If not, then connect the disks with /home and test. > If you encounter the delay, then please stop and post the details. If you > do not encounter the delay, then your system is fixed. > Take a Clonezilla image. FWIW, my crystal ball says "30s => software timeout rather than hardware problem" Stefan
Re: Package Identification Assistance
> I need to identify the package responsible for creating the software > sources window. There is a minor bug/typo where the first tab reads > "Ubuntu Software" If all else fails, you can always try something like: find / -mount -type f -print0 | xargs -0 grep -al "Ubuntu Software" to find files that contain the string "Ubuntu Software". Then pass those file names to `dpkg -S`. Stefan
Re: f3tools vs Silicon Power 4T drive
> Now the question remains howinhell do I put a label on a drive such
> that it does survive making a raid or lvm device with it?
LVM/MD take control of a block device (usually a partition), so any info
in that block device can't be used for your purpose. IOW you have to
put the info somewhere on the disk *outside* of the partition used by
LVM/MD.
I can see a few different options:
- Use some disk-specific tool to change the disk's serial numbers.
I'm not sure how common such tools are, they're probably
manufacturer-specific and proprietary; my intuition tells me to try
any other way first.
- Use partition labels and/or partition UUIDs: contrary to filesystem
labels, these are not stored inside the block device but inside the
partition table. They don't exist in the old MBR-style partitions,
but they do in GPT (GUID Partition Tables).
- Use an additional tiny dummy partition in which you can put any info
you like.
Stefan
Re: Unidentified subject!
>> AFAIK the bogus 128TB drives do properly report such ridiculous sizes: >> the reality only hits when you try to actually store that amount of >> information on them. >> [ I'm not sure how it works under the hood, but since SSDs store their >>data "anywhere" in the flash, they can easily pretend to have any size >>they want, and allocate the physical flash blocks only on-the-fly as >>logical blocks are being written. >>Also, some Flash controllers use compression, so if you store data >>that compresses well, they can let you store a lot more than if you >>store already compressed data. ] >> IOW, to really check, try to save 2TB of videos (or other already >> compressed data), and then try and read it back. >> > Sounds like a lawsuit to me. If I can get Alexanders script from a few days > back to run. Is bash not actually bash these days? It is not doing for > loops for me. As discussed in related threads, there's the `f3` package in Debian designed specifically for that. You can try `f3probe /dev/sdX` (or use `f3write` and `f3read` if you prefer to test at the filesystem level rather than at the block level). Stefan
Re: Home UPS recommendations (Was Re: rsync --delete vs rsync --delete-after)
>> What other manufacturers could we buy UPSs from? > I have a Tripp-Lite sitting next to me here that replaced an APC and has > 2-1/2 times the capabiliity. Been in service several weeks and so far I'm > pretty happy with it... Would they accept a warranty claim without having to run some proprietary software (diagnostic and/or OS)? Stefan
Re: testing new sdm drive
>> So, if you want to use `badblocks`, you may want to do it on an >> encrypted partition (that covers the whole device) rather than on the >> raw device. > This is an interesting idea. I haven't wrapped my head around "what if > the controller maps several block addresses to the same physical block"? I assume that's what those thingies do. But disk encryption encrypts every block in a different way (otherwise, your encryption system is too poor and will leak information when comparing different blocks), so even if you write nothing but zeroes over your whole encrypted partition, the encryption will turn them into blocks that have all different contents. This said, for the task at hand F3 seems like a simpler and more direct answer. Stefan
Re: testing new sdm drive
> BTW2, there is a program for that, "badblocks", part of e2fsprograms, so > chances are it's installed. I'd look into that man page. `badblocks` sadly writes the same pattern on every block, AFAIK, so if the drive just remaps new logical blocks to already used physical blocks, `badblocks` may be convinced that the drive works fine even when it doesn't. So, if you want to use `badblocks`, you may want to do it on an encrypted partition (that covers the whole device) rather than on the raw device. Stefan
Re: Unidentified subject!
> Test it with Validrive.
> https://www.grc.com/validrive.htm
Looks like proprietary software for Windows.
