Re: [DNG] noatime by default

[Dave Turner]

On 24/08/17 00:03, Adam Borowski wrote:

Hi!
I'd like to recommend another improvement: let's make the installer default
to noatime for fstab it creates.

In the past, atime updates used to ruin performance.  Thanks to work by Ted
Ts'o and others, that penalty has been greatly reduced (but not eliminated)
by two options:
* relatime (on by default): atime is not updated unless atime<=mtime or
   atimehttps://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/commit/816095bfdb72caafd8845e8fb28cbc8c6afc114f
Because of stretch's freeze, I did not manage to write+push upstream patches
for any client other than mutt, I guess it's time to resume.

Obviously, an admin who thinks he actually has an use for atime is free to
edit fstab.

So, what would you folks say about defaulting to noatime?


Meow!


I always set noatime to 'off' when I do an install.

I agree it should be the default, anybody who wants atime to be 'on' 
knows what they are doing and why.


I always use non-graphical expert install, I would expect the noatime 
box to be ticked for me by the time I get to that screen.


I always install and use xterm.

DaveT

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Adam Borowski (kilob...@angband.pl):

> On one hand, X desperately needed a clean rewrite, at least 30 years ago.
> On the other... despite some experienced X people being among Wayland
> developers, there's too much bizarre stuff like:
> 
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/Wayland/PrimarySelection
> 
> So grudgingly the idiots agreed to "consider" bringing back a reduced form
> of mouse paste "to ease the transition for long-term X users".
> 
> Because, you know, that's an obscure easter egg.  And "there are few middle
> mouse buttons in the world" (have you seen a mouse without a middle button
> this millenium?).

It really is boggle-worthy, isn't it?  And the GNOME people say these
sorts of thing _all the time_, where you really want to ask 'And what
colour _is_ the sky, on your planet?'

-- 
Cheers,  « On donne des conseils, mais on ne 
Rick Moendonne point la sagesse d'en profiter. »
r...@linuxmafia.com -- La Rochefoucauld
McQ! (4x80)   
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Adam Borowski]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 06:13:30PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> So, anyway, X11 somewhat sucks.  (Will Wayland suck less?  Don't hold
> your breath waiting.)

On one hand, X desperately needed a clean rewrite, at least 30 years ago.
On the other... despite some experienced X people being among Wayland
developers, there's too much bizarre stuff like:

https://wiki.gnome.org/Initiatives/Wayland/PrimarySelection

So grudgingly the idiots agreed to "consider" bringing back a reduced form
of mouse paste "to ease the transition for long-term X users".

Because, you know, that's an obscure easter egg.  And "there are few middle
mouse buttons in the world" (have you seen a mouse without a middle button
this millenium?).


Meow!
-- 
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⠈⠳⣄ 
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

I meant to include this:

[UNIX-HATER's Handbook:]

> Said volume, a flawed minor classic of the rant genre, has always had
> fans in Unixdom, including yr. present correspondent.  It's a
> compilation of postings to the old (long-gone, I think) mailing list
> UNIX-HATERS, mostly sent by disgruntled devotees of Symbolics, Inc. 
> LISP Machines and a few Mac-heads uncharacteristically able to use their
> keyboards.  ;->  (In other words, the critiques are all rather ancient 
> in 2017.)

Eric Raymond and his blog readership had a retrospective look at this 
book in 2008.  (Like Eric, I have a well-worn copy of the IDG Press
trade paperback.)  http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=538

Eric found that some chapters' critiques still had some currency.  Most
of them took aim at long-irrelevant targets, like the chapter on
sendmail and the chapter on Unix support for physical terminals.  He
views Don Hopkins's chapter about X11 to be mixed bag.  I'm amused to
note that Eric makes the same comment I did, about the missed
opportunity when Sun Microsystems refused to open-source NeWS with the
result that everyone stopped using it.

The chapter ranting about infelicities of scripting languages fell
victim to the appearance of Perl and Python, likewise the chapter about
programming tools generally.

Anyway, worth reading (both the book and Eric's retrospectie critique).

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[golinux]

On 2017-08-23 20:13, Rick Moen wrote:


Anyway, you have invented in your mind a problem that (in my considered
view) doesn't exist, tried to present a really terrible solution to the
alleged problem, and (not _just_ in my considered view, but observably)
gotten zero pickup.



Chuckled when I read that.  That could equally be said be said of a 
certain Red Hat developer.  If only HIS idea had gotten zero pickup!  
Sometimes life just isn't fair . . .


golinux
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com):

> I looked this up, and the only reference I saw was
> https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM#Environments, and that didn't
> make it sticky, it just made your .xinitrc DEFAULTSESSION the default
> if you chose something outside of the .xinitrc case statement, when in
> slim.

As a reminder, that page says that it's necessary to edit _both_
/etc/slim.conf and ~/.xinitrc.

> Stickiness isn't the ability to state a preference. It's the ability to
> keep whatever you chose last time, until you deliberately choose
> something else.

SLiM doesn't support that.  The page says so right under subhead
'Configuration'.  

If you want to add that feature, submit a patch.

(I don't have a setup that includes SLiM, preferring as I do something
simpler.)

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:10:39 -0700
Rick Moen  wrote:


> Steve may or may not have noticed that I also did answer his other
> question:  For a user to make a system's choice of window manager
> 'sticky' in SLiM, he/she need only edit ~/.xinitrc .  Thus, each user
> gets to declare a preference.

I looked this up, and the only reference I saw was
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SLiM#Environments, and that didn't
make it sticky, it just made your .xinitrc DEFAULTSESSION the default
if you chose something outside of the .xinitrc case statement, when in
slim.

Stickiness isn't the ability to state a preference. It's the ability to
keep whatever you chose last time, until you deliberately choose
something else. That's the way every display manager I've ever seen
works. If anybody knows how to do *that*, please let me know.

SteveT
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com):

> > Uh-huh.  Seen that.
> > https://xkcd.com/927/
> 
> That's not relevant to this particular discussion, as it discusses a
> standard, not a term to unify two terms that, at least from a certain
> viewpoint, are the same thing.

I believe the application of cartoonist Randall Munroe's concept should
be fully clear.  (If it nonetheless isn't to you, I can easily live with
that.)

Anyway, you have invented in your mind a problem that (in my considered
view) doesn't exist, tried to present a really terrible solution to the
alleged problem, and (not _just_ in my considered view, but observably)
gotten zero pickup.  Which brings us to date.

Some day, you really ought to study the particulars of the X Window
System sufficiently to get to knowthe basic categories (such as the three 
I detailed upthread)  and where the forest of rc files are and what they
do.  The latter is the difficult part, because, frankly, X11 itself is
an infamously baroque design.

