Re: how to compute predictable network interface names?
On Thu, Feb 23, 2017, at 10:16, Harald Dunkel wrote:
> On 02/16/2017 12:47 PM, Christian Seiler wrote:
> >
> > On a system with predictable names running? Or on a system
> > pre-upgrade?
> >
>
> Its more "pre-installation". I boot a USB stick and run
> my own installer (using debootstrap or creating a clone).
> The NIC name is needed to setup /etc/network/interfaces.
> I know how the interfaces are named using the old scheme,
> but the predictable names are hard to guess.
>
Debian used to assign network devices based on MAC address.
If you want to continue doing something like that, use the
kernel boot parameter
net.ifnames=0
and create your own udev rule. For example:
/etc/udev/rules.d/76-netnames.rules:
# Create custom network interface names based on MAC address.
SUBSYSTEM=="net", ACTION=="add", ATTR{address}=="00:11:25:86:61:87",
NAME="net0"
This rule will assign the Ethernet adapter with MAC address 00:11:25:86:61:87
the interface name net0. Reference the interface by this name in
/etc/network/interfaces.
I hope this helps.
--
.''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
Re: Don't taint kernel when using the forcepae kernel boot parameter
On Sat, Feb 18, 2017, at 13:36, Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > > Wow. This is some of the best Debian doc I've seen. Really thanks. > And z/VM stuff. What's not to like? > > Nick-former-VM/SP-current-Debian-system-administrator-:-)-G Thanks for the compliment. I hope you find at least some of it useful. I have received much benefit over the years as a user of open source software. The docs are my attempt at giving something back. Regards, -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Don't taint kernel when using the forcepae kernel boot parameter
For those of you who have an old laptop/notebook with a Banias-class Pentium M or Celeron M 32-bit Intel processor, use the forcepae option, and run a custom kernel (admitedly a limited audience), I have just developed a patch which you may find useful. By default, the kernel will taint itself (for the reason "CPU out of spec") when the forcepae kernel boot parameter is used. I disagree with this course of action. First of all, the CPU is not really out of spec. The CPU has all the capabilities that the kernel requires of it. It just fails to report one of them. Second, there is no binary-only blob mixed in with the source code. It makes sense to disable lock debugging when all the source code is not available, but there is no missing source code in this case. My patch leaves the kernel untainted: wget http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/dont_taint_forcepae.patch For more information about building a custom kernel, see http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/Kernel.htm -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Last spam: Let me know Munich Mayor's email address, please..
On Fri, Feb 17, 2017, at 04:30, Andre Müller wrote: > > The day comes closer, that we remove all politicians and do our own > constitution. > This is the only way to change the whole system. I'm sick of it and many > people in whole > Europe also. And as for the United States, do we not have the best Congress money can buy? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
A new HOWTO page for the Adobe Flash Player plugin under chromium under Linux
It seems to me that there is much confusion out there for how to install the Adobe Flash Player plugin for chromium for Linux. Since fools rush in where angels fear to tread, I have created a new web page on my web site for how to do this. I'd appreciate any comments, positive and negative. I'd like to make the page as good as I can. Here's the link: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/flash.htm Let me know what you think. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Recreating a second boot kernel in LILO
On Wed, Jan 18, 2017, at 20:49, Stephen Powell wrote: > > ... > The first two "image" entries define the standard "most recent" and > "next-most recent" kernels and don't need to be messed with, provided > that the standard symbolic link names are being maintained by > "do_symlinks = yes" in /etc/kernel-img.conf or by installation of the > xy-symlinks kernel hook scripts. > ... :1,$s/xy-symlinks/zy-symlinks/ -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Recreating a second boot kernel in LILO
On Wed, Jan 18, 2017, at 20:49, Stephen Powell wrote: > ... > One such program, memtest86+, provides a stand-alone memory testing > program built to resemble a Linux kernel, so that Linuxboot loaders > think it is a Linux kernel and will load it like one (the entire boot image is > loaded, not just a single sector, as with "other"). > ... :1,$s/Linuxboot/Linux boot/ -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Recreating a second boot kernel in LILO
On Sat, Jan 14, 2017, at 11:38, Stephen Powell wrote: > > If there are special kernels that you want to be able to boot which are > outside > the normal "last two", then you must manually edit /etc/lilo.conf to provide > the capability to boot this kernel, then run lilo. > As an example, here is a copy of my /etc/lilo.conf for one of my machines which uses non-parity memory. Non-parity memory is cheaper, but memory errors cannot be directly detected. However, there are programs one can run if one suspects that he/she has a bad memory stick. One such program, memtest86+, provides a stand-alone memory testing program built to resemble a Linux kernel, so that Linuxboot loaders think it is a Linux kernel and will load it like one (the entire boot image is loaded, not just a single sector, as with "other"). # /etc/lilo.conf # # global options # #boot=/dev/sda1 boot=/dev/disk/by-uuid/e15c-a23a-4f1e-bb6b-8ca0b512cff2 compact default=Linux delay=40 # # This allows lilo to correctly handle the USB-attached floppy drive. # It is used in conjunction with a user-created udev rule which # creates a symbolic link between /dev/fd0 and the actual device name # for the USB-attached floppy drive in the current boot. # #disk=/dev/sdb disk=/dev/fd0 bios=0x00 # # This is the disk geometry reported by BIOS Int 13h Function 08h # for the hard disk. Specifying it here allows the "geometric" # option to work. However, we are not using the "geometric" option. # The disk geometry reported by BIOS Int 13h Function 08h is # reported here for reference purposes only. # #disk=/dev/sda disk=/dev/disk/by-id/ata-Samsung_SSD_840_EVO_120GB_S1D5NSBDB61675Y sectors=63 heads=240 cylinders=1024 # install=text large-memory # # The BIOS supports EDD, but linear is used instead of lba32 in order # to get maximum benefit out of the compact option: 128 sectors # per BIOS call. # linear map=/boot/map # # per-image options # image=/boot/vmlinuz label=Linux initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="net.ifnames=0" read-only #root=/dev/sda6 root="UUID=1af2bc58-83f7-44f8-af32-94d1dd54701e" vga=normal # image=/boot/vmlinuz.old label=LinuxOLD initrd=/boot/initrd.img.old append="net.ifnames=0" read-only #root=/dev/sda6 root="UUID=1af2bc58-83f7-44f8-af32-94d1dd54701e" vga=normal optional # image=/boot/memtest86+.bin label=memtest86+ The first two "image" entries define the standard "most recent" and "next-most recent" kernels and don't need to be messed with, provided that the standard symbolic link names are being maintained by "do_symlinks = yes" in /etc/kernel-img.conf or by installation of the xy-symlinks kernel hook scripts. The third "image" entry defines the stand-alone memtest86+ program. To run it, the user types "memtest86+" (without the quotes) at a LILO "boot:" prompt. This boot entry may be thought of as a special Linux kernel which is outside the normal cycle of "most recent" and "next-most recent". -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Recreating a second boot kernel in LILO
On Sat, Jan 14, 2017, at 10:05, Richard Owlett wrote: > On 1/14/2017 8:45 AM, Miroslav Skoric wrote: > > Hello all, > > > > Intro: I have been using LILO for ages. Now running Wheezy 7.11 > > LTS. As usual and for test purposes on older machines I have two > > kernel flavours: 486 and 686-rt. In LILO boot menu they appear as > > Linux486 and Linux686 (before renaming they were Linux and > > LinuxOLD). Both work nice on two desktops of different age. > > > > Anyway, few years ago I had a repetitive problem with the 686-rt > > kernel slowing down the touch pad on a laptop, so I decided to > > remove it completely. So in the LILO menu was left just one boot > > option. Recently I decided to install 686-rt again, and during > > the installation it added new config*, init.rd*, and vmlinuz* > > into /boot, but it did not add any new init.rd* and vmlinuz* > > links into /. And without that LILO still keeps one entry. Any > > idea how to produce new links in / in order to recreate the > > second boot entry? (In lilo.conf everything is the same as in > > desktops, however /sbin/lilo complains about missing links in /) > > > > M.S. > > You may find Steve Powell's LILO Page useful - > http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm > Also http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/index.htm may be of interest. > HTH > > The default installation of lilo assumes that the user is only interested in booting the two most recently-installed kernels. By Debian convention, symbolic links are assigned to these kernels in / if "do_symlinks = yes" is specified in /etc/kernel-img.conf. The most recent kernel is assigned the symbolic link name "vmlinuz", and the next-most-recent kernel is assigned the symbolic link name "vmlinuz.old". The same pattern is followed with the initial RAM file system images that correspond to these kernel images. The most recent initial RAM file system image is given the symbolic link name "initrd.img", and the next-most-recent initial RAM file system image is given the symbolic link name "initrd.img.old". If "link_in_boot = yes" is present in /etc/kernel-img.conf, then these symbolic links are maintained in /boot instead of in /. However, these symbolic links are maintained only for stock Debian kernels. For custom kernels created with make-kpkg or "make deb-pkg", "do_symlinks = yes" in /etc/kernel-img.conf has no effect. In my web page, referred to above by Richard Owlett, I provide a reference to my kernel building web page where there are execs called zy-symlinks which will provide equivalent function for custom kernels. If there are special kernels that you want to be able to boot which are outside the normal "last two", then you must manually edit /etc/lilo.conf to provide the capability to boot this kernel, then run lilo. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: cant get to desktop anymore
On Wed, Sep 21, 2016, at 16:32, Stephen Powell wrote: > > I did notice one thing peculiar. startx output is written to the terminal > of vt1, of course, even though it's running as a background task. And I got > the error message > > modprobe: FATAL: Module mach64 not found in directory /lib/modules/xxx > > where xxx is the identity of the running kernel. Strange. The kernel has > never had a mach64 module in it, as far as I know. mach64 is the name > of the X driver, but there is no kernel module by that name. One other thing I noticed. It may or may not be related. "web" (i.e. epiphany-browser) is broken. When I click on the icon for changing settings (including listing bookmarks), nothing happens. I switched back to chromium, which seems to be working fine. Lovely "upgrade", Debian! -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: cant get to desktop anymore
On Sun, Sep 18, 2016, at 19:57, Ric Moore wrote: > On 09/18/2016 06:00 PM, Kent West wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 18, 2016 at 3:28 PM, bell canada <bellcanada...@gmail.com > > <mailto:bellcanada...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > > hello i installed debian 8 and i cant get into my desktop..why plz help > > > > roberto > > 438 881 9269 <tel:438%20881%209269> > > all i get is ablack scren > > even recory mode doesnt help > > > > > > Do you get to a login prompt at all (graphical or text-based)? > > > > What happens if you press Ctrl-Alt-F2? > If the OP would do that, login as his user and enter "startx", I bet a > donut that he gets to his desktop. Mine is STILL boroken that way > ...POS. synaptic isn't fixed yet. Someone just shoot me. Ric > After a recent stretch upgrade, I experienced a similar problem. I use the XFCE4 desktop environment, the lightdm login daemon, and systemd as my init system. After "upgrading" and rebooting, I got a black screen with a mouse pointer. And that was it. I used the following procedure as a work-around: I used Ctrl+Alt+F1 to switch to a text console. I logged in as root. I issued systemctl stop lightdm.service systemctl disable lightdm.service then I exited the root login session, logged in on the text console as my normal non-superuser self, and issued startx -- vt7 & This brought up my normal XFCE4 desktop on vt7, bypassing the lightdm login daemon. Of course after a reboot, the two systemctl commands won't be needed. The lightdm service will no longer start. I did notice one thing peculiar. startx output is written to the terminal of vt1, of course, even though it's running as a background task. And I got the error message modprobe: FATAL: Module mach64 not found in directory /lib/modules/xxx where xxx is the identity of the running kernel. Strange. The kernel has never had a mach64 module in it, as far as I know. mach64 is the name of the X driver, but there is no kernel module by that name. I obviously don't like using this work-around, but I can at least limp along until somebody somewhere fixes this problem. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Jessie : regular console instead of a hi-res one!
On Mon, Sep 5, 2016, at 12:46, Stephen Powell wrote: > > To determine which module to blacklist, issue > >dmesg|less > > and see if you can figure out which module is loading. You can also issue > >lsmod|less > > to see which modules are loaded. Perhaps you can identify which module is > the frame buffer driver this way. Knowing your video chipset helps give you > a clue also. Issue > >lspci|less > > and look for VGA. This may give you a clue as to the identity of the frame > buffer driver. > I found a better way to identify the frame buffer driver. Issue lspci -k|less then search for the character string VGA. You should see something like this: 01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS780L [Radeon 3000] Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd RS780L [Radeon 3000] Kernel driver in use: radeon Kernel modules: radeon This clearly identifies the frame buffer driver. I realize that the OP has chosen a different solution. But for the sake of others who may find this thread in a future search who wish to go the hardware text mode route, I have added this information. The "vga" option of LILO (also usable with GRUB2 if you use linux16 and initrd16 instead of linux and initrd in the menuentry bloc) provides more choices than the hardware default of 80x25. For more information about this, see my LILO web page at http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm#VGA -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Jessie : regular console instead of a hi-res one!