Stefan
Re: Unidentified subject!
> Well the 2T memory everybody was curious about 3 weeks ago got here early. > > From dmesg after plugging one in: > [629240.916163] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 39 using xhci_hcd > [629241.066221] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=048d, > idProduct=1234, bcdDevice= 2.00 > [629241.066234] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, > SerialNumber=3 > [629241.066239] usb 1-2: Product: Disk 3.0 > [629241.066242] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: USB > [629241.066246] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 2697241127107725123 > [629241.069485] usb-storage 1-2:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected > [629241.074187] scsi host37: usb-storage 1-2:1.0 > [629242.100738] scsi 37:0:0:0: Direct-Access SSD 3.02.00 > PQ: 0 ANSI: 4 > [629242.100959] sd 37:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg13 type 0 > [629242.101190] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] 409600 512-byte logical blocks: (2.10 > TB/1.91 TiB) > [629242.101289] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] Write Protect is off > [629242.101290] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] Mode Sense: 03 00 00 00 > [629242.101409] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] No Caching mode page found > [629242.101410] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] Assuming drive cache: write through > [629242.103927] sdm: sdm1 > [629242.104047] sd 37:0:0:0: [sdm] Attached SCSI disk > gene@coyote: > > Looks like a reasonable facsimile of a 2T disk to me. AFAIK the bogus 128TB drives do properly report such ridiculous sizes: the reality only hits when you try to actually store that amount of information on them. [ I'm not sure how it works under the hood, but since SSDs store their data "anywhere" in the flash, they can easily pretend to have any size they want, and allocate the physical flash blocks only on-the-fly as logical blocks are being written. Also, some Flash controllers use compression, so if you store data that compresses well, they can let you store a lot more than if you store already compressed data. ] IOW, to really check, try to save 2TB of videos (or other already compressed data), and then try and read it back. Stefan
Re: xterm PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD selection [was: Re: Copy from Firefox and paste into Terminal with Vim]
> I have not said it is more “standard for terminals”, I have that it is
> more “standard” fullstop. It is more standard by the virtue of having
> worked for decades, C-Ins S-Ins S-Del existed way before the C-C C-V C-X
> tryptich, and still working today in most contexts.
Indeed, IIUC these key bindings were part of the CUA standard:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access
Stefan
Re: How can we change the keyboard layout?
> I had my share of discussions back then (before Wayland) in the
> context of GNOME and I don't need that again.
Discussions are tiresome, yes. Knowing it won't go well, it's important
to keep them short.
> But do keep your optimism: that's what makes the world better.
I'm not very optimistic. But I suspect that a thousand similar bug
reports are harder to discard as marginal than one or two.
Stefan
Re: How can we change the keyboard layout?
> I'm not aware of any projects aimed at recreating mature, traditional
> working environments in Wayland. Maybe they exist and I'm simply not
> aware of them. Maybe nobody who's capable of developing such an
> environment has the motivation to do so.
I'm afraid X11 users should make an effort to try and use Wayland for
the sole purpose of finding the problems they'd encounter and file
feature requests (e.g. for better customizability of the keyboard).
AFAICT many such requests are discarded as being too marginal, but
that might be just because all those who need it keep avoiding Wayland.
Stefan
Re: what keyboard do you use?