For some cheap computerist entertainment on _that_ subject, read veteran
UI coder Don Hopkins's chapter 'The X-Windows Disaster'[1] in _The
UNIX-HATER's Handbook_ (1994).  Co-editor Simson Garfinkel has kindly
put it online in PDF form:  http://simson.net/ref/ugh.pdf

Said volume, a flawed minor classic of the rant genre, has always had
fans in Unixdom, including yr. present correspondent.  It's a
compilation of postings to the old (long-gone, I think) mailing list
UNIX-HATERS, mostly sent by disgruntled devotees of Symbolics, Inc. 
LISP Machines and a few Mac-heads uncharacteristically able to use their
keyboards.  ;->  (In other words, the critiques are all rather ancient 
in 2017.)

So, anyway, X11 somewhat sucks.  (Will Wayland suck less?  Don't hold
your breath waiting.)


 
> Back to the current discussion. The slim login screen could easily give
> one a choice between KDE (which everyone would term a Desktop
> Environment) and DWM (which everyone would term a Window Manager).

I'm sure the Devuan Project would gratefully accept your patch.


> And forget "session", because if one needs to, as you put it in a
> different email, slim parses /usr/share/xsessions/. That's an
> implementation detail, not a commonly used terminology.

If you think X Session Managers are not a standard commonly used
terminology, and/or that said directory doesn't exist specifically for
them, then you are mistaken.


[1] As the book explains, Don Hopkins made a point of saying 'X-Windows'
_because_ that term is deprecated by the X authorities (on trademark
grounds, IIRC) and he thereby hoped to annoy X Window System people.
Which is very much in the spirit of pique that informs the book as a
whole.

Hopkins has ample credibility for writing said critique, being a
qualified authority on X _and_ also on Sun NeWS.  It's a tragedy that
NeWS lost the adoption batter to the X Window System, because it was 
head and shoulders better -- but the fact is that Sun refused to licence
that code and related patents on liberal grounds, whereas X lacked those
obstacles, so it won despite its drawbacks.  Unix-family OSes have won
(become ubiquitous) for extremely similar reasons.
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 14:17:58 -0700
Rick Moen  wrote:

> Quoting Stephen Dennison (stephe...@gmail.com):
> 
> > No, I mean, I literally don't understand the use of the words chosen
> > and how they're supposed to modify each other.  Based on your
> > interpretation, my guesswork of his intended usage of the acronym
> > was more or less accurate, but I don't understand the choice of
> > words themselves.  
> 
> Steve wants a word denoting 'either a window manager or a desktop
> environment, and I really don't care which of them it is, or want to
> hear about the distinction'.  Like many a computerist before him, he 
> decided to fill this _alleged_ need by coining a new expression that's
> painfully ungainly and, if anything, anti-mnemonic.
> 
> Remember the misbegotten push for everyone to please adopt the
> goofy initialism 'FLOSS'[1] (or 'FOSS') based on the supposed need to
> bury the (alleged) distinction between 'free software' and 'open
> source' by switching to a third term?  This is the same sort of
> tactical + strategic error, saying to people 'Here, let me simplify
> reality by burying the difference between _two_ things by inventing a
> _third_ thing.'


Pre-cisely! Although Free Software and Open Source are pretty similar
regarding privileges granted and responsibilities required, when you
wanted to ask whether something was free as in liberty, no matter how
you framed the question, and argument would start between those
advocating "Free Software" and those advocating "Open Source". The
creation of the word FOSS buried that problem six feet under.

> 
> Uh-huh.  Seen that.
> https://xkcd.com/927/

That's not relevant to this particular discussion, as it discusses a
standard, not a term to unify two terms that, at least from a certain
viewpoint, are the same thing.

Certain viewpoint? Exactly. Most computer users don't care whether
their GOSFUI *has* a window manager or *is* a window manager, they use
one of the terms to mean the union, and some literal guy forks the
discussion by discussing a different viewpoint, from which the
distinction has import.

Back to the current discussion. The slim login screen could easily give
one a choice between KDE (which everyone would term a Desktop
Environment) and DWM (which everyone would term a Window Manager). What
word or phrase does the screen use to subsume both choices.

And forget "session", because if one needs to, as you put it in a
different email, slim parses /usr/share/xsessions/. That's an
implementation detail, not a commonly used terminology.
 
SteveT
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[DNG] noatime by default

[Adam Borowski]

Hi!
I'd like to recommend another improvement: let's make the installer default
to noatime for fstab it creates.

In the past, atime updates used to ruin performance.  Thanks to work by Ted
Ts'o and others, that penalty has been greatly reduced (but not eliminated)
by two options:
* relatime (on by default): atime is not updated unless atime<=mtime or
  atimehttps://github.com/neomutt/neomutt/commit/816095bfdb72caafd8845e8fb28cbc8c6afc114f
Because of stretch's freeze, I did not manage to write+push upstream patches
for any client other than mutt, I guess it's time to resume.

Obviously, an admin who thinks he actually has an use for atime is free to
edit fstab.

So, what would you folks say about defaulting to noatime?


Meow!
-- 
⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ 
⣾⠁⢰⠒⠀⣿⡁ Vat kind uf sufficiently advanced technology iz dis!?
⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ -- Genghis Ht'rok'din
⠈⠳⣄ 
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Re: [DNG] What does Linus do?

[John Franklin]

> On Aug 22, 2017, at 2:26 PM, Dave Turner 
>  wrote:
> 
> There's a lot of heavy discussion going on in
> 
> 'Proposed change to ascii' and 'an alternative to renaming'
> 
> But what does Linus do? How does he think this should play out?
> 
> I am a big fan of 'going with the flow' apart from when it is a really bad 
> idea such as systemd.

Agreed.  Those two discussions have long since outlived their usefulness and 
the petty bickering is going to scare away people.

As it is currently, I have a hard time recommending Devuan.  I’m no fan of 
systemd, but Devuan Jessie is essentially Debian Jessie, and the Ascii 
repository is a mess with several uninstallable packages (e.g., 
network-manager, slim), which means something or someone broke Debian Testing 
rules 4 and/or 5. [1]  I know this isn’t Debian, but as a fork, I expect the 
same rules to apply.

The release engineering site release.devuan.org is in DNS, but points to the 
main devuan.org site.  Clearly, there is some CI infrastructure that is 
missing, and until it is put in place, Devuan’s technical debt will continue to 
increase.

jf
[1] From https://www.debian.org/devel/testing
-- 
John Franklin
frank...@tux.org



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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[karl]

Edward Bartolo:
...
> For instance, a mains transformer based power supply, normally has a
> far longer life than a switched mode power supply, although the latter
...