On Mon, Sep 5, 2016, at 12:01, Mayuresh Kathe wrote: > > Is there any way to get a regular console under Debian Jessie? > I don't use a GUI, just plain old CLI, and working on hi-res with "tiny" > little fonts is extremely painful. > I have tried playing with "console-setup". No results. > Yes. What you are seeing is a "frame buffer" console. In most cases, the X driver requires this. But if you are not using an X server, you can disable it. The trick is to blacklist the right driver. For example, if you have a radeon chipset, blacklisting the radeon driver might accomplish this. Create a file such as /etc/modprobe.d/local.conf. Put a line in it which says blacklist radeon Save the file and exit the editor. Whenever you blacklist a module, it is a good idea to rebuild your initial RAM file system, although if the module is not loaded until after the permanent root file system is mounted read-only, this is not strictly required. To do this, issue update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r) Then shutdown and reboot. To determine which module to blacklist, issue dmesg|less and see if you can figure out which module is loading. You can also issue lsmod|less to see which modules are loaded. Perhaps you can identify which module is the frame buffer driver this way. Knowing your video chipset helps give you a clue also. Issue lspci|less and look for VGA. This may give you a clue as to the identity of the frame buffer driver. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Downloading and naming
On Tue, Aug 2, 2016, at 18:33, Pascal Hambourg wrote: > Le 02/08/2016 à 02:28, Stephen Powell a écrit : >> My original point remains. If one's computer has less than 4 GiB of >> memory installed, and the processor does not support the XD/NX bit, then >> running a 32-bit PAE-enabled kernel does not benefit one at all. > > Your original point did not mention the NX/XD bit. True. I *assumed* that the processor did not support the NX/XD bit. That assumption should have been explicitly stated. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Downloading and naming
On Mon, Aug 1, 2016, at 19:30, Pascal Hambourg wrote: > Le 01/08/2016 à 04:02, Stephen Powell a écrit : >> >> To the best of my knowledge, there are no 32-bit-only processors which >> support the NX bit. A 32-bit PAE-enabled kernel can only use NX if it >> is running on a 64-bit-capable processor. > > You should check your information. A number of late 32-bit Pentium 4 and > Pentium M models support the NX bit. > Perhaps there are some 32-bit-only processors which support XD/NX. But none of mine do. >> >> To give a specific example, my IBM ThinkPad X31 has >> a Pentium M processor, which is PAE capable and 32 bit only (...) >> And the PAE kernel >> can't exploit the NX bit, because the processor doesn't support it. > > This is really surprising because, according to > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_M>, Pentium M models which > support PAE also support the NX bit. Actually, PAE support was added > just to support the NX bit, the physical address size is still 32 bits. > You should check your information. :-) That same Wikipedia article that you quoted above also says this: "The Banias family processors internally support PAE but do not show the PAE support flag in their CPUID information ..." All Pentium M processors support PAE, they just don't all advertise such support in the output of the CPUID instruction. My IBM ThinkPad X31 has a Banias-class Pentium M processor. I can get a PAE-enabled kernel to run on it, but I must use the "forcepae" kernel boot parameter in order to get it to work. My original point remains. If one's computer has less than 4 GiB of memory installed, and the processor does not support the XD/NX bit, then running a 32-bit PAE-enabled kernel does not benefit one at all. In fact, it actually hurts one, because a PAE-enabled kernel uses more memory. Debian is one of the few distributions to still provide non-PAE kernels. And I applaud them for doing so for just such situations as I described above. Just because one's processor supports PAE doesn't necessarily mean that one benefits from using a PAE kernel. In addition to my IBM ThinkPad X31, I have two other 32-bit-only machines. One uses a Pentium 4 processor, the other uses a Xeon. None of them support the NX bit. And none of them have more than 4 GiB of memory installed. (Only the ThinkPad requires the "forcepae" kernel boot parameter to get a PAE-enabled kernel to run.) -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Downloading and naming
On Sun, Jul 31, 2016, at 19:07, Pascal Hambourg wrote: > Le 01/08/2016 à 00:00, Stephen Powell a écrit : >> one's processor supports PAE, but the motherboard only supports a maximum of >> 2 GiB of RAM, what does a PAE kernel buy one? Nothing, as far as I can see. > > PAE allows to use the NX/XD bit on CPU which support it to prevent > execution of data memory areas. To the best of my knowledge, there are no 32-bit-only processors which support the NX bit. A 32-bit PAE-enabled kernel can only use NX if it is running on a 64-bit-capable processor. I should have explicitly stated what was an implicit assumption, namely, that the processor is not 64-bit capable. To give a specific example, my IBM ThinkPad X31 has a Pentium M processor, which is PAE capable and 32 bit only, and the motherboard only supports a maximum of 2 GiB of RAM. I *can* run a PAE-enabled kernel on it, but a PAE-enabled kernel uses more memory. PAE allows more than 4 GiB of memory to be accessed, but I don't have that much. And the PAE kernel can't exploit the NX bit, because the processor doesn't support it. A PAE-enabled kernel actually *hurts* me in this case. I'm better off running a non-PAE kernel, even though the processor supports PAE. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Downloading and naming
On Sun, Jul 31, 2016, at 03:46, Brian Wengel wrote: > > Dear Debian community > > Maybe it’s just me, but as a rather new-comer to the Debian world a few > things puzzles me. > > 1: Going to the download section is like being taken 15 years back. Isn’t > it time to take the step to move away from the CD/DVD media and move into > the USB Flash drive arena? > ... I'll stop quoting there, because the rest of your post has the same general tone. Debian is not a bleeding-edge distribution. Many of us use old hardware, hardware that has been abandoned by Windows long ago, hardware that in many cases has even been abandoned by other Linux Distributions. For example, Debian is one of the few Linux distributions, maybe the only Linux distribution, to still provide non-PAE kernels. Ubuntu has been providing only PAE stock kernels for some time now. Even if the hardware supports PAE, some of us prefer to run a non-PAE kernel because it uses less memory. If one's processor supports PAE, but the motherboard only supports a maximum of 2 GiB of RAM, what does a PAE kernel buy one? Nothing, as far as I can see. But some distributions have a one-size-fits-all slam it, jam it, cram it, attitude, an attitude based solely on minimizing their support costs, rather than on trying to provide what's best for as many users as possible. We like to think of ourselves as "The Universal Operating System". It's not truly universal, but it's close. A quick check of the ports page shows that we support about 10 official ports and about 20 unofficial ports. How many hardware platforms does Ubuntu support? If you like Ubuntu better than Debian, fine. Use Ubuntu. Nobody's stopping you. But don't come over here and try to tell us that we should be doing things the way Ubuntu does. We're different for a reason. I'm not saying there isn't room for improvement: I'm sure there is. But asking questions is one thing. Telling us we should be like Ubuntu is another. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Terminal
On Fri, Jul 29, 2016, at 19:25, Doug wrote: > > I have found Linux in a Nutshell, 6th edition, extremely useful. > ... I'd also like to recommend "The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use", 2nd Edition, by Michael Stutz. This is a hard-copy book, and to the best of my knowledge is not available online. The first edition of the book is available online here: http://www.dsl.org/cookbook/cookbook_toc.html The first edition is getting dated, but there is still a lot of useful information in it. Rather than being organized as a list of commands and parameters, it is organized in a task-oriented fashion. (Oh, you want to do *that*! Here, type this ...) -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: What Linux distribution to use?
On Wed, Jul 27, 2016, at 14:29, Brian wrote: > > ... > for one machine, probably ancient but still doing a useful > job, I have > > model name : Geode(TM) Integrated Processor by AMD PCS > > That's not enough, is it? What has to done to determine its processor > class? > > I'm happy enough keeping it on Jessie but, for obvious reasons, don't > want to attempt a disastrous Stretch upgrade. Sven has already replied to the general case; but I thought I'd mention your specific example, since it is a particularly interesting case. As I understand it, the AMD Geode processor is one instruction short of the full Pentium Pro instruction set: NOPL. But it appears that the GCC compiler has been modified to not generate NOPL instructions when "-march i686" is used. Therefore, the AMD Geode should qualify. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: What Linux distribution to use?
On Tue, Jul 26, 2016, at 19:05, David Wright wrote: > > One issue though: I have a useful laptop that has a nifty 686 (AIUI) > Pentium M processor, but I have to run linux-image-3.16.0-4-586 on it > because it lacks the PAE. (It has SSE/SSE2.) Do you know whether > stretch will cater for non-PAE processors? Or is this no more than > a kernel issue which doesn't involve package builds, as appears to > be the case in jessie? You have a Banias-class Pentium M. All Pentium Ms support PAE. But due to a microcode bug, the Banias-class Pentium Ms do not report their PAE capability in the output of the CPUID instruction. A *-686-pae kernel will run just fine on a Banias-class Pentium M, but you must supply the "forcepae" kernel boot parameter to get it to work. I have such a machine myself, so I know from experience. Note that stretch supports both *-686 and *-686-pae kernels. You don't necessarily *need* to run a PAE kernel. Some prefer to run a non-PAE kernel because it's easier on the memory requirements. But the processor must support the Pentium Pro instruction set, which all Pentium Ms do. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: does anybody remember which debian release was it that asked for the MAC ID details at the end ?
On Mon, Jul 18, 2016, at 18:08, shirish शिरीष wrote: > Hi all, > > Does anybody remember which release of Debian was it that had the bug > where d-i used to ask for MAC ID details during the end phase > (networking phase) to the user and if s/he didn't know the MAC ID > details the installation couldn't move further (unless one knew some > tricks). > > I know for a fact that it was fixed in squeeze but it was in one of > the releases before. From the Wikipedia page it becomes clear that d-i > was introduced in Sarge in June 2005 so it has to be between 2005 and > 2011. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Debian_releases#Debian_3.1_.28Sarge.29 > > Does anybody know which release had that bug ? > > I am in midst of making a presentation hence need that historical > information for accuracy. > > Look forward to know. I think I have used all Debian releases between Sarge and Stretch, and I don't remember any such bug. Then again, I didn't necessarily *install* all those releases. There may have been some releases where I only did an upgrade. Furthermore, I usually only use a stable installer. A bug in the testing release of the installer that was fixed before it became the stable installer is not likely one that I would have encountered. Sorry I can't be more helpful. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
LXDE - how to set default image viewer?
On Sat, 16 Jul 2016 13:41:01 +, "Markos" wrote: > Hi, > > I'm using Lxde with Debian Jessie. > > I installed Wine and now whenever I try to open an image (png, gif etc.) > the system use Internet Explorer with Wine to open the image. > > How to reconfigure LXDE to use eog or gpicview as default image viewer? > > Thanks, > Markos Have you tried searching the Internet? I typed file extension associations lxde in my browser's search engine and got results that look promising. I don't use lxde myself, so I can't verify if it works. P.S. I apologize for the broken thread. My e-mail client does not appear to provide a way to set the "In-reply-to" header, and I've already deleted your original e-mail. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Sun, Jul 10, 2016, at 03:31, Pascal Hambourg wrote: > > AFAICS, elilo is not available any more in stretch and sid. > I'm sorry to hear that. I don't have any UEFI-based systems right now, so it's not an issue for me -- yet. But it may be someday. On the other hand, CSM-less UEFI systems may fail in the marketplace. There have been attempts in the past to eliminate 16-bit support which failed. We'll just have to wait and see. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016, at 18:25, Brian wrote: > On Sat 09 Jul 2016 at 16:41:24 -0400, Stephen Powell wrote: >> >> Long live choice! > > For choice to exist it does not have to be presented as such in the > installer. > Your point is well taken. The installer does not offer choice in everything, just the big things. A choice of desktop, for example. However, even desktop choice is not presented in the installation steps. It's hidden in installer options. For example, I generally install with expert desktop=xfce and then, if I select "Desktop Environment" in tasksel, I get an xfce desktop instead of a gnome3 desktop. Perhaps the boot loader choice could be handled in a similar fashion. Something like expert desktop=xfce bootloader=lilo with the defaults being gnome3 and grub2, respectively. (Dare I suggest adding initsystem=sysvinit as an option too? No, I better not. I don't want to get that flame war going again.) Peace. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016, at 16:33, Felix Miata wrote: > > All that's well and good, but I see nothing there that equates to my > understanding of the meaning of "editing", which includes removal as well as > appending. Oh, I see what you're saying. Well, the Linux kernel generally does it's own overriding. For example, if the kernel command line contains conflicting options, such as "ro" and "rw", the last one supplied takes precedence. There are some exceptions. For example, if the "console" parameter is specified twice, both consoles are used. But, strictly speaking, you're right. LILO appends options supplied on the command line to options specified in the "append" configuration file statement, it does not replace them. > > What I'd like to find which I've had no luck with so far, is finding a Debian > installer cmdline option to skip the waste of time that is installation of > any bootloader. My disks get generic MBR code and Grub installed by me before > any OS gets installed. Thus, I have no need to see warnings about blocklists > and unreliability from installers trying to do what I don't want or need done If you do the installation in expert mode, you can skip the step to install a boot loader. But that's in interactive mode. I've never done an automated installation, so I don't know what can and cannot be done in that environment. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016, at 16:00, Brian wrote: > > All well and good but the installer inexplicably offers a choice between > GRUB and LILO. The installer manual is unhelpful on which to choose. A > newcomer wouldn't have a clue. We do them no service with this retrograde > offering. Get rid of it. > > What is the point of a choice? Just offer GRUB; it is the bootloader for > Debian and has many advantages over LILO in todayss Linux ecosystem. > People who have a great desire to use LILO can search it out. > > Unmaintained in Debian, The bit-rot starts here. > I am not a member of the Debian installer team, and I am not authorized to speak for them. However, I will make the observation that LILO used to be the default boot loader, indeed the only boot loader at one point, in the Debian installer for i386/amd64. I suspect that LILO has been retained as an option in the Debian installer for that reason. The lilo package is maintained in Debian. It's maintainer is Joachim Wiedorn. He is also the upstream maintainer. He has ceased active development of lilo, but I believe he still accepts bug reports. And if he wants rid of it, I know a couple of people who are interested in taking it over, myself included. So I'm not concerned about it's maintenance status. As long as there are PCs with a BIOS, or a CSM, lilo will remain usable. If the BIOS/CSM goes, lilo goes with it. lilo can't function without a BIOS/CSM. But for UEFI-only systems, there's elilo as a grub alternative. Long live choice! -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Sat, Jul 9, 2016, at 10:53, Felix Miata wrote:
> Stephen Powell composed on 2016-07-09 08:58 (UTC-0400):
>
>> As for features, LILO has all the features that I need.