> I figure there's a high percentage of keyboard jockeys here so .. > which keyboard do you like and why? My favorites are the old Thinkpad USB UltraNav travel keyboards (http://salestores.com/stores/images/images_747/31P9490.jpg). They even come with a 2-port USB hub so you can connect a mouse directly to them (and/or a security key, ... tho you can't go crazy because it has very low power limits (and it's USB-1 only): no flash drive, for instance). But they're becoming hard to find. I also have one of those cheap 78-key compact keyboards and, beside the lack of "page up"/"page down" keys (and of course the lack of a trackpoint), I really like it. Mine is a "no brand" model, but it's fairly similar to the JLab Go wireless keyboard (https://www.jlab.com/products/jlab-go-keyboard?variant=39457511407688), except with a cable so I don't need to worry about batteries or bluetooth connection. Stefan
Re: Stop packagekitd from downloading updates
> I don't think you're looking at the right thing. "packagekit" seems > to be an interface to dbus. By itself, it doesn't do what you think > it does. Aha! > There is probably some other package that's *using* packagekit to do > the thing you don't want done. Is "unattended-upgrades" installed by > any chance? Hmm yep, it is! So that's it? I self-inflicted this by installing this package so many years ago? Thanks, Stefan
Re: Stop packagekitd from downloading updates
>> How can I stop those downloads? >> >> Currently, I did >> >> systemctl mask packagekit > > Well, you might just get rid of the package. > > apt purge packagekit > > should do it. Of course, but that also gets rid of packages I do want to keep (such as the `gnome` metapackage). > To prevent it from starting on the next boot: > > systemctl disable packagekit > > You may have to unmask it first. This doesn't work: # systemctl disable packagekit The unit files have no installation config (WantedBy=, RequiredBy=, UpheldBy=, Also=, or Alias= settings in the [Install] section, and DefaultInstance= for template units). This means they are not meant to be enabled or disabled using systemctl. Possible reasons for having these kinds of units are: • A unit may be statically enabled by being symlinked from another unit's .wants/, .requires/, or .upholds/ directory. • A unit's purpose may be to act as a helper for some other unit which has a requirement dependency on it. • A unit may be started when needed via activation (socket, path, timer, D-Bus, udev, scripted systemctl call, ...). • In case of template units, the unit is meant to be enabled with some instance name specified. # which is why I masked it instead. In any case, I'd rather find a way to say precisely what I mean (i.e. "don't download updates in the background") than to have to chase down the daemon of the day used to perform those automatic downloads (I remember going through the same charade a few years back, before `packagekit` existed). Especially since I don't know what else `packagekit` might be doing (some of it might be things I do appreciate). Also, maybe the downloads are not initiated by `packagekit` but by some other system (which just happens to delegate the task to `packagekit`), and that other system may end up deciding to do the same downloads some other way if `packagekit` isn't available. Stefan
Stop packagekitd from downloading updates
Apparently, there's now a thing called `packagekit` whose daemon seems to like to download updates "in the background" for me. Thanks, but no, thanks. This tends to occur at inopportune times for me and it's not far enough "in the background", so it gets in the way (furthermore, I like to download my packages with `debdelta` and `packagekitd` doesn't know how to do that, AFAICT). How can I stop those downloads? Currently, I did systemctl mask packagekit which might get the job done, but I don't really know what other impact it might have, and I see that APT complains about it (tho it still works fine, as far as I can tell): # LANG=C apt update Hit:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable InRelease Hit:2 http://security.debian.org stable-security InRelease Hit:3 http://security.debian.org testing-security InRelease Hit:4 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing InRelease Hit:5 http://deb.debian.org/debian unstable InRelease Error: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.systemd1.UnitMasked: Unit packagekit.service is masked. Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done All packages are up to date. # Where can I say specifically that I don't want automatic background download of updates? Stefan
Re: Playing a sound when initrd wants a password
[ Sorry, didn't read the actual post, just answering the Subject: ] What makes you think initrd will be satisfied with a sound? Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
> The problem might be in between of
>
> lspci -vnn
Spews out a lot of stuff, the relevant part being presumably:
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD
Audio Controller [8086:284b] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad T61/R61 [17aa:20ac]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 30
Memory at fe02 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities:
Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel
> and
>
> pactl list
> pactl list sinks
Here the sinks say just:
% pactl list cards
% pactl list sinks
Sink #33
State: SUSPENDED
Name: auto_null
Description: Dummy Output
Driver: PipeWire
Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz
Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Owner Module: 4294967295
Mute: no
Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB, front-right: 65536 /
100% / 0.00 dB
balance 0.00
Base Volume: 65536 / 100% / 0.00 dB
Monitor Source: auto_null.monitor
Latency: 0 usec, configured 0 usec
Flags: DECIBEL_VOLUME LATENCY
Properties:
node.name = "auto_null"
device.description = "Dummy Output"
audio.rate = "48000"
audio.channels = "2"
audio.position = "FL,FR"
media.class = "Audio/Sink"
factory.name = "support.null-audio-sink"
node.virtual = "true"
monitor.channel-volumes = "true"
factory.id = "17"
clock.quantum-limit = "8192"
client.id = "30"
node.driver = "true"
factory.mode = "merge"
audio.adapt.follower = ""
library.name = "audioconvert/libspa-audioconvert"
object.id = "31"
object.serial = "33"
Formats:
pcm
%
> Perhaps troubleshooting sections in wikis may tell more. There is a chance
> that lsof may find another process holding audio devices.