There are several drawback useing the old transformer + rectifier 
design. Of main consern is the current spikes seen on the power grid 
when the diodes starts to conduct. Your power supplier don't like them 
and that is why we have PFC to make the unit behave more like a
resistor to the power grid.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

---
Aspö Data
Lilla Aspö 148
S-742 94 Östhammar
Sweden
+46 173 140 57


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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Harald Arnesen (har...@skogtun.org):

> >> Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time consuming and error
> >> prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just crazy.
> > Au contraire:  Even if you had nothing besides Xorg (or previously
> > XFree86) itself, in almost all cases you could just do 'Xorg -configure
> >> /etc/X11/Xorg.conf' and nothing else.  However, pretty nearly all
> > distributions provided even-easier X configurator tools.
> 
> When? Not when I started using Linux.

At the very latest by RHL7, which was released in 1994.  Red Hat's
easy/GUI X configuration tool was called Xconfigurator.[1]  I vaguely
recall that SUSE and Debian, among many others, had various other ones
with a variety of names.

(This having been in the early/mid 1990s, it was of course for XFree86,
not Xorg.)

If you started using Linux in 1991-1993, then, sure, distributions then
did _not_ include even-easier X configurator tools, and you would have a
very peculiar yet technically valid edge-case point, for which, here,
have a cookie.  ;->  But then, if you are indeed as old an old-timer as I
am, I'm extremely surprised you are not fully aware of when this changed.

But, anyway:  If you wish to go install a bunch of ancient Linux distros
and report back, have fun!  


[1] See, e.g.,
ftp://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/pub/doc/redhat/redhat7/rhl-aig-en-7.0/s1-guimode-xconf.html

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[karl]

Alessandro:
> On 22/08/2017 at 02:01, Rick Moen wrote:
> > Quoting Adam Borowski (kilob...@angband.pl):
> > 
> >> Manually creating the configuration -- or even manually triggering its
> >> creation -- is a pretty bad idea.  It just guarantees you won't have
> >> working X when you make any change to your hardware -- and sometimes
> >> software as well.

Manually creating xorg.conf is required if you e.g. has a serial 
(rs232) mouse. It is also req. if you want to be able to use the 
serverlayout feature, say if you want to be able to start X with a 
screen dimention of 800x640 for testing without a virtual screen size
or having several X servers running on different vt's with different
(non-virtual) screen sizes.

...
>   Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
> video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
> Linux in the past 10 years.  Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time
> consuming and error prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just
> crazy.

This xorg.conf:

# cat /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Section "ServerFlags"
Option "AutoAddDevices" "off"
EndSection

works like a charm on my laptop, everything is autodetected by X.
I can plug in usb kbd's and mice, which will be directly usable in
X. That system has no udev installed nor running, and using a plain
old static /dev. And, yes, thoose who aren't using the "us" kbd
layout will want to have a keyboard section or using xmodmap in their
.xinitrc. The possible only thing missing is autodetecting kbd layout,
do udev detect that ?

There is absolutely no need at all to fiddle with xorg.conf for a
vidio card or monitor change unless you want a non-default setup.
For a monitor, you only need to specify a monitor section in xorg.conf
if your monitor doesn't support edid, i.e. for ancient monitors.

I don't see what udev actually provides of value for the X server.

Regards,
/Karl Hammar

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alessandro Selli (alessandrose...@linux.com):

> On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 10:06:26 -0700
> Rick Moen  wrote:
> > Quoting Alessandro Selli (alessandrose...@linux.com):
> >
> >>   Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
> >> video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
> >> Linux in the past 10 years.  
> >
> > I'm sure, but on the other hand, how often did that happen?  Extremely
> > seldom.
> 
>   How often did *what* happen?

What you spoke of.

Which is why I interleaved the quotation from your posting for context.

{sigh}  This starting point suggests why there's no future in this 
present discussion.

[disregarding the rest]

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:00:12 +0200, Alessandro wrote in message 
<20170823180012.327dbdc8@ayu>:

> On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 14:22:34 +0200
> Arnt Karlsen  wrote:
> 
> > On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:34:49 +0200, Alessandro wrote in message 
> > :
> >
> >> On 22/08/2017 at 13:36, Arnt Karlsen wrote:  
> >>> On Tue, 22 Aug 2017 03:38:50 +0200, Adam wrote in message 
> >>> <20170822013850.ute5cf7ycrlvc...@angband.pl>:
> >>>   
>  There are cases when the old way had its merit -- but here, we
>  have an equivalent of a car that needs to be started with a
>  hand-crank.  
> >>>
> >>> ..you may have missed "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and
> >>> George Orwell's "1984", or at the very least, the main point of
> >>> these 2 books and your own nation's history, in these Trumpian
> >>> times.
> >>>
> >>> ..an hand-crank car keeps you in control of what's going on around
> >>> you, if you pay attention.  
> >>
> >>   Why do you think an electric motor cannot do the same?  
> >
> > ..straw man, an electric motor cannot do the same without 
> > AI taking control away from you.
> 
>   Please let me know what AI did the Wolkswagen Beetle have?

..never heard of those, I've only seen Volkswagens of various models.

..only thing I'm aware of in mom's 1967 1300 Beetle, is the presence of 
2 hand cranks for the windows, the absence of any hand crank for the
motor, and the presence of a tuned 1500 engine block that survived it's 
tuner's final test run.  Crazy low end and crazy low idle, 60rpm, at
80rpm it could be nursed out of idle with the gas pedal, at 100rpm it
would hesitate for a second before responding to the gas pedal, and at 
125rpm, it didn't. ;o)   

..everything else other than the block and I suspect the cam shaft, 
was stock 1967 1300.  Pedal to the metal, and it beat bikes, but it 
ran out of breath at high rpms.  Give it 1/4 to a 1/3 pedal, and it
would creep up forever.  I suspect the cam had a crazy delay on inlet
valve closure, letting the motor "blow back out what it didn't need" 
at idle, and "slamming the door behind the inlet charge as it crashed
into the piston crown" as the motor spooled up.  
Easy to crank by hand on the dynamo pulley.


..and I can confirm VW Beetles will start to "rotate" at 100knots or
whatever the speed is when the needle points to the oil (or charge?)
lamp to left of the blinky turn light, and produce a nice GA-style
"landing-on-dry-tarmac" chirp if you hit the brakes late enough and
soon enough, or you'll wind up like the tuner.


..having gone from the curious "Hum, how fast _is_ that speed phantom
going, hum, he's still pulling away", I may have matched AI processing
performance going "Hum, why is the steering acting up like aquaplaning 
I read about somewhere, and on dry asphalt too? (I was a newbie driver)
Hum, didn't I also read somewhere about Beetles having 5 kilograms of 
front axle pressure at 125km/h, and yeah, didn't that 1500 block back
there come from a wreck, and the tuner guy was a VW mechanic and an
experienced driver, so he may have gotten himself into something
similar and reacted like most experienced people advice to do on 
aquaplaning, and on dry asphalt, that would flip his ride, hum, let's
try stomp the brakes first, and only then ease away from the ditch..."