>
> One feature it never acquired AFAIK, which Grub shares with Syslinux, is the
> ability to edit the kernel cmdline at boot time, before kernel load. With
> problematic hardware, problematic BIOS, and pre-release kernel and distro
> versions, that ability is a big troubleshooting convenience. It's one of the
> features that facilitated my decision to migrate from OS/2 to Linux as
> primary OS.
Not true. I use the traditional text-mode interface of LILO (install=text).
To supply kernel options during boot, press the Shift key (by itself) before
the "delay" timer expires to get a boot prompt ("boot:"). Then type the
label of the kernel you want followed by the desired boot parameters.
For example,
Linux single
to boot the kernel in single-user mode. Or
Linux forcepae
to get a PAE-requiring kernel to boot on a Banias-class Pentium M or
Celeron M processor, if you forgot to specify
append="forcepae"
in /etc/lilo.conf before running lilo. If you can't remember the names of
your kernel labels, press the Tab key at a "boot:" prompt. LILO will
display the names of your kernel labels followed by another "boot:" prompt.
I've never used the menu-based interface of LILO, but I'm sure that there
is a way to supply kernel options at boot time with the menu-based interface
as well.
See my LILO web page at
http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm
for more information.
P.S. I used to use OS/2 as well. But I switched because OS/2, after Warp 4,
was more or less abandoned by IBM. Besides, Linux is free. If I had known
about Linux back then, I would probably have gone straight from DOS to Linux.
--
.''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Thu, Jul 7, 2016, at 20:53, Felix Miata wrote: > Stephen Powell composed on 2016-07-07 20:30 (UTC-0400): > > > If your system has a BIOS and a traditional DOS-style partition table, > > there's no reason not to use LILO, unless you just don't want to. > > Or, if you like to be able to boot without hunting down rescue media even > though you forgot to "rerun" some configuration utility after a kernel > upgrade. Once you understand how Grub's shell works, which includes command > history and tab completion much the same as *ash, it is simple (maybe not so > much in Grub2, which I don't use, as in Grub, which accounts for about 97% of > my bootloader installations). Grub's shell has built-in help. With Grub, > there's no reason to be scared when an expected boot menu doesn't show up. > ... I've been using LILO for about 16 years, and I've never had to use rescue media because I forgot to run lilo. Modern Debian systems make sure that lilo gets run when it needs to be run. As for features, LILO has all the features that I need. Chiefly, it has the feature of being able to load the Linux kernel into storage (and it's initial RAM file system image) and transfer control to it. It does one thing, and it does that one thing very well: it loads the Linux kernel. I believe in the KISS philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid). If you're happy with grub-legacy, great. I'm happy for you. Keep using it. I'm happy with LILO, and I intend to keep using it. And apparently, the OP is happy with LILO too; and there's no reason, at least at this point, why *he* shouldn't keep using it. Inside every large program is a small program struggling to get out -- Hoare's law of large programs. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: reasons to ditch LILO before upgrading to jessie?
On Thu, Jul 7, 2016, at 10:57, Giovanni Gigante wrote: > > At the end, I decided to try the upgrade to jessie with LiLo (24.1) in > place. I thought that the probability of hitting some bug caused by the > interaction between LiLo and the upgraded distribution was less than the > probabily of causing some damage by switching the bootloader (for > example, by messing up the RAID configuration) since I've never > configured Grub before. Also, the golden heuristic of "if it ain't > broke, don't fix it", and the fact that this particular Debian upgrade > is also switching from the init scripts to systemd, so I did not want to > introduce even more changes in the boot process for the moment. > > Apparently, it worked. > I never doubted that it would. I still use LILO with the latest jessie kernels. I maintain a web page for Debian users who use LILO, or who are thinking of switching from GRUB to LILO: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm I don't address the issue of software RAID though. I've never tried it. I have used LILO with hardware RAID. It works just fine. I'm using it right now as I write this. As far as LILO being unmaintained is concerned, I wouldn't be too concerned about that. I've been thinking about offering to maintain it myself. I haven't heard from Joachim lately. Maybe I'll drop him another line. The three main things I like about LILO are (1) I understand how it works, (2) it is easy to configure, and (3) it doesn't use any unallocated sectors. The main limitations to LILO's future viability, as I see it, are UEFI and GPT. LILO is heavily dependent on the traditional BIOS. Most UEFI systems have a CSM to provide a BIOS for forward compatibility, though it is often disabled by default. But some of the newest systems are starting to ship with no CSM. I won't buy one of those as long as I have a choice. And GPT is needed to break the 2 TiB disk size limit. But none of my disks are anywhere near that big. If your system has a BIOS and a traditional DOS-style partition table, there's no reason not to use LILO, unless you just don't want to. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: ssh-ing in inside private network
On Tue, May 31, 2016, at 19:25, Lisi Reisz wrote: > ... > Assuming that sshd is actually running at that stage, which it looks as > though > it isn't > ... Looks as though I've given you mostly information that you don't need. Sorry about that. At the risk of doing so again, here's how you can tell if the ssh daemon is running. Issue ps aux|grep ssh You should see something like the following in the output: root 709 0.0 0.0 10200 3632 ?Ss May24 0:00 /usr/sbin/sshd The thing to look for is "/usr/sbin/sshd". If you don't see it, it's not running. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: ssh-ing in inside private network
On Tue, May 31, 2016, at 15:31, Lisi Reisz wrote: > ... > So I need static IPs fast! > ... (The above was actually quoted from an earlier post). If you want to convert your computers to use static IP addresses, you might want to take a look at the following web page: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/hercules.htm The main subject of the web page is running Debian under Hercules under Debian, which of course you are not interested in. But in the process of documenting that there is a discussion about converting the host system for Hercules to use a static IP address. Using static IP addresses has some little known "gotchas", which are covered above. See the section titled "Networking changes". It also covers switching from network-manager to ifupdown, but if I recall correctly, you've already made that conversion. You might also want to take a look at the section titled "Router reconfiguration". In your case, you probably don't need or want to reconfigure the router, but you might want to get into the reconfiguration screens so that you can find out for sure which addresses are in the router's DHCP pool, so that you can chose a static IP address which is *inside* the router's network but *outside* the DHCP pool. That way, you can be sure that your static IP address will never interfere with what DHCP wants to do. > > Help!! This was the point of the whole exercise. I want CLI only (no X > running) access to the Ubuntu installation on Hermes. > Ubuntu systems usually do not have a password assigned to root. Therefore, you have to use sudo for all administrative work. If you want to *be* root, so that all commands issued run with root privileges, you have to assign a password to root with sudo passwd root I recommend that you ssh into the machine as a non-root user first, then elevate privileges by running a nested root shell via su After you supply the root password, which you just set earlier, your privileges will be escalated to root privileges until you enter the exit command, which will return you to your former non-root self. It is possible to login remotely as root, if the configuration of the host system's ssh server allows it, but "best practices" recommends against it for security reasons. It makes your home network easier to hack. But if you really want to do it, edit the file /etc/ssh/sshd_config. In the # Authentication section, look for Permitrootlogin no and change it to Permitrootlogin yes then bounce the ssh daemon with /etc/init.d/ssh restart As I said, it's not recommended; but it's your gun, your bullet, and your foot! -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Grub won't install
On Wed, May 18, 2016, at 14:57, Marc Shapiro wrote: > > Lilo definitely still works with current kernels. I started out using > lilo 17 or 18 years ago and I am still using it now under Jessie and > kernel vmlinuz-3.16.0-4-amd64. > I maintain a LILO web page for the benefit of Debian users here: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm I use it myself on the latest kernels without difficulty. Many people believe that modern UEFI boards don't have a BIOS for forward compatibility anymore. That may be true in some cases. But in other cases, the use of the "connected standby" feature in UEFI, which is a default setting in many cases, has disabled the Compatibility Support Module (CSM) which provides the BIOS. LILO is not for everyone, but it is still usable in a surprising number of situations. I have a 64-bit machine that is only a couple of years old that uses it. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: What happened to the info tutorial?
On Sat, Apr 16, 2016, at 17:31, Stephen Powell wrote: > The "info" command in jessie has a tutorial which can be accessed by pressing > the "H" key. Oops!, I meant to say the "h" key, not the "H" key. Otherwise, the question remains as written. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
What happened to the info tutorial?
The "info" command in jessie has a tutorial which can be accessed by pressing the "H" key. You must have the texinfo-doc-nonfree package installed for this to work; but if this package is installed, it works. But under stretch, it does not work, even if the texinfo-doc-nonfree package is installed. From the changelogs, it appears that info.info has been removed from the texinfo-doc-nonfree package. Is the tutorial still available in another package? Has upstream deleted the tutorial entirely? Are there any options for those who want to keep the tutorial? What's the scoop on this? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: turning off Google Chrome's warning
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016, at 21:59, Frank McCormick wrote: > > On 21/01/16 09:41 PM, Stephen Powell wrote: >> >> What does chrome give you that chromium does not? > > Nothing that I know of...but I thought that staying with the Google > product is just simpler. I've had chromium on this machine for a little > while and it **seems** to be Chrome in plainer clothes. So I just > might remove google-chrome and live with chromium for now. An install of > 64-bit Debian is not in the cards for now. One thing that chrome gives you that chromium does not is the built-in PPAPI Adobe flash plugin, which you may or may not need or want. But if you do want it or need it, you can install chromium plus pepperflashplugin-nonfree. Unfortunatley, there are no automatic updates. You have to run "update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --status" periodically to check for updates, followed by "update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install" if an update is needed. That does bring up an interesting question though. I believe that "update-pepperflashplugin-nonfree --install" works by downloading the chrome package from google, extracting the built-in pepper flash plugin, then installing the pepper flash plugin into chromium. Will Google stop updating the 32-bit version of the flash plugin contained within the 32-bit version of chrome? I don't know the answer to that one. Note that chromium does support html5, so the need for the flash plugin is not as great as it once was. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: turning off Google Chrome's warning
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016, at 18:55, Frank McCormick wrote: > > Does anyone know how to urn off the warning from Google-Chrome > that comes up every time you go into the browser. The warning is > about Google no longer supporting 32 bit versions as of March. > It's really annoying. > > Thanks > Oops! My original reply went to Frank personally instead of to the list, as I intended. I'm still getting used to this new e-mail client. Anyway, No, I don't. But chromium is still supported, including the 32-bit version, and chromium is open source. Do you really need chrome? What does chrome give you that chromium does not? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@fastmail.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Fri, 25 Dec 2015 10:33:56 -0500 (EST), Stephen Powell wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 10:57:41 -0500 (EST), Nicolas George wrote:
>> ...
>> I noticed that LILO seems to be actually capable
>> of finding the sectors for files on LVM.
>
> In the general case, the sectors of a file on an LVM2 logical volume may
> reside on multiple physical partitions on multiple physical disks. But if
> all of those disks are addressable via the BIOS, and all of the sectors
> are accessible via the BIOS, then it may be theoretically possible for LILO
> to read the map file, the kernel image file, and the initial RAM file system
> image file from an LVM2 logical volume at boot time. I guess I was making
> an implicit assumption that they would all have to be on the same physical
> device. But maybe that's not true. I'll have to look into that.
Looking at the source package for lilo, in src/geometry.c, I find the following:
if (lbm.lv_dev != geo->base_dev)
die("LVM boot LV cannot be on multiple PVs\n");
Therefore, it appears from a cursory examination that an LVM2 logical volume
may be used for /boot if the logical volume maps to a single
physical volume. It is not clear to me from this cursory examination whether
this "physical volume" actually means a partition; or if it means a physical
disk,
which may consist of multiple partitions. In any case, I would not recommend
putting /boot on an LVM2 logical volume. It's just one more layer of
complexity, and one more potential thing to go wrong.