Hmm... this time a web search lead me to
systemctl --user status pipewire{,-pulse} wireplumber
which shows that `wireplumber` failed to start.
Thanks. Haven't found the actual problem nor a fix, but I have
some leads.
Stay tuned, I'll be back with the results :-)
Stefan
Re: Resizing LVM partitions
BTW, instead of rescue mode, you can use the initramfs to do such things (I like to do that when I don't have a LiveUSB at hand because it lets you manipulate *all* partitions, including /). I.e. do something like: - Reboot - In Grub, edit your boot script (with `e`) to add `break=mount` to the kernel command line. - Use `F10` to boot with that boot script. - You should very quickly be dropped into a fairly minimal shell, without any password. - None of your volumes are mounted yet. Even LVM isn't initialized yet. - Then type something like (guaranteed 100% untested) lvm vgchange -ay # Activate your LVM volumes. mount /dev/mapper/localhost-root /mnt # Mount / mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev chroot /mnt /bin/bash lvreduce --size -50G --resizefs /dev/mapper/localhost-home exit umount /mnt/dev umount /mnt exit --- Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
> But since `pactl` seems to still be useful for Pipewire, I tried > `pavucontrol` and it shows me no device from which to select in the > "Output Devices". Hmm... actually, not quite: there is one output device, called "Dummy Output". And there is similarly just one input device listed, called "Monitor of Dummy Input". Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
>> Server Version: 15.0.0 >> Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz >> Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right >> Default Sink: @DEFAULT_SINK@ >> Default Source: @DEFAULT_SOURCE@ >> Cookie: 40db:2cde >> % >> >> Not sure what the `Cookie` does and even less whether those @DEFAULT_SINK@ >> thingies are normal, tho a quick `grep` indicates at least `zsh` >> completion for `wpctl` finds them normal: >> >> /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_wpctl: >> 'pw-defaults:defaults:(@DEFAULT_SINK@ @DEFAULT_SOURCE@)' \ > > I would set them explicitly and see if things get better. I don't really know how to set them. But since `pactl` seems to still be useful for Pipewire, I tried `pavucontrol` and it shows me no device from which to select in the "Output Devices". Now, how do I figure out why that is? Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
> OK. First diagnostic: `pactl info`. > > On my bookworm desktop, I get this: > > $ pactl info > Server String: /run/user/1042/pulse/native > Library Protocol Version: 35 > Server Protocol Version: 35 > Is Local: yes > Client Index: 13692 > Tile Size: 65472 > User Name: dsr > Host Name: spike > Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 0.3.65) > Server Version: 15.0.0 > Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz > Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right > Default Sink: PulseEffects_apps > Default Source: > alsa_input.usb-Blue_Microphones_Yeti_Stereo_Microphone_REV8-00.analog-stereo % pactl info Server String: /run/user/20848/pulse/native Library Protocol Version: 35 Server Protocol Version: 35 Is Local: yes Client Index: 138 Tile Size: 65496 User Name: monnier Host Name: alfajor Server Name: PulseAudio (on PipeWire 1.0.1) Server Version: 15.0.0 Default Sample Specification: float32le 2ch 48000Hz Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right Default Sink: @DEFAULT_SINK@ Default Source: @DEFAULT_SOURCE@ Cookie: 40db:2cde % Not sure what the `Cookie` does and even less whether those @DEFAULT_SINK@ thingies are normal, tho a quick `grep` indicates at least `zsh` completion for `wpctl` finds them normal: /usr/share/zsh/site-functions/_wpctl: 'pw-defaults:defaults:(@DEFAULT_SINK@ @DEFAULT_SOURCE@)' \ Stefan
Re: smartctl cannot access my storage, need syntax help
> some sort of 2T SSD's that comes as a usb-c drive, skipping the sata
> convertor entirely at $27/copy. If it works as an 8T lvm with a 2T holding
AFAIK 2T for $27 doesn't exist yet in the current real world.