..I recall seeing the Beetle move maybe 5 meters as I made up my
mind. :o)

..great enough straw man? ;o)

> >>>  Your new shiny AI car may decide to kill you to 
> >>> save e.g. "a more worthy person" from something really, really
> >>> bad, e.g. Trumpian embarrasment, e.g. because you pay attention to
> >>> what's going on around you. ;oD  
> >> 
> >>   First off, an electric engine starter does not have to have any
> >> AI built-in.  The XX century auto industry proved it.  
> >
> > ..and the XXI'st is now disproving it.
> 
>   Present day technology cannot change the past.  Car electric
> starters did not have any AI, they relied completely on the human who
> turned the key to work.

..you never seen Soviet Politburo pictures "evolve"? ;o)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union#Censorship_of_historical_photographs

..similar discoveries can be found on checking e.g. 9/11 stories on WTC
online against pre-9/11 encyclopedia entries on WTC of the kind printed
on paper before W. was "elected" president in 2000 and that can be
found in brick-n-mortar libraries. ;o)

> >>   Secondly, AI is not inherently a user alien technology, no more
> >> that computers are per se a tools against the users.  It all
> >> depends on who is in charge.
> >
> > ..precisely my point.
> 
>   Do you intend to live without computers?
> Your choice.

..not really, not a viable long term solution.

> >> As there is software that puts the user in charge (Free/OS
> >> software) and software that deprives the user of any freedom
> >> (proprietary software), so there is AI that just serves users and
> >> AI that 

Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Stephen Dennison (stephe...@gmail.com):

> No, I mean, I literally don't understand the use of the words chosen
> and how they're supposed to modify each other.  Based on your
> interpretation, my guesswork of his intended usage of the acronym was
> more or less accurate, but I don't understand the choice of words
> themselves.

Steve wants a word denoting 'either a window manager or a desktop
environment, and I really don't care which of them it is, or want to
hear about the distinction'.  Like many a computerist before him, he 
decided to fill this _alleged_ need by coining a new expression that's
painfully ungainly and, if anything, anti-mnemonic.

Remember the misbegotten push for everyone to please adopt the
goofy initialism 'FLOSS'[1] (or 'FOSS') based on the supposed need to
bury the (alleged) distinction between 'free software' and 'open source'
by switching to a third term?  This is the same sort of tactical +
strategic error, saying to people 'Here, let me simplify reality by
burying the difference between _two_ things by inventing a _third_
thing.'

Uh-huh.  Seen that.
https://xkcd.com/927/


> Actually I was basing my description on the session dir, the files,
> and content.  The files contain a command that will get executed.

Indeed.  But the directory location is by convention intended to be
written to and read from X session managers.  Sure, you could also
decide to put things there, but the point is that SLiM is looking there
to find X session manager state.

A more obvious place for -you- to put directives about which X clients
to run at startup time is ~/.xinitrc .  In fact, that's what it's for.

Moreover, when you put them there, that file will get unconditionally
parsed and run at X startup time by the X server, irrespective of any
other considerations such as choice of display manager -- which is
generally what you will want.


> [SLiM] gives you hooks to call setup and teardown to support
> whatever hokey session you might want, but does it really care about
> session in the way you describe?

{shrug}

I'm just inferring based on what wording SLiM uses and what directories it
chooses to parse at startup.  If you are serious about wanting to know
for certain what the coders were thinking, you'll have to ask them.
(FWIW, SLiM is no longer maintained upstream.)

> I played with it long enough to learn how to customize it but
> eventually went back to console login.  I only recently started using
> slim on systems that need to look modern for other people.

FWIW, xdm can look really nice with a custom background image and some
other dressing up.  If you want _just_ a display manager that will 
just accept login credentials, start X11, and obey standard X Window
System controls (meaning its user-specific and system-wide rc files),
look no further.

xdm looking extremely plain is merely a _default_.

Defaults are for experimenting with.  It's *ix.


[1] http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=882
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Harald Arnesen]

Steve Litt [2017-08-23 18:03]:

> You just said it in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph: Why
> not substitute the phrase "grapical environment" for "session"? If
> "graphical environment" isn't perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than
> either "session", "window manager" or "desktop environment".

OK, maybe I had a flash of insight :-)

I like the phrase when you point it out.
-- 
Hilsen Harald
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Harald Arnesen]

Steve Litt [2017-08-23 18:00]:

>> "Window Manager" would be the best, I think. I agree that "Session"
>> can be misleading. How many users would know what you mean by
>> "GOSFUI", a not at all intuitive and far too long abbreviation almost
>> never used outside of this mailing list?

> Then we should think of a better word to represent the union of window
> managers and desktop environments. I don't have Not Invented Here
> syndrome: I'd be glad to support and publicize such a word.

And how many people will understand yet anotner word?

"Session" is the accepted word, like it or not. I would prefer "Desktop
manager", but I don't think that will happen.
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Harald Arnesen]

Rick Moen [2017-08-23 19:06]:
> Quoting Alessandro Selli (alessandrose...@linux.com):
> 
>>   Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
>> video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
>> Linux in the past 10 years.
> I'm sure, but on the other hand, how often did that happen?  Extremely
> seldom.

Always.

>> Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time consuming and error
>> prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just crazy.
> Au contraire:  Even if you had nothing besides Xorg (or previously
> XFree86) itself, in almost all cases you could just do 'Xorg -configure
>> /etc/X11/Xorg.conf' and nothing else.  However, pretty nearly all
> distributions provided even-easier X configurator tools.

When? Not when I started using Linux.
-- 
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Stephen Dennison]

On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 3:42 PM, Rick Moen  wrote:
> Quoting Stephen Dennison (stephe...@gmail.com):
>
>> A user interface that faces a graphical operating system... I don't
>> understand the choice of words picked here.  I followed the link but
>> it didn't really help.  I'm not sure which words are supposed to be
>> modifying which other words.
>
> Here's how this came about:  A few times over the years, Steve has
> referred to things like XFCE as a 'window manager', and was told

No, I mean, I literally don't understand the use of the words chosen
and how they're supposed to modify each other.  Based on your
interpretation, my guesswork of his intended usage of the acronym was
more or less accurate, but I don't understand the choice of words
themselves.

>> I think I grasp how you want the term to be used, but
>> every time I see the new acronym come up I have to google it again to find
>> out what it is.
>
> Which, along with fundamental pointlessness, is why it won't work.
I suspect this may be so.