--
.''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 14:44:31 -0500 (EST), Sven Hartge wrote: > > In ye olde days (pre-Windowsm 98) some programs (I think Photoshop did > it.) wrote licence data into that space, because it was unused. The copy > protection scheme of some games also tried to hide information there. > I can think of some other cases. Back in the day when most BIOSes had a head limit of 16, thus limiting the size of a hard disk addressable via BIOS Int 13h functions 02h and 03h to 504MiB, programs such as Ontrack Disk Manager could be installed to circumvent this restriction. They would hook the BIOS to increase the head limit to 255. I believe this was accomplished by putting the BIOS hook program in the boot sector and moving the original boot sector to the second sector (CHS value 0:0:2). Also, in the days of IBM 386 microchannel machines, such as the IBM PS/2 model 70, IBM sold a memory board that initialized after POST by using a similar boot hook. Around that same time period, Novell Netware was known to also use an unallocated sector, perhaps for licensing, copy protection, etc. These schemes all conflicted with each other of course. As I say in my lilo web page, there are no rules for the use of unallocated sectors. And grub-legacy and grub-pc (by default at least) now do a similar thing. They store information in unallocated sectors. That's one of the reasons (but not the only reason) that I switched back to LILO. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Tue, 22 Dec 2015 10:57:41 -0500 (EST), Nicolas George wrote: > > What you write is slightly inaccurate. The core of your inaccuracy is this: > LILO does not use the BIOS to read FILES, but SECTORS. How to map files to > sectors is entirely LILO's problem. That depends on your point of view. To lilo's map installer (the lilo command that runs at a Linux shell prompt) they are files. The LILO boot loader itself reads an ordered list of sectors created for it by the map installer. But it is still a file. If what you mean is that the LILO boot loader, at boot time, cannot determine which sectors to read based on examining the file system structures, then yes, that is true. > > IIRC, the mapping is computed when (re)installing LILO on the boot-sector > and hard-coded in the boot-sector itself, with one level of indirection (the > map file). After a quick glance at the sources, it uses the FIBMAP ioctl and > various others to ask the kernel the blocks used by a file and converts to > sectors. At the same time, I noticed that LILO seems to be actually capable > of finding the sectors for files on LVM. In the general case, the sectors of a file on an LVM2 logical volume may reside on multiple physical partitions on multiple physical disks. But if all of those disks are addressable via the BIOS, and all of the sectors are accessible via the BIOS, then it may be theoretically possible for LILO to read the map file, the kernel image file, and the initial RAM file system image file from an LVM2 logical volume at boot time. I guess I was making an implicit assumption that they would all have to be on the same physical device. But maybe that's not true. I'll have to look into that. > > I have not read this thread carefully, so maybe it has already been > addressed, but all this suggest that the OP should install GRUB instead of > LILO and be done with that kind of trouble. As subsequent posts have indicated, the trouble was with an incorrect UUID. It had nothing to do with the OP's choice of boot loader. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 10:36:48 -0500 (EST), David Baron wrote: > > On Monday 21 December 2015 10:25:15 Stephen Powell wrote: >> >> Obviously, the LILO map file is on the IDE drive. Is your /boot partition >> on the IDE drive? If so, you cannot remove it. The /boot partition must >> be a partition on a physical drive, but obviously it cannot be on the drive >> that you want to remove. > > The boot is not a separate partition but is a directory on the root so > travels with it. Copy on both old and new directories. No, that won't work. If the root filesystem is an LVM2 logical volume, then /boot *cannot* be part of the root filesystem. To be more rigorous, there will be a /boot directory in the / filesystem, but it must be an *empty* directory, so that another filesystem can be mounted on that directory. Another filesystem must get mounted on the /boot directory in the root filesystem, and that filesystem must be made on a partition of a *real* disk which is accessible via the BIOS. It cannot be an LVM2 logical volume. The boot partition contains the LILO map file (by default, /boot/map) as well as the kernel image file and the initial RAM filesystem image file. LILO reads these files at boot time via BIOS calls, and the BIOS does not support LVM2 logical volumes. You can have a physical disk with two partitions on it, one partition of which is an LVM2 physical volume which is part of an LVM2 logical volume, and the other one of which is a stand-alone partition which is mounted on /boot. But the filesystem which gets mounted on /boot must *not* be an LVM2 logical volume. I thought I made that clear before. Also, the LILO boot sector must be either on the MBR of a *real* disk, or the first sector of a partition on a *real* disk. > > The loop that I get is something more problematic. Agreed. As I said before, there is probably something missing from the initial RAM file system that needs to be there for the kernel to mount an LVM2 logical volume.
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 10:31:54 -0500 (EST), Lisi Reisz wrote: > > Could he not dd them onto another drive? > ... He can copy the /boot data to another drive, not necessarily with dd. In fact, if he wants to be able to remove the existing IDE drive, he must. But he cannot copy it to an LVM2 logical volume. The data in /boot (after copying) must be on a partition on a physical disk which is accessible via the BIOS and not on the old IDE drive which he wishes to remove. The / filesystem can be an LVM2 logical volume, provided the initial RAM filesystem contains sufficient files to mount an LVM2 logical volume, but the filesystem which gets mounted on /boot must be made on a partition of a *real* disk which is not scheduled to be removed from the system.
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 15:43:54 -0500 (EST), David Baron wrote: > > Repeat: NO LV's Oh. Sorry. Looking back over the thread, I guess I got the idea from Anders Andersson that you were using LVM2 logical volumes. My mistake. Yes, if / is a partition on a real disk, then /boot can be part of the same filesystem. I've been on the wrong track for several posts now. Please excuse the noise. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Mon, 21 Dec 2015 04:50:00 -0500 (EST), David Baron wrote: > > Went through all the motions, both ways: On native and chroot. Results were > the same. Get in that loop of lv not ready messages. Difference: Native > attempt still needs the IDE plugged in or I get 99 99 99 ... , chroot does > not. > > So, what do I do next? Obviously, the LILO map file is on the IDE drive. Is your /boot partition on the IDE drive? If so, you cannot remove it. The /boot partition must be a partition on a physical drive, but obviously it cannot be on the drive that you want to remove. The "volume not ready" messages would indicate that LVM2, or some file(s) needed by it, are not included in the initial RAM file system.
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Sun, 20 Dec 2015 15:51:22 -0500 (EST), David Baron wrote: > > So ... do I need the chroot and the binds and all this at all? That's the recommended way. Make sure that the edited copies of /etc/lilo.conf, /etc/fstab, and /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume, in the chrooted environment, all make sense for the new setup, especially the "boot" and "root" configuration file records in /etc/lilo.conf. /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume must specify the UUID of the swap partition. I have another web page that may be helpful to you. It shows an example of copying a root file system for a virtual machine running under z/VM in the s390x environment. That is not your situation, of course; but portions of it are applicable to your environment. You may be able to separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out what applies to your situation and what doesn't. Then again, it may only confuse you. So I give you the link with some hesitation. The parts that apply are the copying of the file system(s), and setting up the chroot environment. I hope it does more good than harm. Here it is: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/diag250.htm The s390x environment uses a boot loader called zIPL, not LILO; but zIPL's design is similar to LILO in that it does not understand the structure of a Linux file system. It simply reads a predetermined list of blocks from the file system at boot time. Also note that /boot must not use the btrfs filesystem. This is an undocumented restriction for both zIPL and LILO. I recommend ext2 for /boot. (If the partition size is small enough, you pretty much have to use ext2. ext3 and ext4 require a journal, and that in turn requires a certain minimum partition size.) Good luck.
Re: Attempt to Move Root
On Sun, 20 Dec 2015 05:58:47 -0500 (EST), David Baron wrote: > > OK, mounted newrootpartition newroot > Did a cp -x / newroot > Successful so far, elementary > > Edited newroot/etc/fstab and newroot/etc/lilo.conf to point root to > newrootpartition (by uuid) > > mount --bind /dev newroot/dev > mount --bind /proc newroot/proc > as instructed in various posts, to enable lilo to run. > > chroot newroot > lilo ... > > Looked successful. Umounted everything and reboot. > > Get boot menu (congratulations !?). > Chose the kernel. > > Now got that lvm not ready business.. I usually get this once and then > normally boot up. Now getting it over and again. BTW, if I control/C a few > times, I end up inside initramfs>. > > Put up the live DVD, regenerated the initramfs, but ... no change. > Put up the live DVD, mounted the old root partition, went through the lilo > process and back up. > > So ... how do I do this?? I have several thoughts. First of all, the right way to copy the root filesystem under these conditions is cp -a -x /. newroot That period after the forward slash is important! Second, make sure that the initial RAM filesystem contains everything needed to initialize a logical volume. If you make a logical volume the root filesystem in the Debian installer, the Debian installer *should* do whatever is necessary to make sure that everything needed to mount a logical volume gets included in the initial RAM filesystem. I've never tried to do this, so I can't give you a list of what files will be needed. You can examine an existing inital RAM filesystem to see what files are included by using lsinitramfs. Third, although it is possible to make a logical volume the root filesystem, /boot must not be part of this filesystem. It must be a separate partition on a physical volume. (Furthermore, it must be a separate partition that is accessible via the BIOS.) The same goes for the boot sector. (The "boot" configuration record in /etc/lilo.conf.) Usually, this is the first sector on the /boot partition or else the master boot record. And if it is not the master boot record, then a generic MBR boot loader program must be installed in the MBR and the /boot partition must be on that physical disk, and it must be marked active in the partition table (and all other partitions marked inactive). Finally, make sure that the BIOS is actually booting from this physical disk. Although the specific subject of using an LVM2 logical volume as the root filesystem is not specifically covered, you may find some useful lilo tidbits on my lilo web page: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/lilo.htm Finally, make sure that there are no duplicate UUIDs in the system that might confuse the kernel during boot.
Re: My web site is back
On Tue, 08 Dec 2015 18:55:43 -0500 (EST), Gener Badenas wrote: > > How much is the hosting now and with whom? $48 for hosting, $9.00 for domain registration, total $57. Good for one year. I'll have to pay again next year. I decided to go with debian-hosting.info. So far, I haven't yet figured out how to upload files via their control panel, but the account comes with FTP service, so I was able to upload my files via FTP. By the way, I have no business interest in debian-hosting.info, other than being one of their newest customers.
My web site is back
Old site: h t t p : / / u s e r s . w o w w a y . c o m / ~ z l i n u x m a n / New site: http://www.stevesdebianstuff.org/ If you have bookmarks set for the old site you should update your bookmarks. Some pages from the old site are not on the new site because I judged them to be obsolete.
Re: My web site is back
On Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:36:44 -0500 (EST), Martin Read wrote: > On 08/12/15 16:58, Darac Marjal wrote: >> >> To which, the venerable W3C replied "Cool URIs don't change": >> http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html > > Your criticism is invalid, given that the action that has clearly been > taken here is "change my URIs so that in future they're under a domain I > control instead of a domain someone *else* controls". > > (Also, given the behaviour of search engines, "Pretty much the only good > reason for a document to disappear from the Web is that the company > which owned the domain name went out of business or can no longer afford > to keep the server running." is a beautiful theoretical principle with > no grounding in practicality.) Actually, I didn't change my web site name for either reason. I changed it because my ISP decided to discontinue their web hosting service. (Or maybe they just decided to discontinue their *free* web hosting service provided to *home* users of their cable modem internet connectivity. They may still provide a *for charge* web hosting service to their *business* customers. I wouldn't know.) In any case, they "pulled the plug" on me. I now pay for a web hosting service that I used to get free. But I will admit that the new URL is more "cool" than the old one. :-)
Re: [OT] Soliciting Advice on e-mail and web-hosting providers
On Sat, 28 Nov 2015 10:15:08 -0500 (EST), mister s jones wrote: > On Saturday, November 28, 2015 09:49:47 Stephen Powell wrote: >> So, does anyone wish to share their experiences, good or bad? Is there >> anyone you wish to recommend? Is there anyone you want to warn me to stay >> away from? All opinions are welcome. > > I personally have been here for years and I like them > > http://debian-hosting.info/ > > Prices are reasonable and service has been great. I checked out their web site, and they seem like a good outfit. But I must admit, I'm totally lost. Allow me to explain. My old web site was pure HTML. No ASP, no PHP, no SQL. It's just pure information, with some links for downloading files. I'm not a business trying to set up a web site so that customers can order stuff from me. I just want to publish free information for the public. It's mostly tech stuff about Debian. When I created my old web site, All I did to manage it was use FTP to upload and download files. By convention, the home page was "index.htm". Any other pages could be linked to from that page. The only thing that I would like to change is to use SSL-encrypted FTP, so that my password won't be sent over the network in clear text. I must admit that I don't understand this brave new world of web hosting. Looking at debian-hosting's web site, I'm totally lost as to how I would mangage my account. What I'm looking for is something similar to what I had before. Is there anything like that out there? Or can I manage a debian-hosting account that way?
Re: [OT] Soliciting Advice on e-mail and web-hosting providers
On Sat, 05 Dec 2015 18:43:13 -0500 (EST), Lisi Reisz wrote: > > I ma assuming (or subconsciously remembering) that you are in the USA. Is > that correct? Hi, Lisi. Yes, that's correct. I hope you won't hold that against me. :-) Wow used to offer free web hosting to subscribers to their cable modem internet service. They decided to withdraw that service, so I'm looking for a new web-hosting service for my web site. If I can get it free, that's great; but I'm not willing for anyone to run ads on my site.
Re: OT: reply styles, family matters
On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 20:31:29 -0500 (EST), Bob Bernstein wrote: > ... > With that as background, here is my question/request: is anyone > aware of a spirited defence of our ideal method of "selective > quoting," (for lack of a better label) one, say, that perhaps > has achieved the status of a "net classic?" Surely some 'net > genius has dealt these nay-sayers, who seem to LIKE top-posting, > a solid uppercut? How about this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style ?
[OT] Soliciting Advice on e-mail and web-hosting providers
I currently get my internet connectivity, e-mail service, and web-hosting service from the same provider. I recently complained to my ISP about backscatter SPAM I was getting from other people's infected machines that were sending out SPAM to invalid e-mail addresses and spoofing me as the sender. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spoofing and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_(email) for good articles about these subjects.) Their response was to suspend my e-mail access and delete my web site! I finally got my e-mail access back, but my web site is still down. This experience has convinced me that tying my e-mail and web-hosting to my ISP is a bad idea. The two extra services are free to subscribers to their internet access service, but I don't want problems in one area to adversely affect the other areas. Clearly that is not the case now. So I am looking for a good e-mail provider and a good web-hosting provider. For the e-mail service I want a provider that has good protection against backscatter SPAM, provides a web-based e-mail client, and does not force me to view tons of ads in order to get to their web-mail client. I want all transmission of credentials, particularly passwords, passed between the client and the server, to be encrypted, not sent across the network in clear text, where a sniffer operating in promiscuous mode could intercept them. I also want the e-mail provider to work well with Debian mailing lists. (I have heard, for example, that when gmail users post to a list to which they are subscribed they do not receive copies of their own posts.) For web-hosting, I am looking for one which allows me to upload and download web pages and other files to my site via SSL-encrypted FTP, whether implicit or explicit SSL I don't care, so that passwords sent across the internet cannot be intercepted by a sniffer. Obviously, low cost is important too. I'm not a business. My web site is providing a public service for free. There are no ads on my web site, and there is no money coming in to pay for the web hosting. Another important consideration is that I don't want the service provider, e-mail or web-hosting, selling information about me to anyone. So, does anyone wish to share their experiences, good or bad? Is there anyone you wish to recommend? Is there anyone you want to warn me to stay away from? All opinions are welcome.