You can find a fair number of creatively sized USB disks in that price
range, but they are lying (tho admittedly, they tend to lye in a more
obvious way with claimed capacities of 30TB or even more).
This doesn't pass my scam detector. I hope it's wrong for once.
Stefan
Re: OT: Is there any size limit for ISO's?
> Last message is, that a new USB device is found, then the screen goes
> blank. I can make some snapshots of a video, by interest.
My crystal ball blames the video driver (presuming that the DRM module
for your video card is loaded around the same time as that USB device is
found).
Stefan
Re: smartctl cannot access my storage, need syntax help
> That I'm contemplating, using a pi clone but still running the amanda I just
> installed all 3 debs of on a bananapi-m5. How does an 8T backup server
> sound for another $200 in hdwe? Very enticing and I do have the sheckel's.
I remember Amanda fondly from the days when I was backing up a labs
machine to DATs. And while I see the benefit of using a tool with which
you're familiar, you might want to look at alternatives like Bup, Borg,
Restic, Bupstash, ... (or even Rsync/Rsnapshot).
Amanda was designed specifically to work efficiently when backing up to
a tape device. If, like most people nowadays, you backup to something
like an HDD or SSD, Amanda is IMO overly complex and slow and doesn't
give you as much functionality as more modern alternatives (alternatives
which simply wouldn't work when backing up to a tape).
Stefan
Re: Seeking a Terminal Emulator on Debian for "Passthrough" Printing
> That's the way it was built -- just mimicking the "real terminal cum > firmware" which was replaced with "DOS/Windows PC cum terminal application". I think it's more than that. It's a design that makes a lot of sense: it would be more complex having to connect both the terminal and the printer to the server, since the terminal and printer really belong together. Stefan
Re: Resizing LVM partitions
> lvextend --size +1G --resizefs /dev/mapper/localhost-home > > Ie get lvextend to do the maths & work it out for me. > > Those who are cleverer than me might be able to tell you how to get it right > first time! lvreduce --size -50G --resizefs /dev/mapper/localhost-home ? Stefan
Re: Seeking a Terminal Emulator on Debian for "Passthrough" Printing
> So: have you considering replacing the whole system?
You mean, fix this one well-understood problem, and replace it with an
unknown number of unknown problems?
Sounds great!
Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
> Does mplayer give any more interesting errors?
Oh, I didn't notice it at first, but now that you ask, yes it does:
after something like a timeout period it says:
AO: [pulse] Init failed: Timeout
Failed to initialize audio driver 'pulse'
And lo and behold if I start it with `mplayer -ao none `, the
video plays just fine (whether Theora, MPEG2, or H.264).
So maybe I was barking up the wrong tree and the problem was on the
audio side all this time. This machine is running Debian testing,
which seems to have selected Pipewire for me.
% ps auxw|grep pipewire
monnier 1810 0.0 0.1 46096 9396 ?Ssl jan18 0:00
/usr/bin/pipewire
monnier 1813 0.0 0.0 34436 6412 ?Ssl jan18 0:00
/usr/bin/pipewire -c filter-chain.conf
monnier 1818 0.0 0.1 41540 10460 ?Ssl jan18 0:00
/usr/bin/pipewire-pulse
monnier 7472 0.0 0.0 8276 2304 pts/6SN+ 16:40 0:00 grep
pipewire
%
IIUC `pipewire-pulse` is the daemon which should let PulseAudio client
connect to Pipewire, so I don't know why mplayer's `pulse` backend is
not happy. I know very little about Pipewire (or GNU/Linux audio in
general for that matter), so I'd welcome help diagnosing this part as well.