> To quibble:  SLiM actually uses the word 'session' to mean 'user state,
> maintained on-disc by an X11 session manager.'  In that context, it
> _doesn't_ mean merely something that runs for a while.  Don't take my
> word for it:  Read /etc/slim.conf, find the sessiondir line, and look up
> what the referenced directory location houses.
Actually I was basing my description on the session dir, the files,
and content.  The files contain a command that will get executed.
Once that command exits you are back at the login.  Yay for XDG?  I
don't think slim cares about a user state or on-disk maintenance of
that.  It gives you hooks to call setup and teardown to support
whatever hokey session you might want, but does it really care about
session in the way you describe?  I haven't read a lot of
documentation for slim because, well, the config file is heavily
commented, so my understanding is probably flawed.  Or perhaps the
distinction just doesn't matter.

>> I would be curious to hear how others handle this when they wish to
>> customize their session.
>
> Don't look at me.  ;->  I prefer xdm from the Stone Age as my X display
> manager.  Because it's bog-simple.
I used that for a while.  I played with it long enough to learn how to
customize it but eventually went back to console login.  I only
recently started using slim on systems that need to look modern for
other people.
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 18:50:35 +0200
Edward Bartolo  wrote:

> Sometimes there are advantages in opting to use the old way.

  Sometimes.  But electric car starters are not anything new, they were
patented in 1911, 15 years after they were first produced, at a time when
Artificial Intelligence meant nothing. And there is a reason things evolve,
expecially in technology. They do not always evolve the right way, but I see
no reason to abandon mature technology (like Xorg autoconfiguration
capabilities) for something old and impractical just because in the old times
we all did things that way (cursing and yelling at the blank monitor's
message: "Mode unsupported").

Alessandro
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 10:06:26 -0700
Rick Moen  wrote:

> Quoting Alessandro Selli (alessandrose...@linux.com):
>
>>   Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
>> video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
>> Linux in the past 10 years.  
>
> I'm sure, but on the other hand, how often did that happen?  Extremely
> seldom.

  How often did *what* happen?  That one has to reconfigure Xorg because of a
card/monitor change?  On desktops the monitor seldom changes, the graphics
card a few times.  On laptops the video card never does, the secondary
display (aka external monitor) often does.  So what?  What does one gain
making Xorg configuration static?  Close to nothing.  What does one lose?  A
lot.  Having to login as root to reconfigure Xorg by hand is a show-stopper
in several places, like where I work: people who use the firm's PCs are
usually not given administrative credentials, they never do when they're
not employees.  And even many who do cannot manually tune Xorg's config file,
because they've never seen one. And why should they do?  Xorg can
self-configure when hardware changes, why drop a very useful feature because
it's seldom necessary (but when it is not having it can be a nightmare)?

>> Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time consuming and error
>> prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just crazy.  
>
> Au contraire:  Even if you had nothing besides Xorg (or previously
> XFree86) itself, in almost all cases you could just do 'Xorg -configure
>> /etc/X11/Xorg.conf' and nothing else.

  If Xorg fails to autoconfigure on some hardware, very likely
automatic config file generation is going to fail or it will not work on
that hardware.

>  However, pretty nearly all  
> distributions provided even-easier X configurator tools.

  What is Devuan's?

> Many long years ago during the XFree86 era, different chipset
> necessitated installing individual X server packages, so, if you
> switched cards, you often needed to not only reconfigure X but also
> install a new X11 server package.  That was burdensome -- but, again,
> how often do you wake up one morning and say 'I know!  I'm going to
> install a different video card today!'  And that bit was ages ago.

  Yeah, that was ages ago, and it has no relevance to today's case.
I remember those days, when lots of people would update to the latest
Matrox/Ati/3d-fx/nVidia card as soon as it was out to get the latest GLX
support which was needed by some game or by GoogleEarth.

> Perspective, not just a dictionary word.

  Indeed.


Alessandro

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Stephen Dennison (stephe...@gmail.com):

> A user interface that faces a graphical operating system... I don't
> understand the choice of words picked here.  I followed the link but
> it didn't really help.  I'm not sure which words are supposed to be
> modifying which other words.

Here's how this came about:  A few times over the years, Steve has
referred to things like XFCE as a 'window manager', and was told 
(paraphrasing) 'Technically, that's a DE that characteristically uses
_xfwm_ as its window manager but has also hooks to instead use the
awesome WM or any other WM, preferably one compliant with the XFCE
suite's hinting interface for alternate WMs'.

After this occurred a few times, Steve's response was _not_ 'I guess I 
ought to learn more accurately what a window manager is'[1], but rather
concocting a new, opaque, difficult to remember, and somewhat hideous
jargon item and continually ask everyone else to adopt it & cease
talking about WMs and DEs.

Which obviously isn't working, and won't work -- but everyone needs a
hobby.


> I think I grasp how you want the term to be used, but
> every time I see the new acronym come up I have to google it again to find
> out what it is.

Which, along with fundamental pointlessness, is why it won't work.


> > A session is something that runs for awhile, and usually the
> > implication is it's already running.
> 
> Yeah, a session is certainly something that runs for a while, but no,
> it does not imply that it's already running.

To quibble:  SLiM actually uses the word 'session' to mean 'user state,
maintained on-disc by an X11 session manager.'  In that context, it
_doesn't_ mean merely something that runs for a while.  Don't take my
word for it:  Read /etc/slim.conf, find the sessiondir line, and look up
what the referenced directory location houses.


> I would be curious to hear how others handle this when they wish to
> customize their session.

Don't look at me.  ;->  I prefer xdm from the Stone Age as my X display
manager.  Because it's bog-simple.


[1] In a better world, Steve might also have expressed gratitude to his
interlocutors for letting him know that different WMs could be swapped
in, and maybe finding one he likes better.  Steve's helpers were, after
all, trying to tell him something useful he might not have known -- not
just quibbling for quibbling's sake.

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Stephen Dennison]

On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 5:59 PM, Steve Litt 
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Fvwm is a lightweight GOSFUI
> (Graphical Operating System Facing User
> Interface (http://www.troubleshooters.com/linux/gosfui.htm)) that is
>
A user interface that faces a graphical operating system... I don't
understand the choice of words picked here.  I followed the link but it
didn't really help.  I'm not sure which words are supposed to be modifying
which other words.  I think I grasp how you want the term to be used, but
every time I see the new acronym come up I have to google it again to find
out what it is.

Anyway, I dont think a new term is needed.  Then again, I've never had a
conversation where someone disagreed with the use of KDE in response to a
question about the window manager being used except when they disagreed
with the use of KDE in general.

extremely configurable and extensible. Not many people use it, but
> those who do love it. The trouble is, it's very difficult to configure,
>
I suppose the people that *continue* to use it do love it.  I certainly
can't find anything better.