Re: How to identify obsolete packages
On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 13:27:19 -0400 (EDT), Jude DaShiell wrote: > > I get aptitude to resolve recommended upgrades just by using the -r > switch on the command line. There's probably a way to do that using > g.u.i. but don't know that one yet. It's been a while now, but IIRC, this works for install but not for safe-upgrade or full-upgrade. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: How to identify obsolete packages (was: Anybody know why aptitude is not installed by default in Sid?)
On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 10:38:48 -0400 (EDT), "Reco" wrote: > On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 10:29:48 -0400 (EDT), Stephen Powell wrote: >> Does anyone know an easy way to identify obsolete packages without >> using aptitide? > > deborphan --guess-all According to the documentation for deborphan, "deborphan finds packages that have no packages depending on them ...". That's not what I want. What I want is a list of installed packages that are not listed in any repository found in /etc/apt/sources.list. This is what aptitude refers to as "Obsolete or Locally Created Packages". As an example, lilo has no packages depending on it; but it is included in Debian stretch, which is listed in /etc/apt/sources.list. Therefore, by aptitude's definition of obsolete, lilo is not obsolete. On the other hand, libapt-pkg4.12, which still exists in jessie, was recently removed from stretch. Therefore, for stretch systems, libapt-pkg4.12, though it may be installed by reason of a migration from jessie, is classified as obsolete. It is installed, but it is no longer installable from the Debian archive. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
[SOLVED] How to identify obsolete packages
On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 11:28:26 -0400 (EDT), Kamaraju Kusumanchi wrote: > > Here is one way. > > To identify packages that are no longer present in the archive > > % apt-show-versions -r . | grep "No available version in archive" That's what I'm talking about! Thanks! (Although it does require the installation of another package: apt-show-versions.) I'm curious, though. Do you use the C shell? Or did you just customize your prompt? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
How to identify obsolete packages (was: Anybody know why aptitude is not installed by default in Sid?)
On Sat, 31 Oct 2015 07:38:25 -0400 (EDT), Chris Bannister wrote: > > Oh great! They've fixed it. I hated having to "dpkg --purge aptitude" > after a new installation. If you want extra packages, it's just an > apt-get install step away. I used to use aptitude; but I've switched back to using apt, mainly because apt-get resolves "Recommends" dependencies during an upgrade while aptitude does not. But there is one thing that I like about aptitude that, if I could get equivalent functionality out of apt, I might not bother to install aptitude. aptitude, when run with no parameters, provides a full-screen interface. This full-screen interface lists package categories which can be expanded. One category in particular is of interest to me: "Obsolete and Locally Created Packages". By expanding this category, I can identify obsolete packages. (An obsolete package, by definition, is an installed package which no longer exists in the Debian archive.) 99% of the time, an obsolete package is one that I wish to purge. I've seen cases where packages are held back during "apt-get --purge dist-upgrade" processing until these obsolete packages are purged. But I have not found a way to easily identify obsolete packages using apt. There is an "autoremove" option on apt-get to remove packages which were automatically installed but which are no longer required by any installed package. But that is different. That's not the same thing as an obsolete package. An obsolete package may have been manually installed, but it's still obsolete, and I need to be able to identify it as such. Does anyone know an easy way to identify obsolete packages without using aptitide? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: RealTek RTL8192EU drivers
On Thu, 29 Oct 2015 15:43:51 -0400 (EDT), Jose Martinez wrote: > > I sure appreciate the info. The internal B43 wireless on my laptop does > not play nicely with the b43legacy driver and locks up fairly > frequently, and has limited data rates. (the b43 driver doesn't work at > all). This seems to be a pretty common problem, as I've run across it > mentioned on several sites. So, I thought I'd get something that was > less problematic.alas and alack the solution seems to have its own > issues!! In Debian, the driver and the firmware are separate. Make sure you have the firmware installed also. Usually, you can detect missing firmware with dmesg|less and search for the string "firmware" (without the quotes). See if there are any error messages regarding the attempt to load firmware. You will need Debian package firmware-b43legacy-installer or firmware-b43-installer, depending on which chipset is built in. firmware-b43legacy-installer is needed for chipsets BCM4301, BCM4306/2, or BCM4306. firmware-b43-installer is used for chipets BCM4306/3, BCM4311, BCM4318, BCM4321, BCM4322 (only 14e4:432b), or BCM4312 (with Low-Power a.k.a. LP-PHY). Make sure that you have the contrib and the non-free sections of the archive enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list, as this involves non-free stuff. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: RealTek RTL8192EU drivers
On Tue, 27 Oct 2015 20:24:07 -0400 (EDT), Jose Martinez wrote: > > I recently purchased a USB wifi adapter which has a RealTek RTL8192EU > chip (ID 0bda:818b) in it. A CD came with the wifi adapter which had > drivers for Windows (which worked properly) and purports to have linux > drivers as well. Of course the linux driver has to be compiled. > Following their instructions, and using their install.sh shell script, I > attempted to compile and install the driver. Unfortunately, the > compilation failed (attached is a copy of the output from the > compilation run). I am running Debian 8.2 with kernel 3.16 (sometimes > 4.2, though 4.2 seems to have some issues that 3.16 doesn't, but that is > another conversation). I have all the headers installed and can compile > the kernel successfully on the system, so I'm sure it's not a matter of > missing headers/source information. Any assistance, either to get the > distributed driver to compile, or to obtain a driver that does compile > would be greatly appreciated. I found this: http://askubuntu.com/questions/619840/rtl8192eu-driver-does-not-work This is for Ubuntu, not Debian; but perhaps it can be adapted for Debian. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
[SOLVED] [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 04:15:21 -0400 (EDT), Jochen Spieker wrote: > > It looks like the mail was delivered directly through > smtp02.wow.cmh.synacor.com by a user who successfully authenticated > using the username thecoughingcanary. On Wed, 14 Oct 2015 05:04:55 -0400 (EDT), Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote: > > Your mails all have > > X-Authed-Username: emxpbnV4bWFuQHdvd3dheS5jb20= > > The one to aol.com has > > X-Authed-Username: dGhlY291Z2hpbmdjYW5hcnlAd293d2F5LmNvbQ== > > so did not come from your account. > > Someone has access (legitimately or not) to the second account and is > sending mails with a forged envelope From. Your only recourse is to > present the evidence to the ISP and let them deal with it. Thank you, Jochen and Brian, that is exactly the kind of information I was looking for. I now know that my e-mail account has not been hacked, just spoofed. I will report this to my ISP. Thanks to all who participated in this thread. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:22:34 -0400 (EDT), Andrew McGlashan wrote: > > On 13/10/2015 7:15 PM, Jochen Spieker wrote: >> Stuart Longland: I had a similar case on my self-administered mail >> host. A friend of mine has an account there and random hosts from >> all over the world used his credentials to send legitimately >> looking spam. We never found out how this happened but changing the >> password was enough to make it stop. > > Odds on it was open WiFi somewhere, people trust public WiFi ... I > cannot understand why. It is patently stupid [or ignorant at best] to > use public [or otherwise open] WiFi -- if you don't run it yourself or > you totally trust the person whom is running it, then leave it alone. That may have been the case for Stuart's friend, but it is not the case with me. I use only wired ethernet. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 22:09:53 -0400 (EDT), Stuart Longland wrote: > > This isn't level 1 helpdesk material, you'll actually need a technical > contact there. Their level 1 help desk isn't much help anyway, if you're a Linux user. The last time I called their level 1 help desk for technical support, the conversation went something like this: Me: I'm having an internet connectivity problem. I can't Them: What release of Windows are you running? Me: I don't run Windows; I run Linux. Them: I'm sorry, sir, we don't support Linux. Me: This is not a Linux problem. This is an internet connectivity problem. I can't ... Them: I'm sorry, sir, we don't support Linux. Is there anything else we can help you with today, sir? Me: No, I don't think so. And that was that. They'll gladly take the money of a Linux user. But if you have problems, you're on your own. That was a few years ago. Maybe it's better now. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 18:57:58 -0400 (EDT), Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote: > > The comment was a general one and directed at all our readers. However, > earlier you said "Someone discovered my password somehow". You have > just demolished that guess as having no basis as a likely cause. Likely, no, but still possible. For example, when I update my web pages, I use my ISP's FTP server. Suppose someone else on my ISP's subnet has a network sniffer in promiscuous mode. The FTP server uses ordinary unencrypted FTP. The userid and password are sent in clear text. I wish they had an FTPS server, but the last time I checked, they didn't. I use e-mail solely through a web-based e-mail client. When I login, I don't know if the password is sent in clear text over the network or not. That being said, if my password was obtained in this manner, I don't have much of a defense against it. If I change my password, they can get the new one the same way as they got the old one. Another possibility is a malicious web site that I may have unknowingly visited that managed to find a password in memory, a cookie, etc. So despite all the precautions that I have taken, it is still possible for a password to be "discovered". Having said that, it looks like someone else's credentials may have been used, based on some other posts to this thread. But I am not an expert in these matters. That's why I asked for help. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Mon, 12 Oct 2015 12:36:27 -0400 (EDT), Brian <a...@cityscape.co.uk> wrote: > > I tend to think passwords (except the very simplest or guessable ones) > are not "discovered" but handed over. 1. My password is known only to me. Even my wife doesn't know it. 2. My password is a random sequence of uppercase and lowercase letters. It is not a pronounceable word, and it is fairly long. 3. I use e-mail only from my home computer. 4. I use wired ethernet only 5. I never respond to the (almost daily) phishing attacks designed to coax my password out of me. 6. My wife and I are empty nesters. There is no-one else at home. In short, I have not "handed it over". -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 02:36:46 -0400 (EDT), Jimmy Johnson wrote: > > Looks like it was mailed from MS Windows. Maybe mailed from a Windows > OS with a virus. Do you run Windows too? No, I don't. There is no computer connected to my home network that even has Windows installed. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Tue, 13 Oct 2015 04:15:21 -0400 (EDT), Jochen Spieker wrote: > > Stuart Longland: >> On 13/10/15 09:58, Stephen Powell wrote: >>> >>> Unfortunately, I don't. Attached below is one of the mail delivery >>> failure notices, which includes the headers of the original message. >>> But I don't understand what it all means. > … >>> Authentication-Results: smtp02.wow.cmh.synacor.com >>> smtp.user=thecoughingcanary; auth=pass (LOGIN) >>> >> Not sure about this one. > > It looks like the mail was delivered directly through > smtp02.wow.cmh.synacor.com by a user who successfully authenticated > using the username thecoughingcanary. > > @Stephen: is that you? No. My id on this mail server is "zlinuxman". I have no idea who "thecoughingcanary" is. Nor do I understand why the SMTP server would allow "thecoughingcanary" to send out e-mails in my name, unless "thecoughingcanary" is an administrator account. > Who runs this mail service? Wide Open West, or "Wow!" as they market themselves. http://wowway.net/ It's basically a cable TV company. I have a bundle of cable, internet, and phone service from them. They provide free e-mail and a free web-hosting service to all who subscribe to their internet service. My connectivity is through a cable modem which they provide. I have my own wired ethernet router connected to it, and my computers connect to that. > > If this is not your > username, you might want to contact the people who run the service and > have them reset the user's password. I may do that. But first, I have to be sure that I know what I'm talking about. They will probably try to avoid blame if they can. It's human nature. > > I had a similar case on my self-administered mail host. A friend of mine > has an account there and random hosts from all over the world used his > credentials to send legitimately looking spam. We never found out how > this happened but changing the password was enough to make it stop. Of course, changing my own password won't help if they authenticated via "thecoughingcanary". Are you sure that the credentials of "thecoughingcanary" were used to send the e-mails? If it was my credentials which were used, then I need to know that, and I need to know how my password was obtained and plug that leak. Otherwise, they will obtain the new password the same way that they obtained the old one, and I'll be right back to square one. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
[OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
About a week ago, I discovered hundreds of "mail delivery failure" messages in my inbox. Investigation revealed that they were all for SPAM e-mails that I did not send. I am guessing that this means one of two things: (1) Someone discovered my password somehow, logged into my ISP account as me, and sent out a bunch of SPAM. Or (2) Someone sent out a bunch of SPAM, spoofing my e-mail address as the sender, and the delivery failures came to me. How can I tell which is the case, and if it's (2), is there anything I can do to defend myself against this sort of thing in the future? (I do know enough not to respond in any way to the almost-daily phishing attacks that try to get me to supply my userid and password. I have never responded to any of them.) I am running Debian stretch; but of course I realize that this question is not, strictly speaking, a Debian question; so I have marked it off-topic. But I suspect that it is of interest to users of this list, since this list is accessed via e-mail. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: [OT] Has my e-mail account been hacked?