I tried to use `mplayer -ao alsa ` but it ends up just sitting there,
without any output nor error after the first few information lines
(which are always the same):
% mplayer -ao alsa icfp23-explicit-refinement-types.mkv
MPlayer 1.5+svn38446-1 (Debian)do_connect: could not connect to socket
connect: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote
control.
Playing icfp23-explicit-refinement-types.mkv.
libavformat version 60.16.100 (external)
libavformat file format detected.
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
[lavf] stream 1: audio (opus), -aid 0, -alang eng
VIDEO: [H264] 1280x720 0bpp 30.000 fps0.0 kbps ( 0.0 kbyte/s)
libva info: VA-API version 1.20.0
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_20
libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed
libva info: va_openDriver() returns 1
libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so
libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_8
libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so init failed
libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1
==
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
libavcodec version 60.31.102 (external)
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==
Clip info:
COMPATIBLE_BRANDS: iso6avc1mp41
MAJOR_BRAND: dash
MINOR_VERSION: 0
ENCODER: Lavf60.16.100
Load subtitles in ./
==
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
[opus @ 0xf6d9bb80]Could not update timestamps for skipped samples.
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, floatle, 0.0 kbit/0.00% (ratio: 0->384000)
Selected audio codec: [ffopus] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg opus)
==
My best guess is that it's waiting for Pipewire to release the audio device?
With `ao oss`, it goes a bit further (i.e. it opens up the actual
window where the window should be played) but still ends up sitting
there waiting for something and not playing anything.
Stefan
Re: I've an editable .pdf form I need to fill out
> Did you notice, that I was talking about the reduced, crippled OpenSource > browser: chromium, which is based on chrome. But I was not talking about the > chrome itself. > > AFAIK are these Google related parts removed in chromium; at least > they were several years ago. I wonder if that's the case. AFAIK Chromium is distributed by Google, so it's just Chrome with the proprietary bits removed. I'd be surprised if Google was going through the trouble to remove the bits that are beneficial to them. I'd expect a de-Googlized version of Chrome/Chromium to be named differently (maybe Wolfram, as suggested by Bret) and distributed by some other team (one that cares more about Free Software and privacy than Google). Stefan
Re: I've an editable .pdf form I need to fill out
> Most informative. thank you a lot Eike. I have, on another workspace after > installing it "xournal" has opened that pdf, I have enabled the add > annotations function but not killed a tree to test print. I see both > "print" and "Export as pdf" in the file menu. FWIW, the world of "filling PDFs online" is a painful one with lots of hidden traps. My understanding is that what you probably want to do is fill the "holes" of a "PDf form" that were placed there on purpose in the PDF (it's not just empty space on the page, but the PDF includes some side-information telling the PDF viewer/editor that this is a hole that can filled. For some elements, it can also include a list of options from which to select). What is usually described as "annotations" in this context is something different, more like extra text you can put anywhere you like but which will appear in a special way because it's labeled as an annotation, more like what you'd use to add comments about a text you were asked to review. When I fill a PDF form, Evince lets me just click on the fields I need to fill (and hit TAB to move from field to field). After that, I need to save the result (and the UI expects me to use a different file name for that), otherwise it's happily thrown away silently. Also the selection of fields (with TAB or clicks) is often fiddly. I haven't bothered to try other PDF viewers (like Atril or Okulus). Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
> This should be the Intel 4500 integrated gpu, which is part of > the i915/i965 family. It needs: > > - an intel kernel module According to `lsmod | grep '^i'` I have `i915` loaded. Is that the one? > - X11 running the intel video driver Interesting. I was using the `modesetting` driver. So I installed `xserver-xorg-video-intel` and then put % cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf Section "Device" Identifier "Intel Corporation 965GM" Driver "intel" EndSection % to force Xorg to use that `intel` driver (since apparently by default nowadays it tries only `vesa`, `fbdev`, and `modestting`). The end result appears to be the same, tho :-( At least, all the error messages I get are the same. > - libva-drm2 > - libva-x11-2 > - libva2 > - i965-va-driver Check! > It will support MPEG2 accelerated decoding but not H264, H265 or > any of the newer codecs -- and Youtube may not be supplying old > codecs these days. That might be part of the problem, indeed. Tho the `vainfo` failure suggests that even MPEG2 isn't working. I tried to view an MPEG2 video with totem/xine/mplayer and that didn't work either (it doesn't eat up all the CPU, instead they just "sit there", sometimes emitting the same kind of VA errors as shown earlier). Stefan