> and configuration tips and instructions are handed down from mentor to
> mentee with secret handshakes and incantations. There's almost no web
> documentation suitable for someone not already an expert.
>
Yeah, there are lots of configs you can borrow from, and these are on the
web, but I'm not sure what you mean by web documentation.  The man page is
pretty good and the forums are pretty good.  There's a sort of wiki hosted
on the forum site, too.  That has some smaller more digestible pieces to it
but it's still somewhat intimidating.  There are a bunch of user pages that
talk about how to configure it, too.  I suppose it's a victim of its own
incredibly configurable nature.  The language is simple, but it can do so
many things that expressing it becomes complex very quickly.

Nevertheless, Devuan has a very nice fvwm package that doesn't work
> until one copies a file, and then works great.

What?  It works without copying any files.  It worked out of the box on the
different devuan systems where I installed it.  Some were beta installs,
some were debian jessie to devuan jessie migrations, and some were ...err
normal? installs.


> Today I managed to
> integrate dmenu in with fvwm, creating a highly productive interface.
>
Could I see your configuration file?  Other than adding a key to launch
dmenu I'm curious to see what you've added.  I'm always looking for cool
features to add to my own config.


> I found a couple issues with Devuan Jessie's Display Manager screen
> that make using fvwm (or anything but the default) just a little more
> difficult:
>
> 1) "Press F1 to select session"
>
> 2) Choice of GOSFUI is not sticky
>
> As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean?

As pointed out in other replies, the session is a session in the context of
X.  Or more simply, it's the thing that when it exits you'll be sitting at
the login again.


> A session is something that runs for awhile, and usually the implication
> is it's already
> running.

Yeah, a session is certainly something that runs for a while, but no, it
does not imply that it's already running.

I think the word "session" needs to be changed to "GOSFUI".

No, session is more appropriate here.  Your new term is more restrictive
than what can actually be launched.


> If
> you'd rather not use a word directly created to handle the exact
> concept, you could substitute "window manager or desktop environment".
>
No, this wouldn't be correct.  You can launch something other than a window
manager or a desktop environment as your session.  For example, a kiosk, or
single full screen application instead of a window manager.


> To articulate just "window manager" or just "desktop environment" is to
> create arguments, and also could lead to errors in very literal
> thinking people.
>
That doesn't apply here.  It's also a good argument for not changing it
from session.


> #2 is bad because:
>
> a) Most other display managers default to the last GOSFUI that was run,
>not to the distro's default.
>
This isn't necessarily bad, just different.  Perhaps it's unexpected, but
it is a somewhat sane default.


> b) People preferring not to use the distro's default are going to get
>mighty tired of F1-ing around the GOSFUI loop in order to pick their
>choice.
>
I generally edit the /etc/slim.conf file to just execute the .xinitrc file
from the user's home directory.  When you edit the file it actually does a
decent job of explaining how to change it.  Then my .xinitrc file does a
bunch of customization (xmodmap, xrdb, xset...) and finally calls fvwm.

I would be curious to hear how others handle this when they wish to
customize their session.
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 18:50:35 +0200, Edward wrote in message 
:

> Sometimes there are advantages in opting to use the old way.
> 
> For instance, a mains transformer based power supply, normally has a
> far longer life than a switched mode power supply, although the latter
> offer the advantage of supplying far higher currents at lower DC
> voltages. Still, for an old electronics engineer, provided a 3 phase
> power supply is available, very high DC current outputs are possible
> with a ripple of only 15% of peak voltage. This performance can be
> achieved even without a smoothing capacitor! [For those who want the
> exact percentage, it is a matter of solving an equation containing a
> couple of sines. Draw 3 sine waves with the same amplitude but reflect
> the negative have cycles into the x-axis. Then solve for the
> intersection points.]
> 
> So, the musty fusty old ways cannot be completely forgotten. In this
> case, if you want very long term reliability you have to use the old
> way.
> 
> My little motto is: use the best fitting technology available without
> giving undue consideration to whether its old or new.

..even that approach can fail you, if your occupation etc power e.g.
require you wear some kind of tracking device, e.g. the funny hats
Catholic and Protestant European Feudal powers made Jews wear during 
the last millenium, served as tracking devices, as anyone seeing such
funny hats immediately knew the guys wearing them were Jews.  

..cell phones are no different these days, and the anonymous drone
operator cited in:
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/ is crystal 
clear: “It’s really like we’re targeting a cell phone. We’re not going
after people – we’re going after their phones, in the hopes that the 
person on the other end of that missile is the bad guy.”

..the "best fitting technology available" today is whatever makes you
look like Boring Joe Average, making undue consideration of what best
best way to serve your own ass, rather than what _is_ best.

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alessandro Selli (alessandrose...@linux.com):

>   Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
> video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
> Linux in the past 10 years.

I'm sure, but on the other hand, how often did that happen?  Extremely
seldom.

> Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time consuming and error
> prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just crazy.

Au contraire:  Even if you had nothing besides Xorg (or previously
XFree86) itself, in almost all cases you could just do 'Xorg -configure
> /etc/X11/Xorg.conf' and nothing else.  However, pretty nearly all
distributions provided even-easier X configurator tools.

Many long years ago during the XFree86 era, different chipset
necessitated installing individual X server packages, so, if you
switched cards, you often needed to not only reconfigure X but also
install a new X11 server package.  That was burdensome -- but, again,
how often do you wake up one morning and say 'I know!  I'm going to
install a different video card today!'  And that bit was ages ago.

Perspective, not just a dictionary word.

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Re: [DNG] new behaviour of /dev

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Renaud OLGIATI (ren...@olgiati-in-paraguay.org):

>  'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short' come to mind

The long-lamented ntk.net ('Need to Know') newsletter carried a cheeky
subhead declaring itself 'nasty, British, and short'.  All readers of
Hobbes cheered.

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com):

> Then we should think of a better word to represent the union of window
> managers and desktop environments. 

No, you have completely misdefined the problem, and this is why you
continually just raise noise on the matter and not help anything.

An X11 window manager, just like an X11 display manager and an X11
session manager -- and for the love of Ghod I hope you bothered
consulting those pages I provided about the concepts -- are real,
clearly defined things.

A 'Desktop Environment' is just a suite of a bunch of X11 things,
typically including one each, or in some cases a choice of several, in
each of those three categories, plus a bunch of X11 apps that all happen
to use the same graphics toolkit.

Really.  That's all it is.

What you've said, above, is analogous to saying 'We should think of a
better word to represent the union of malls and Sears stores', just
because you cannot be bothered to understand the difference between a
mall and a Sears store.  So:

> Seriously: 

Seriously, you should learn the X Window System.