On Mon, 12 Oct 2015 16:53:05 -0400 (EDT), Stuart Longland wrote: > > I'd check the backscatter case, as this requires no skill on the part of > the attacker and is the most likely case. > ... > It's worth knowing how to read the headers of emails in this > circumstance as it can give you vital information for knowing what is > going on. Unfortunately, I don't. Attached below is one of the mail delivery failure notices, which includes the headers of the original message. But I don't understand what it all means. Perhaps you or someone else out there can make some sense of it and advise me accordingly. Remember, I never sent the original e-mail. I just got the delivery failure notice. - This message was created automatically by the mail system (ecelerity). A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: >>> zerrie...@aol.com (after RCPT TO): 550 5.1.1 <zerrie...@aol.com>: Recipient >>> address rejected: aol.com -- This is a copy of the headers of the original message. -- Return-Path: <zlinux...@wowway.com> X_CMAE_Category: , , X-CNFS-Analysis: v=2.1 cv=eaKdB+wH c=1 sm=1 tr=0 a=FxXVyIFnAocEnA08ajU80w==:117 a=FxXVyIFnAocEnA08ajU80w==:17 a=K-v-2zaB:8 a=QP5IY3kg:8 a=ZhWb6TEz:8 a=kj9zAlcOel0A:10 a=op2l2dobe8TBvKaan4QA:9 a=qSf3gRf-E_nrW77P:21 a=Nputykdsa0hyqt36:21 a=CjuIK1q_8ugA:10 X-CM-Score: 0 X-Scanned-by: Cloudmark Authority Engine X-Authed-Username: dGhlY291Z2hpbmdjYW5hcnlAd293d2F5LmNvbQ== X_CMAE_Category: , , X-CNFS-Analysis: X-CM-Score: X-Scanned-by: Cloudmark Authority Engine Authentication-Results: smtp02.wow.cmh.synacor.com smtp.user=thecoughingcanary; auth=pass (LOGIN) Received: from [69.73.17.154] ([69.73.17.154:57886] helo=46MmPDFcgl13022) by smtp.mail.wowway.com (envelope-from <zlinux...@wowway.com>) (ecelerity 3.6.1.42806 r(Platform:3.6.1.1)) with ESMTPA id 54/A2-15401-2D8D4165; Wed, 07 Oct 2015 04:33:28 -0400 Reply-To: <shoprecruite...@oath.com> Message-ID: <54.a2.15401.2d8d4...@smtp02.wow.cmh.synacor.com> From: "SSN"<zlinux...@wowway.com> To: shoprecruite...@oath.com Subject: - Welcome: Mystery Shopper's 2015 - Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2015 19:18:16 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1081 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1081 -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Broadcom 4311 network adapter doesn't work under Jessie (was debian-user-digest Digest V2015 #1143)
On Wed, 23 Sep 2015 08:23:39 -0400 (EDT), Edward Lukacs wrote: > > Oh, yes ... I can't get the ... Broadcom 4311 internal card > running under Jessie. ... Strange, but up to and including Ubuntu > 10.04, it ran right out of the box without any fuss ... Sounds like missing firmware. Do you have the non-free and contrib sections of the Debian archive enabled in /etc/apt/sources.list? Do you have Debian package firmware-b43-installer installed? After installing it, and rebooting, issue dmesg|less and search for the string "firmware" to see if the firmware loaded properly this time, and to see if there are any other missing firmware files for other hardware that requires firmware. By the way, please choose a more appropriate subject line in your posts to this list. It's more likely to get attention that way. I am CCing you because the subject line implies that you are not subscribed to the main list. Please do not CC me back; just reply to the list, since I am subscribed to the list. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: debian8 & graphics
On Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:53:23 -0400 (EDT), Rick McDaniel wrote:
>
> I loved Debian 8. I tried to install it on several Desktops & laptops.
> I gave up on the laptops & 2 of the desktops because i could not get
> the graphics 2 work. Spent days & read everything i could & followed
> directions to the letter & know what? I gave up. Hate to admit it.
> Yeah, they were old machines, but so what? I have come to the
> conclusion that you Debian's don't want your software to become
> main stream. I guess you want to feel superior & exclusive.
> You win. I will find another distro. Advice. Make it easier for
> people with legacy NVIDIA or ATI graphics to install.
> Goodby
Why didn't you ask for help on this list? You obviously know about the
list, or you couldn't have made this post. And if you did ask for help
and no useful replies were received, I'm sure you would have complained
about it in this post. You didn't, which leads me to surmise that you
did not ask for help. I'm an experienced Debian user. But I need help
sometimes. And when I do, I ask for it. And when I do, I usually
get it. There is usually someone who knows the answer and is willing to
help. There are no guarantees, of course; but it's worth a shot.
Advice: ask for help before you give up. I have some old machines myself.
One of them has an ATI Rage XL and the other an Nvidia RIVA TNT2. They
both run Debian. The machine with the Nvidia card runs Debian 8. The
machine with the ATI card used to run Debian 8, but now runs what will
become Debian 9. Perhaps I could have been one of those who might have
provided some help. But you've given up without asking for help, so that
will not happen.
--
.''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
Re: Compiling coreutils from source
On Thu, 17 Sep 2015 06:04:03 -0400 (EDT), Florian Pelgrim wrote: > > I'm trying to static linking the coreutils. But for some reasons it > fails with a cryptic bug for me. > > For building I'm using the vagrant box deb/jessie-amd64. So anyone who > is interested can reproduce it. > > I have done the following steps: > $ apt-get source coreutils > $ cd coreutils-8.23/ > $ export CFLAGS="-static -O2 -g" > $ ./configure > $ make > > And ended up whit this error: > /usr/bin/ld: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-linux-gnu/4.9/crtbeginT.o: relocation > R_X86_64_32 > against `__TMC_END__' can not be used when making a shared object; > recompile with -fPIC I don't pretend to understand the make process well enough to explain why you got the error that you did. What I can tell you is that, in the past, I have been successful with making local modifications to the coretuils package by following a procedure similar to the following: apt-get source coreutils rm coreutils_* cd coreutils-8.23 . . make local modifications . dpkg-buildpackage -b -uc -rfakeroot Once quirk of the build process for this package is that you use fakeroot debian/rules clean1 to do a clean, rather than the usual fakeroot debian/rules clean I don't know if this helps or not. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Mon, 07 Sep 2015 18:08:05 -0400 (EDT), Bob Bernstein wrote: > > What a great contribution! > > My null-modem cable ought to still be around here somewhere! > > :-) I try to focus on the latest technology. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Mon, 07 Sep 2015 09:56:12 -0400 (EDT), David Parker wrote: > > Thanks for all the clarification. I now find myself in need of doing this > again on another server running Jessie, and I just want to make sure I'm > clear on what the best procedure is. > ... I just finished updating my web page to reflect the new information. Once again, go to http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/serial.htm Make sure that you press F5 to refresh the page (or whatever your browser's refresh key is), since an old version of the page may be in your browser's cache if you've looked at it recently. Then read the new instructions for enabling a serial terminal under systemd. If you then have any questions, please post a follow-up. Sven and Michael, please review this also and correct me if I made a mistake. I do not want to publish bad advice. Regards, -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Mon, 07 Sep 2015 11:47:56 -0400 (EDT), Sven Hartge wrote: > > Looks fine, from a cursory glance. > > Maybe you can add a section about using > >"systemctl cat serial-getty@ttyS0.service" > > to verfiy that the override.conf has been > read successfully after "systemctl daemon-reload". Done. Refresh the page and see if that's what you had in mind. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Sun, 06 Sep 2015 16:06:35 -0400 (EDT), Michael Biebl wrote: > Am 06.09.2015 um 21:04 schrieb Stephen Powell: >> ... >>[Service] >>ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty -8 --noclear %I 38400 ibm3151 >> >> But when I restart the service, I get the following error: >> >> systemd[1]: serial-getty@ttyS0.service: Service has more than one ExecStart= >> setting, which is only allowed for Type=oneshot services. Refusing. >> >> I want to override "ExecStart", not add a new one. What am I doing wrong? > > By default, systemd will simply merge all drop-ins. > In your case, ExecStart is a setting which can not be specified more > then once. So you need to "clear" it first. The following should do the > trick: > > [Service] > ExecStart= > ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty -8 --noclear %I 38400 ibm3151 > > > The "ExecStart=" resets the existing setting. > > ... That works. This is definitely a better solution than copying serial-getty@.service from /lib/systemd/system to /etc/systemd/system and then editing the copy in /etc/systemd/system to change the ExecStart value. It is better for two reasons: (1) When systemd is serviced, I don't need to recopy and reedit the file in order to keep my changes synced up with changes to the file made by service to systemd. (2) It allows two different serial ports to have different ExecStart values for two different terminal types, for example. Using my original method, both serial ports would be locked into the same terminal type. I shall change my documentation accordingly. Thanks, Michael and Sven for your suggestions and help. Regards, -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Screen goes blank after "EDID checksum is invalid" errors
On Sun, 06 Sep 2015 05:45:30 -0400 (EDT), Johannes Bauer wrote: > > [drm:drm_edid_block_valid] *ERROR* EDID checksum is invalid, remainder is 43 Some monitors have invalid EDID checksums. Blame the manufacturer. Windows is more tolerant of EDID checksum errors than Linux is. If switching monitors solves your problem, then a bona fide EDID checksum error in the hardware is probably to blame. If you're willing to build a custom kernel, you may be able to circumvent the problem by applying a patch. See my kernel-building web page: http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/Kernel.htm In "Step 7: Patch the kernel", there is a specific example of how to apply this patch. Basically, it allows you to tell the kernel to ignore EDID check sum errors by using the following setting in a file with the extension of ".conf" under /etc/modprobe.d: options drm edid_strict=0 This may allow you to use your faulty monitor anyway. Good luck. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Screen goes blank after "EDID checksum is invalid" errors
On Sun, 06 Sep 2015 08:07:32 -0400 (EDT), Sven Joachim wrote: > > On 2015-09-06 12:31 +0200, Stephen Powell wrote: >> Some monitors have invalid EDID checksums. Blame the manufacturer. >> Windows is more tolerant of EDID checksum errors than Linux is. >> If switching monitors solves your problem, then a bona fide EDID checksum >> error in the hardware is probably to blame. If you're willing to >> build a custom kernel, you may be able to circumvent the problem by applying >> a >> patch. See my kernel-building web page: >> >>http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/Kernel.htm >> >> In "Step 7: Patch the kernel", there is a specific example of how to apply >> this patch. Basically, it allows you to tell the kernel to ignore EDID >> check sum errors by using the following setting in a file with the extension >> of ".conf" under /etc/modprobe.d: >> >>options drm edid_strict=0 >> >> This may allow you to use your faulty monitor anyway. Good luck. > > I don't think this is a very good idea in this case, the EDID of > Johannes' monitor seems to be very broken (almost all bytes are 0xff). > Rather than patching the kernel to not complain about that, it is > probably better to supply valid EDID data via the > drm_kms_helper.edid_firmware option. > > The downside of this approach is that you have to supply the EDID > file, there are several under Documentation/EDID/ in the kernel > source (assembly source and a Makefile). The OP said that what he included in this problem report came from another problem report, because it scrolled off the screen too fast for him to give actual data. (Perhaps he doesn't know about "dmesg|less".) So I wouldn't give too much credence to the content of the posted EDID data. Nevertheless, I agree that the approach you suggested above is a better solution, if the needed firmware file can be found. I didn't know about the drm kms_helper.edid option, so I've learned something new. Thanks, Sven. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Wed, 02 Sep 2015 17:29:40 -0400 (EDT), Sven Hartge wrote:
>
> systemd provides a way to override or ammend parts of units. You do this
> by creating a directory structure like this:
>
> /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d/
>
> This will contain all additional config files for the unit
> "foo.service".
>
> For example: I don't want systemd to clear the screen on tty1 when it
> starts a new getty. The unit responsible for this TTY is named
> "getty@tty1.service". I created
>
> /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d
>
> and put a file named "noclear.conf" in it with this content:
>
> ,
> | [Service]
> | TTYVTDisallocate=no
> `
>
> This will add (or change) the TTYVTDisallocate option to the unit.
> The original path to the unit is "/lib/systemd/system/getty@.service"
> and if this file is changed by a package update, its new content will be
> used.
>
> If I had copied the _whole_ file to /etc/systemd/system then the new
> version of the unit in "/lib/systemd/system" would never get used, just
> my own version. This may be fine but may also cause major problems in
> the future.
>
> This is what I meant by "future changes are preserved" as you don't just
> clobber them with your own full copy of the (then) old unit file.
>
> You can check which files are used for a unit with systemctl:
>
> systemctl cat getty@tty1.service
>
> and you will get an output like this (a bit shortened by me for this
> mail):
>
> ,
> | # /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
> |
> | [Unit]
> | Description=Getty on %I
> | Documentation=man:agetty(8) man:systemd-getty-generator(8)
> | Documentation=http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/serial-console.html
> | After=systemd-user-sessions.service plymouth-quit-wait.service
> | <<8<--->>
> | [Service]
> | # the VT is cleared by TTYVTDisallocate
> | TTYVTDisallocate=yes
> | KillMode=process
> | IgnoreSIGPIPE=no
> | SendSIGHUP=yes
> |
> | # Unset locale for the console getty since the console has problems
> | # displaying some internationalized messages.
> | Environment=LANG= LANGUAGE= LC_CTYPE= LC_NUMERIC= LC_TIME= LC_COLLATE=
> | LC_MONETARY= LC_MESSAGES= LC_
> |
> | [Install]
> | WantedBy=getty.target
> | DefaultInstance=tty1
> |
> | # /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/noclear.conf
> | [Service]
> | TTYVTDisallocate=no
> `
>
> Note how my own addition shows up at the bottom.