Re: Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
Max Nikulin [2024-01-21 10:51:36] wrote: > On 21/01/2024 06:51, Stefan Monnier wrote: >> [GFX1-]: vaapitest: VA-API test failed: failed to initialise VAAPI >> connection. > [...] >> Any idea what might be going on? Any hint how I could diagnose the problem? > I would start from comparison of "vainfo" output and related sections in > about:support. Thanks, I didn't know about either of those :-) Sadly, `vainfo` doesn't tell me much more info than that it fails: % vainfo libva info: VA-API version 1.20.0 libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_20 libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/iHD_drv_video.so init failed libva info: va_openDriver() returns 1 libva info: Trying to open /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_8 libva error: /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/i965_drv_video.so init failed libva info: va_openDriver() returns -1 vaInitialize failed with error code -1 (unknown libva error),exit % But at least, it seems to indicate that my problems don't have to do with Firefox. > Internally Firefox likely uses a test like > > /usr/lib/firefox-esr/vaapitest -d /dev/dri/renderD128 > > https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/gtk/GfxInfo.cpp#line-649 Indeed that gives me the same error message: % /usr/lib/firefox-esr/vaapitest -d /dev/dri/renderD128 ERROR VA-API test failed: failed to initialise VAAPI connection. % I can't see any "verbose" option for those so I tried `strace`: % strace vainfo [...] write(2, "libva info: Found init function __vaDriverInit_1_20", 52) = 52 openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/igfx_user_feature_next.txt", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = -1 ENOENT (Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type) openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/igfx_user_feature.txt", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = -1 ENOENT (Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type) openat(AT_FDCWD, "/dev/shm/GFX_MEDIA_TRACE", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = -1 ENOENT (Aucun fichier ou dossier de ce type) getpid()= 14840 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_VERSION, 0xffdde780) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde780) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_VERSION, 0xffdde820) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GEM_GET_APERTURE, 0xffdde7e8) = 0 geteuid32() = 20848 getuid32() = 20848 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde820) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7e0) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GEM_CONTEXT_GETPARAM, 0xffdde808) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_QUERY, 0xffdde7f8) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_QUERY, 0xffdde7f8) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = -1 ENODEV (Aucun périphérique de ce type) ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = 0 ioctl(4, DRM_IOCTL_I915_GETPARAM or DRM_IOCTL_TEGRA_CLOSE_CHANNEL, 0xffdde7a4) = -1 ENODEV (Aucun périphérique de ce type) ioctl(4, DRM_IOCT
Can't view videos in firefox: VA-API test failed
Whenever I try to view videos in Firefox in my trusty Thinkpad T61, Firefox just eats up the CPU but doesn't actually show the video. At startup I get the following message: [GFX1-]: vaapitest: VA-API test failed: failed to initialise VAAPI connection. So, IIUC the problem is that the hardware video decoder drivers aren't found for some reason. I checked my VA-related packages and they seem to be installed: # aptitude search '\' | grep '^i' i A i965-va-driver - VAAPI driver for Intel G45 & HD Graphics family i intel-media-va-driver - VAAPI driver for the Intel GEN8+ Graphics family i A libvdpau-va-gl1 - VDPAU driver with OpenGL/VAAPI backend i A mesa-va-drivers - Mesa VA-API video acceleration drivers i va-driver-all - API de Video Acceleration (VA) – métapaquet de pilotes i A vdpau-va-driver - VDPAU-based backend for VA API # I tried to install `intel-media-va-driver-non-free` to see if that's the problem, but it did not make any difference. I understand that my machine is fairly old, but it used to be able to play youtube videos just fine without eating all my CPU time (i.e. using hardware video decoding from its GM965/GL960 Intel integrated graphcs). Any idea what might be going on? Any hint how I could diagnose the problem? Stefan