> What I *do* know is...

...based on a fundamental error compounded by you then leading an
invisible marching band.

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[DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Edward Bartolo]

Sometimes there are advantages in opting to use the old way.

For instance, a mains transformer based power supply, normally has a
far longer life than a switched mode power supply, although the latter
offer the advantage of supplying far higher currents at lower DC
voltages. Still, for an old electronics engineer, provided a 3 phase
power supply is available, very high DC current outputs are possible
with a ripple of only 15% of peak voltage. This performance can be
achieved even without a smoothing capacitor! [For those who want the
exact percentage, it is a matter of solving an equation containing a
couple of sines. Draw 3 sine waves with the same amplitude but reflect
the negative have cycles into the x-axis. Then solve for the
intersection points.]

So, the musty fusty old ways cannot be completely forgotten. In this
case, if you want very long term reliability you have to use the old
way.

My little motto is: use the best fitting technology available without
giving undue consideration to whether its old or new.
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Steve Litt (sl...@troubleshooters.com):

> You just said it in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph: Why
> not substitute the phrase "grapical environment" for "session"? 

Um, how about because that would be factually mistaken?

It would be an excellent idea if you were to poke around SLiM and some
of the Web pages and documentation about it.  

Or, alternatively, you might prefer a different X11 Display Manager 
whose design you prefer.  There have always been a lot of them.  Even 
then, though, I would strongly recommend spending some time getting to
better know X11's admittedly labyrynthine design and file layout. 
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Re: [DNG] new behaviour of /dev

[Ron]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 17:48:02 +0200
Alessandro Selli  wrote:

> >>   People were happy even before the steam engine was invented.

> >  'solitary,  

>  Do you think so?

> > poor,  

>   It depends; when the wealthiest individuals where those who could afford a
> horse, wealth was more evently distributed than today.  Or do you think they
> felt poor because they could not have a PC?

> > nasty,  

>   Maybe, some of them.

> > brutish,  

>   Maybe, some of them.

> > and short' come to mind  

>   Oh dear, were they really *short*?  Jeez, how happy I am not to have lived
> in those awful times!

All those adjectives, which come from a quote of Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) 
refer not to people, but to their lives in preceding ages...
 
Cheers,
 
Ron.
-- 
Gli nomini si debbano o vezzeggiate o peguere;
 perche' si vendiciano delle leggieri offese,
   delle gravi non possono.
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Re: [DNG] opinions and experience with monit

[Jaromil]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017, Evilham wrote:

> Remember I set up Monit alerts for most of Devuan's infra a few
> weeks ago and they've been quite helpful :-).

yes!! very. I skip the detail you were using monit, being all on your
server I did not bother (and sincerely also happy to not bother in
understanding the internals for this setup). so, cheers!

> IMO: Monit is *very good* at a few things, so it depends on what
> your use case is.  Hopefully I explain properly what these things


ACK, yes! thanks. all clear. will consider nagios too.

ciao!

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Siegel (mi...@malbolge.net):

> What is being chosen there, is actually a profile for the graphical
> environment. So, neither "window manager" nor "desktop environment"
> really fit. You could say "profile", but "session" seems to be the
> (de-facto) standard term. Also, it makes some sense if you think about
> what session management is.

In this case, SLiM _literally means_ sessions, because (by default
configuration of /etc/slim.conf, it is parsing /usr/share/xsessions/ ,
which by convention is where X11 session managers store their state
data.

It's not that 'session' is a _standard_ term; it's that it's what SLiM
happens to be talking about in, in its default configuration.

Luckily, if you aren't running X11 session managers and/or prefer
more-direct control over what SLiM offers users at login, you can edit
/etc/slim.conf to do that (commenting out the 'sessiondir' line, for
starters).

Steve may or may not have noticed that I also did answer his other
question:  For a user to make a system's choice of window manager
'sticky' in SLiM, he/she need only edit ~/.xinitrc .  Thus, each user
gets to declare a preference.

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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 10:53:43 +0200
Michael Siegel  wrote:

> Am 23.08.2017 um 09:31 schrieb Harald Arnesen:
> > Steve Litt [2017-08-22 23:59]:
> >   
> >> As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean? A session is
> >> something that runs for awhile, and usually the implication is
> >> it's already running. I think the word "session" needs to be
> >> changed to "GOSFUI". If you'd rather not use a word directly
> >> created to handle the exact concept, you could substitute "window
> >> manager or desktop environment".  
> > 
> > "Window Manager" would be the best, I think. I agree that "Session"
> > can be misleading. How many users would know what you mean by
> > "GOSFUI", a not at all intuitive and far too long abbreviation
> > almost never used outside of this mailing list?  
> 
> What is being chosen there, is actually a profile for the graphical
> environment. So, neither "window manager" nor "desktop environment"
> really fit. You could say "profile", but "session" seems to be the
> (de-facto) standard term. Also, it makes some sense if you think about
> what session management is.

You just said it in the first sentence of the preceding paragraph: Why
not substitute the phrase "grapical environment" for "session"? If
"graphical environment" isn't perfect, it's a hell of a lot better than
either "session", "window manager" or "desktop environment".

SteveT
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Steve Litt]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:31:45 +0200
Harald Arnesen  wrote:

> Steve Litt [2017-08-22 23:59]:
> 
> > As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean? A session is
> > something that runs for awhile, and usually the implication is it's
> > already running. I think the word "session" needs to be changed to
> > "GOSFUI". If you'd rather not use a word directly created to handle
> > the exact concept, you could substitute "window manager or desktop
> > environment".  
> 
> "Window Manager" would be the best, I think. I agree that "Session"
> can be misleading. How many users would know what you mean by
> "GOSFUI", a not at all intuitive and far too long abbreviation almost
> never used outside of this mailing list?

Then we should think of a better word to represent the union of window
managers and desktop environments. I don't have Not Invented Here
syndrome: I'd be glad to support and publicize such a word.

What I *do* know is that as long as we use "window manager" or "desktop
environment" or "desktop" to represent what's really a specific
graphical user interface, there will be thread-hijacking arguments and
nothing will get solved. It's been this way for 15 years.

Seriously: If you don't like GOSFUI, come up with something better:
Something that currently doesn't have a definition. We'll publicize the
hell out of the word and the definition so no definition weenies can
come in and obfuscate it, and bang, we're done.