>
> Also note how a later "TTYVTDisallocate=no" overrides the earlier
> "TTYVTDisallocate=yes".
>
> You can also use "systemd-delta" to check which units have overrides or
> extentions. And with newer systemd (Stretch and newer) you can even use
> "systemctl edit unitname" and it will create the needed directory
> structure in the correct place for you.
>
> But you are also correct that this "override feature" is a bit different
> than the normal proceedings during upgrades and dealing with
> .dpkg-{old,new,dist}.
>
> But it is the way systemd is designed and you can either work with it or
> fight it every centimeter of the way.
>
Well, Sven, that's a nice idea, but I can't get it to work for me in this
situation. I issued
systemctl edit serial-getty@ttyS0.service
and placed the following two lines into the file:
[Service]
ExecStart=-/sbin/agetty -8 --noclear %I 38400 ibm3151
But when I restart the service, I get the following error:
systemd[1]: serial-getty@ttyS0.service: Service has more than one ExecStart=
setting, which is only allowed for Type=oneshot services. Refusing.
I want to override "ExecStart", not add a new one. What am I doing wrong?
--
.''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com>
: :' :
`. `'`
`-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Thu, 03 Sep 2015 20:06:43 -0400 (EDT), Michael Biebl wrote: > > Am 03.09.2015 um 03:14 schrieb Stephen Powell: >> Do you know a similar technique for overriding individual udev rules in >> a system-provided rules file? > > A similar mechanism exists for udev rules file. > See man 7 udev -> "RULES FILES" I do know about user-written rules files, and I have used them in the past, but for some reason it never occurred to me to use a user-written rule to change an already-applied system-written rule. Duh! Why didn't I think of that? How embarrassing! Thanks. -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Wed, 02 Sep 2015 17:29:40 -0400 (EDT), Sven Hartge wrote: > ... > > systemd provides a way to override or ammend parts of units. > You do this by creating a directory structure like this: > > /etc/systemd/system/foo.service.d/ > > This will contain all additional config files for the unit > "foo.service". > > For example: I don't want systemd to clear the screen on tty1 when it > starts a new getty. The unit responsible for this TTY is named > "getty@tty1.service". I created > > /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d > > and put a file named "noclear.conf" in it with this content: > > , > | [Service] > | TTYVTDisallocate=no > ` > > This will add (or change) the TTYVTDisallocate option to the unit. > The original path to the unit is "/lib/systemd/system/getty@.service" > and if this file is changed by a package update, its new content will be > used. > > If I had copied the _whole_ file to /etc/systemd/system then the new > version of the unit in "/lib/systemd/system" would never get used, just > my own version. This may be fine but may also cause major problems in > the future. > > This is what I meant by "future changes are preserved" as you don't just > clobber them with your own full copy of the (then) old unit file. > > You can check which files are used for a unit with systemctl: > > systemctl cat getty@tty1.service > > and you will get an output like this (a bit shortened by me for this > mail): > > , > | # /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service > | > | [Unit] > | Description=Getty on %I > | Documentation=man:agetty(8) man:systemd-getty-generator(8) > | Documentation=http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/serial-console.html > | After=systemd-user-sessions.service plymouth-quit-wait.service > | <<8<--->> > | [Service] > | # the VT is cleared by TTYVTDisallocate > | TTYVTDisallocate=yes > | KillMode=process > | IgnoreSIGPIPE=no > | SendSIGHUP=yes > | > | # Unset locale for the console getty since the console has problems > | # displaying some internationalized messages. > | Environment=LANG= LANGUAGE= LC_CTYPE= LC_NUMERIC= LC_TIME= LC_COLLATE= > | LC_MONETARY= LC_MESSAGES= LC_ > | > | [Install] > | WantedBy=getty.target > | DefaultInstance=tty1 > | > | # /etc/systemd/system/getty@tty1.service.d/noclear.conf > | [Service] > | TTYVTDisallocate=no > ` > > Note how my own addition shows up at the bottom. > > Also note how a later "TTYVTDisallocate=no" overrides the earlier > "TTYVTDisallocate=yes". > > You can also use "systemd-delta" to check which units have overrides or > extentions. And with newer systemd (Stretch and newer) you can even use > "systemctl edit unitname" and it will create the needed directory > structure in the correct place for you. Thanks for the tip, Sven. I'll try to incorporate your suggestion in the next revision of my serial console document. With luck, I may get to it this weekend. Do you know a similar technique for overriding individual udev rules in a system-provided rules file? -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Getting a serial console to work on Jessie
On Tue, 01 Sep 2015 12:13:56 -0400 (EDT), David Parker wrote: > > I have a bunch of Debian Wheezy servers set up with the console available > via the serial port. Generally, I just add this line to /etc/inittab: > ... > That's all fine and good, but when I try to do this on my desktop PC > running Jessie, it doesn't work. > ... I realize that you already have a resolution to your problem, but if you're using serial consoles on Debian Linux, you might find some useful information here: http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/serial.htm -- .''`. Stephen Powell<zlinux...@wowway.com> : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: PAE (was: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?)
On Tue, 25 Aug 2015 01:43:50 -0400 (EDT), Tixy wrote: Wikipedia, that font of all wisdom, says of NX [1] ... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NX_bit From that same article, the section on the Linux kernel says this: The support for this feature in the 64-bit mode on x86-64 CPUs was added in 2004 by Andi Kleen, and later the same year, Ingo Molnar added support for it in 32-bit mode on 64-bit CPUs. These features have been in the stable Linux kernel since release 2.6.8 in August 2004. The availability of the NX bit on 32-bit x86 kernels, which may run on both 32-bit x86 CPUs and 64-bit x86 compatible CPUs, is significant because a 32-bit x86 kernel would not normally expect the NX bit that an x86-64 processor supplies; the NX enabler patch ensures that these kernels will attempt to use the NX bit if present. So it looks like you're right. The NX feature can be used only when running a 32-bit kernel in PAE mode on a 64-bit processor. When running a 32-bit kernel in PAE mode on a 32-bit processor, the NX bit is not available. So I'm back to my original question. For a system with a 32-bit processor and less than 4G of RAM, what does running a PAE kernel buy me? I can understand why commercial Linux distributions want to eliminate a non-PAE kernel: it's one less kernel to support, and therefore higher profits. But what does running a PAE kernel on a 32-bit system with less than 4G of RAM do for *me*? All I see it doing is making the kernel bigger and chewing up more RAM. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Sat, 15 Aug 2015 06:28:53 -0400 (EDT), Bret Busby wrote: On 15/08/2015, Stephen Powell zlinux...@wowway.com wrote: ... My IBM ThinkPad X31 laptop, which is still quite usable, would be a brick if I ran Ubuntu. It has a Pentium M processor in it, and that processor does not have the PAE feature. ... a solution to the PAE problem, relating to your Pentium M CPU, was mentioned, if you would be bothered to do anything about that. ... I don't wish to stir the pot again; but when I make a mistake, I need to correct it. You are right, Mr. Busby. The IBM ThinkPad X31 laptop which I possess contains a Pentium M processor which *does* support PAE but does not *advertise* that it supports PAE. Therefore, a PAE-requiring Linux kernel *will* run successfully on this processor if the forcepae kernel boot parameter is passed. Therefore, I was wrong when I said that this laptop would be a brick if I were running Ubuntu. However, there are 32-bit Intel-compatible processors out there which neither advertise nor possess PAE capabilities. Therefore, a non-PAE kernel is still needed for them. Furtherfore, a non-PAE kernel is useful even on PAE-capable hardware. The main purpose of PAE is to address memory above 4G. But if the machine has less than 4G of memory, what does a PAE-capable kernel buy you? PAE-capable kernels tend to be a bit bigger, all other things being equal, than non-PAE kernels, which chews up more precious memory with no obvious benefit. Furthermore, use of the forcepae option to force a PAE kernel to run on a processor which supports PAE but does not advertise such support has drawbacks. It taints the kernel, which disables lock debugging, for example. For these reasons, I believe that a non-PAE kernel is still needed; and I applaud Debian for providing one. Respectfully, -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: PAE (was: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?)
On Mon, 24 Aug 2015 13:52:30 -0400 (EDT), Mirko Parthey wrote: On Mon, Aug 24, 2015 at 06:45:10AM -0400, Stephen Powell wrote: Furtherfore, a non-PAE kernel is useful even on PAE-capable hardware. The main purpose of PAE is to address memory above 4G. But if the machine has less than 4G of memory, what does a PAE-capable kernel buy you? PAE-capable kernels tend to be a bit bigger, all other things being equal, than non-PAE kernels, which chews up more precious memory with no obvious benefit. One such benefit is that the NX bit (non-executable memory pages) is only available with 64 bit page table entries, which in turn depend on PAE mode. This could be an argument for preferring a PAE kernel on PAE-capable hardware. Wow, did I really say, Furtherfore? Mercy! I need to do a better job of proofreading. Obviously, that was supposed to be Furthermore. Anyway, to your point: PAE may be a necessary condition for NX, but it is not a sufficient condition. I am presently using three 32-bit computers: one is a Pentium M (2G), one is a Pentium 4 (2G), and one is a Xeon (4G). All three are PAE-capable, and all three are presently running PAE Linux kernels. And all three display the following message during boot, according to dmesg|less: Notice: NX (Execute Disable) protection missing in CPU! So, for my hardware, that argument doesn't seem to hold up. Am I missing something? -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Sat, 15 Aug 2015 06:31:23 -0400 (EDT), Bret Busby wrote: You can denigrate Ubuntu Linux all you want, but there is no need for your denigration, to be public, or, on this list. ... There's no need to get defensive, my friend. I was simply expressing my approval of Debian's management decision to continue to support non-PAE processors, as opposed to Ubuntu's management decision to drop support for non-PAE processors. Besides, this is a Debian list, not an Ubuntu list. Praise for Debian, when they do something right, is entirely appropriate here. Ubuntu Linux was the only operating system that could be found, other than MS Windows 8, that has the necessary drivers for this computer. I doubt that. Ubuntu enables non-free drivers and non-free firmware by default, Debian does not. But the drivers are available in Debian, if you know where to look. But I do not wish to argue about it. Peace. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Thu, 13 Aug 2015 04:23:17 -0400 (EDT), didier gaumet wrote: Sorry, I didn't catch you were using Ubuntu. Apparently, Ubuntu has dropped support for 586 procs (their 386 linux images being in fact 686 ones). That's not the case in Debian, x86 non-PAE procs still being supported (linux-image-*-586) We're getting off topic from the original intent of the OP's thread. But since you mentioned this ... I sure am glad that I use Debian and not Ubuntu. My IBM ThinkPad X31 laptop, which is still quite usable, would be a brick if I ran Ubuntu. It has a Pentium M processor in it, and that processor does not have the PAE feature. Long live pure Debian! And kudos to the Debian kernel team! -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Thu, 13 Aug 2015 03:20:59 -0400 (EDT), didier gaumet wrote: Gnome-flashback has replaced gnome-fallback: isn't it 2D compatible, relying on Metacity instead of Mutter? I don't know. All I know is that GNOME3 only worked for me in fallback mode, and then one day, fallback mode disappeared and my desktop stopped working. I made the switch to XFCE and I am happy with it. I have no incentive to switch back just to try your theory. I do know that I upgraded my laptop from wheezy to jessie a couple of weeks ago. It was running GNOME prior to the upgrade. After the upgrade, I got the infamous fail whale. That does not give me an incentive to try GNOME again. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Wed, 12 Aug 2015 16:07:47 -0400 (EDT), Dwijesh Gajadur wrote: Hello Debian users ?? I am currently a Debian Jessie XFCE user. I want to have your views on Gnome VS XFCE. I want to try Gnome but I want to know if Gnome is stable and works constantly without freezing and crashing. Please share me your experience with Debian Gnome. I used to use GNOME (GNOME 2) because it was the default desktop in Debian at that time, but I switched to XFCE when GNOME upgraded from GNOME 2 to GNOME 3. Not only is the GNOME 3 interface very different from GNOME 2, but on a number of my machines, GNOME 3 didn't even work. GNOME 3 requires 3D graphics acceleration features in the X driver, and not all video chipsets support 3D graphics acceleration. Even for chipsets that do support 3D graphics acceleration, there may not be an X driver which exploits the chip's 3D graphics acceleration capabilities, or the driver may not be installed because it is buggy or has security vulnerabilities. The machine I am using to compose this e-mail falls into that category. There is a 3D graphics acceleration driver for my chipset, but it is not installed for reasons of reliability and security. I switched to XFCE because it doesn't require 3D graphics acceleration, and I've been happy with it. Furthermore, it is designed to run applications written for the GNOME environment. The interface is similar to the GNOME 2 interface, which I am familiar with. I'll probably stick with XFCE until there is a compelling reason to change. That's my two cents worth. Take it with however many grains of salt you think it's worth. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Debian Gnome Or XFCE ?
On Wed, 12 Aug 2015 20:38:19 -0400 (EDT), Patrick Bartek wrote: I've never used GNOME 3. It won't fully run on any of my systems since none don't have 3D capability. So, it goes into fallback mode. I assume you meant to say none have 3D capability. When GNOME 3 first came out, it had a fallback mode for systems without 3D graphics acceleration capability. Fallback mode was essentially the GNOME 2 interface. I continued to use GNOME 3 in fallback mode for a while. Changing desktops is a lot of work, and I'm lazy. But eventually, GNOME 3 eliminated fallback mode. At that point, GNOME 3 became totally unusable for me. I have at least two systems without 3D graphics capability: one desktop and one laptop. I'm not sure about the others. Anyway, elimination of fallback mode from GNOME 3 forced the issue. I had to switch to something else. I did some research, and discovered that XFCE was a popular desktop with a GNOME2-like interface and was designed to accommodate applications written for GNOME. I thought it would be a relatively smooth transition for me. So I tried it. I've never looked back. XFCE is my standard desktop now. When doing new installs on new machines, I install XFCE as the desktop by selecting it as the desktop of choice in the Debian installer. If I were to start over from scratch today, I might try LXDE. But I'm happy with XFCE, and I see no compelling reason to change at this point. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `-
Re: Login failure after new install
On Sun, 09 Aug 2015 14:29:56 -0400 (EDT), Cobra ma...@xmission.com wrote: The whole problem is that I have not received ANY mail in response to my original post. Because my original post included my return email address I expected the responses would be mailed to me. When none arrived by the end of the day I checked the web page: lists.debian.org/debian-user/2015/08/threads.html and found replies had been posted. I check to see if my ISPs spam filter was overzealously quarantining the replies. It was not. With no mail message to reply to I proceeded to interact via the web page with the obvious problematic results. Debian mailing list policy is for replies to be posted to the list only, without a CC to the OP (original poster), unless the OP explicitly asks for a CC. Since you've complained about not receiving e-mails, I'll interpret that as an implicit request for a CC. But just this once. Many people read the list via the web and don't want e-mails. If you want e-mails, you should subscribe to the list. When you reply to an e-mail from the list, you should change the Reply-To address to the list address, if your e-mail client doesn't do that for you, before you send it. Please read this: https://www.debian.org/MailingLists/ especially the section entitled Code of Conduct. A couple of points from the Code of Conduct are excerpted here: * When replying to messages on the mailing list, do not send a carbon copy (CC) to the original poster unless they explicitly request to be copied. * If you send messages to lists to which you are not subscribed, always note that fact in the body of your message. Also, though the code of conduct does not specifically require it, we prefer the usenet style of interleaved quoting here, not top-posting. (I haven't seen you top post yet, but I'm just letting you know since you're new.) Regards, -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1241536664.10551108.1439150737933.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: [SOLVED -- sort of] Unwanted application autostarting at login with XFCE
On Mon, 27 Jul 2015 06:48:48 -0400 (EDT), Joel Rees wrote: I also sometimes get applications I had closed coming back when I log back in. XFCE sometimes gets its states wedged. There is a command I sometimes used to use to reset the wedged state when the title/menubar disappeared. I'm not remembering it right now. I'm wondering whether it might have worked for this case, as well. I think it was xfwm4 --replace (This is not really the purpose of the command, as I understand it, but it seems to clear out some of the wedged stuff. See xfwm4 --help for more information.) I tried it. It locked up my whole X session! I had to switch to a text console and restart lightdm with /etc/init.d/lightdm restart to recover. And it didn't solve the problem. As soon as I reinstalled abiword, it started autostarting again at each login. Thanks for trying. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1554403173.3095827.1438037206827.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
[SOLVED -- sort of] Unwanted application autostarting at login with XFCE
On Sun, 26 Jul 2015 03:32:36 -0400 (EDT), Leonardo l...@matrix-leo.cz wrote: Try: “rm -Rf .config/autostart/ That directory contains only one file, called xfce4-notes-autostart.desktop but it contains no references to abiword. The commands grep -r abiword ~|less and grep -r abiword /etc|less produced no suspects either. I finally gave up and purged the package (abiword). If it doesn't exist, it can't start! I shouldn't have to do that. I've had abiword installed for years, and it hasn't misbehaved like this until the last system upgrade. I've still got LibreOffice Writer installed if I need a word processor. Thanks to all who participated in this thread. If anyone has a clue how to fix this without purging the package, I'll try reinstalling it. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1401469539.2429654.1437940431331.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Unwanted application autostarting at login with XFCE
Reposting, since the original post seems to have gotten lost in the mail. I've got an annoying problem. Every time I login to the XFCE desktop, an application starts that I don't want. (It happens to be abiword.) I close the application window and go on, but it starts up again the next time I login. I've checked Applications - Settings - Session and Startup in the Application Autostart and Session tabs, but abiword is not listed there. I've searched the Internet, but did not find anything. Any ideas? -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1047528619.2127116.1437875357260.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: shutting off screen blanker forever?
On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 14:17:13 -0400 (EDT), Gene Heskett wrote: My atom boxes are using xfce I think. And I have studied up on xset, and tried every combo that even looks suspicious in an effort to kill the screen blanker once and for all. But I can't even do it for 10 minutes in a row. So obviously the solution is not an xset command in the startup. Does anyone have a better, it even works, suggestion? I tried this on my machine, which uses XFCE, and it worked for me: Applications - Settings - Screensaver Single left click on the box labeled Mode:. Single left click on Disable Screen Saver in the drop-down box. Close the window. For a text console, edit /etc/kbd/config and change BLANK_TIME to 0. This requires root privileges to edit the file and a reboot is necessary for it to take effect. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/811867097.15069992.1437151750950.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: [SOLVED] Trailing ms at the end of every line when viewing man pages
On Mon, 06 Apr 2015 21:51:05 -0400 (EDT), Stephen Powell wrote: Here's how I fixed it, or rather, how I worked around it. ... For those of you who are interested, I wrote up what I learned about serial terminals and serial consoles and put it in my lilo web page at http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/lilo.htm Look for the section titled Using a Serial Console. I think I will eventually break most of this information out into a separate web page about serial consoles and terminals and reference it from the lilo web page. But for now, until I can find the time to redo it, it's in the lilo web page. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/803123522.24065171.1429010715252.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
[SOLVED] Trailing ms at the end of every line when viewing man pages
On Mon, 06 Apr 2015 13:46:45 -0400 (EDT), Bob Proulx wrote: I would try dumping a man page to a file and then examining the file to understand if the 'm's are in the man output or an artifact of browsing on the terminal with less. Here's what I did. On a terminal other than my 3151, I issued the following commands: script script.output TERM=ibm3161 man man q exit reset Now, by examining script.output, I was able to determine that each line ends with ^[[m. That's escape, left square bracket, m. This appears to be an escape sequence for turning off special modes, such as high intensity, reverse video, blink, etc. This is an ANSI standard escape sequence. The problem is, this terminal does not conform to the ANSI standard. The correct code for this terminal to do the above is ^[4@. That's escape, 4, at sign. This is clearly a bug, probably in grotty, which just assumes that all terminals conform to the ANSI standard. They don't. This terminal recognizes the ^[[ as an invalid combination and throws it away. The trailing m is then displayed literally. A related problem is that agetty does not clear the screen. The clear command, issued at a Linux shell prompt, works. The clear command consults the terminfo database to determine the proper control sequence for the current terminal type ($TERM environment variable) to clear the screen. But agetty, it seems, sends the most common control sequence used to clear the screen, which doesn't work on this terminal. Here's how I fixed it, or rather, how I worked around it. First of all I use the --noclear option of agetty: /sbin/agetty -8 --noclear ttyS0 38400 ibm3161 Instead, I clear the screen on logout, with this logic in ~/.bash_logout: if [ $SHLVL = 1 ] then if [ $TERM = ibm3161 ] then clear fi fi I wrote a shell script, which I place in my ~/bin directory. The name of the script is mypager, which is marked executable, of course, with chmod +x mypager. Here is what it looks like: #!/bin/sh sed -e 's/^[\[m$/^[4@/'|less -r That's not a circumflex followed by a left square bracket. That's the escape character. In input mode in vi, I entered it with the ^V^[ sequence, since otherwise, it would cause vi to exit input mode. I also have the following logic in ~/.bashrc: if [ $TERM = ibm3161 ] then LANG=en_US LESS=-h0 -d MANOPT=-P mypager -7 export LESS MANOPT fi Problem solved. But this is a workaround. There are two bugs. One is in agetty for not sending the right clear code. The other is in grotty (probably) for not sending the right turn off special modes code. Thanks to all those who helped. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/412078797.19466127.1428371465909.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: Trailing ms at the end of every line when viewing man pages
On Sun, 05 Apr 2015 04:01:10 -0400 (EDT), Bob Proulx wrote: Stephen Powell wrote: ... But when I issue the MAN command, I see lower-case ms at the end of each line. How does the terminal handle control-m carriage returns? Normally at the terminal will receive a CR-NL pair and will move the cursor left and then down. It seems likely those 'm's are CR characters. It would be good to verify that. $ printf This is a CR char: ==\r==\n If it is a normal terminal we would see this. Because the CR moves the cursor to the left and the next two == chars overwrite the Th of This. Then the newline is translated to a CR-NL pair and moves the cursor left and down. ==is is a CR char: == But if it is the CR chars producing the 'm' for you then it would print this: This is a CR char: ==m== Then at least you would know it is the CR that isn't handled like in a standard terminal. When I run the above test, I see ==is is a CR char: == as expected. That was my first thought too. But I only see these ms when viewing man pages. Standard Linux text files look fine when viewed natively in less. Something in man, or in something invoked under the covers by man, is responsible for these ms. I did discover that the ibm3151 terminal definition in ncurses falsely advertises support in the terminal for scrolling backward, which the 3151 does not, in reality, support. Therefore, I have switched to using ncurses terminal definition ibm3161 instead of ibm3151. The ibm3161 terminal definition does not advertise support for scrolling backward. The 3161 is the 3151's closest relative, and predecessor. I now get the message WARNING: terminal is not fully functional from less every time I invoke less, including when I invoke man. But I can overcome this with LESS=-h 0 -d export LESS Now I don't get the error message, and less uses screen repainting instead of backward scrolling when I press the b key in less. But man still shows those ms at the end of every line. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1369962878.18732337.1428279239692.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: Trailing ms at the end of every line when viewing man pages
On Sun, 05 Apr 2015 11:59:49 -0400 (EDT), Paul E Condon wrote: Times change. If one waits even a short while, they can change a lot. When this terminal was new, a 'standard' terminal was a mechanical teletype manufactured by Teletype Corp. in Skokie, IL. The generic name for this 'terminal' was, I think, a 'glass teletype' Each computer company had its own special glass teletypes that interfaced to its computer. All proprietary. None of the glass teletypes had the very useful scroll back feature of the real teletype that they were trying to emulate. Teletype paper came in rolls. A single roll was a many meters long. It would pile up behind the teletype as one worked. It could always be pulled out and reviewed back to initial login at the beginning of the session. Some people left the paper behind for someone else to clear away. Others saved it, rolled up and labeled at their desks. It took 0.1 sec. to mechanically process one character, except for carriage return. That took up to 0.2 sec. The placement of the carriage return character before the non-printing line feed character allowed the carriage to get all the back to the left before a printing character arrived. It was in the design of teletype that this cr/lf feature was baked into our history. Interesting history, thank you. The IBM 3151 is a dumb terminal in the sense that it doesn't support scrolling backward. But my idea of a dumb terminal is a line-mode terminal, such as a mechanical teletype machine. The IBM 3151 is a full-screen terminal. You can run ncurses-based applications on it. You can use full-screen editors, such as vi. It supports high-intensity, underscore, blinking, and reverse video, though it does not support color. It supports clearing the screen. (It is a non-standard clear code, so the standard code used by (a)getty does not clear the screen. But the clear command works.) None of these things can be done on a line-mode (dumb) terminal, such as a mechanical teletype machine. It is more than a glass teletype. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/147246682.18737453.1428280689780.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Trailing ms at the end of every line when viewing man pages
I am experiencing a very strange phenomenon. I have an old IBM 3151 ASCII display terminal that has been lying around the house; and today I decided to see if I could get it connected up to one of my PCs, which runs Debian GNU/Linux (jessie). I was successful in doing this. But when I login to Debian from the IBM 3151 terminal, I have noticed some strange goings on. The system locale is en_US.UTF-8. But of course this old terminal is mostly 7-bit ASCII, though it does support vt100 graphic character escape sequences for box drawing. I have modified ~/.bashrc so that if the terminal type ($TERM) is ibm3151, I set LANG to en_US, and that has solved some problems. But when I issue the MAN command, I see lower-case ms at the end of each line. I tried searching the internet with the keywords trailing m at the end of each line with man but it produced no useful results. Ideas, anyone? -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1689364662.18283643.1428185427555.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: Recompiling debian kernel
On Thu, 05 Mar 2015 07:25:41 -0500 (EST), csanyi...@gmail.com wrote: ... I'm trying to recompile the installed kernel ... http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/Kernel.htm It's not a brief outline. It will take a while to read. But it is thorough; and if you follow the procedure carefully, I believe you will get good results. -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/304631951.111787922.1425695841234.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
Re: understanding kernel compilation and
On Thu, 23 Oct 2014 03:20:36 -0400 (EDT), Muhammad Yousuf wrote: actually i never compile or patch any kernel before for some reasons and learning i am installing kernel 3.16 stable with patch. now the question is when i visit kernel.org website i see 3.16 kernel and patch and inc.patch. i can understand what is patch it could be a fix to some bugs but what is inc.patch or incremental patch. Kernel location : https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/linux-3.16.6.tar.xz Patch location : https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/patch-3.16.6.xz inc patch : https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v3.x/incr/patch-3.16.5-6.xz any help will be highly appreciated. If you intend to compile a custom kernel, and you've never done it before, I would suggest that you start here: http://users.wowway.com/~zlinuxman/Kernel.htm -- .''`. Stephen Powellzlinux...@wowway.com : :' : `. `'` `- -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: https://lists.debian.org/1447628788.8589810.1414083839681.javamail.zim...@wowway.com