SteveT
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 14:22:34 +0200
Arnt Karlsen  wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:34:49 +0200, Alessandro wrote in message 
> :
>
>> On 22/08/2017 at 13:36, Arnt Karlsen wrote:  
>>> On Tue, 22 Aug 2017 03:38:50 +0200, Adam wrote in message 
>>> <20170822013850.ute5cf7ycrlvc...@angband.pl>:
>>>   
 There are cases when the old way had its merit -- but here, we
 have an equivalent of a car that needs to be started with a
 hand-crank.  
>>>
>>> ..you may have missed "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and George
>>> Orwell's "1984", or at the very least, the main point of these 2
>>> books and your own nation's history, in these Trumpian times.
>>>
>>> ..an hand-crank car keeps you in control of what's going on around
>>> you, if you pay attention.  
>>
>>   Why do you think an electric motor cannot do the same?  
>
> ..straw man, an electric motor cannot do the same without 
> AI taking control away from you.

  Please let me know what AI did the Wolkswagen Beetle have?

>>>  Your new shiny AI car may decide to kill you to 
>>> save e.g. "a more worthy person" from something really, really bad,
>>> e.g. Trumpian embarrasment, e.g. because you pay attention to
>>> what's going on around you. ;oD  
>> 
>>   First off, an electric engine starter does not have to have any AI
>> built-in.  The XX century auto industry proved it.  
>
> ..and the XXI'st is now disproving it.

  Present day technology cannot change the past.  Car electric starters did
not have any AI, they relied completely on the human who turned the key to
work.

>>   Secondly, AI is not inherently a user alien technology, no more that
>> computers are per se a tools against the users.  It all depends on
>> who is in charge.
>
> ..precisely my point.

  Do you intend to live without computers?
Your choice.

>> As there is software that puts the user in charge (Free/OS software)
>> and software that deprives the user of any freedom (proprietary
>> software), so there is AI that just serves users and AI that controls
>> them.  
>
> ..e.g. systemd is capable of "getting it done" both ways. ;o)

  My home PCs do not have it.

>> If this could not be, then your only option would be forsaking
>> IT altogether.  
>
> ..maybe.  Eventually, that too will fail, we mere mortals risk 
> getting targeted "as Islamists" for _not_ carrying cell phones:
> https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/
> https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/firing-blind/
> https://theintercept.com/2017/08/21/trump-may-not-survive-his-term-but-the-assassination-complex-will/

  I did not read anywhere people without cellphones are/will be targeted as
islamists, and I fail to understand how you could think those articles and
the facts they relate have anything to do with AI and car starters.


Alessandro
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Re: [DNG] new behaviour of /dev

[Alessandro Selli]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 at 05:22:20 -0400
Renaud (Ron) OLGIATI  wrote:

> On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:24:28 +0200
> Alessandro Selli  wrote:
> 
>>> I really don't know why so many people think hotplugging is a major
>>> need, anyway.  I happily used Linux for a very long time before it
>>> existed.  
>
>>   People were happy even before the steam engine was invented.  
>
>  'solitary,

 Do you think so?

> poor,

  It depends; when the wealthiest individuals where those who could afford a
horse, wealth was more evently distributed than today.  Or do you think they
felt poor because they could not have a PC?

> nasty,

  Maybe, some of them.

> brutish,

  Maybe, some of them.

> and short' come to mind

  Oh dear, were they really *short*?  Jeez, how happy I am not to have lived
in those awful times!

> Cheers,

  Just think what people will think of this generation in ~200 years time,
provided mankind does not self-destruct before: "how could people back in the
2000s possibily be happy without the many things we take for granted?  And how
*shorter* they were compared to us now!  Nasty, brutish and smelly short
boors!"

> Ron.

Alessandro

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:34:49 +0200, Alessandro wrote in message 
:

> On 22/08/2017 at 13:36, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> > On Tue, 22 Aug 2017 03:38:50 +0200, Adam wrote in message 
> > <20170822013850.ute5cf7ycrlvc...@angband.pl>:
> > 
> >> There are cases when the old way had its merit -- but here, we
> >> have an equivalent of a car that needs to be started with a
> >> hand-crank.
> >
> > ..you may have missed "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and George
> > Orwell's "1984", or at the very least, the main point of these 2
> > books and your own nation's history, in these Trumpian times.
> >
> > ..an hand-crank car keeps you in control of what's going on around
> > you, if you pay attention.
> 
>   Why do you think an electric motor cannot do the same?

..straw man, an electric motor cannot do the same without 
AI taking control away from you.

> >  Your new shiny AI car may decide to kill you to 
> > save e.g. "a more worthy person" from something really, really bad,
> > e.g. Trumpian embarrasment, e.g. because you pay attention to
> > what's going on around you. ;oD
> 
>   First off, an electric engine starter does not have to have any AI
> built-in.  The XX century auto industry proved it.

..and the XXI'st is now disproving it.

>   Secondly, AI is not inherently a user alien technology, no more that
> computers are per se a tools against the users.  It all depends on
> who is in charge.  

..precisely my point.

> As there is software that puts the user in charge (Free/OS software)
> and software that deprives the user of any freedom (proprietary
> software), so there is AI that just serves users and AI that controls
> them.

..e.g. systemd is capable of "getting it done" both ways. ;o)

> If this could not be, then your only option would be forsaking
> IT altogether.

..maybe.  Eventually, that too will fail, we mere mortals risk 
getting targeted "as Islamists" for _not_ carrying cell phones:
https://theintercept.com/2014/02/10/the-nsas-secret-role/
https://theintercept.com/drone-papers/firing-blind/
https://theintercept.com/2017/08/21/trump-may-not-survive-his-term-but-the-assassination-complex-will/

-- 
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
  Scenarios always come in sets of three: 
  best case, worst case, and just in case.
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Re: [DNG] opinions and experience with monit

[Evilham]

Hello :),

Am 22/08/2017 um 17:54 schrieb Jaromil:
> 
> dear DNG'ers
> 
> on my quest to study more supervision programs for my own use, I've
> found out (just now!) about monit:
> 
>  https://mmonit.com/monit/
> 
> I'm wondering if you have experiences using it and what are your
> opinions, it seems to me that is a well written, minimal enough
> addition to sysvlinux when more features are desirable but no
> entanglement is aloud.
> 
> is there someone here who knows it / has already experience with it?

Remember I set up Monit alerts for most of Devuan's infra a few weeks
ago and they've been quite helpful :-).

IMO: Monit is *very good* at a few things, so it depends on what your
use case is.
Hopefully I explain properly what these things are:

If you are only managing one server, or only want alerts (i.e. not act,
only notify) about multiple servers, Monit is definitely a good way to
go; it's very easy to set up and does its job quite well.

If, on the other hand, you have multiple machines you would like to act
upon, you should really go with something like Nagios.

A couple tips that may make it easier:
- Monit's default message format is awful, do customise it :).
- It is possible to set up custom alerts for specific events (e.g.
That's what I do with Devuan related tests, the Monit instance does
plenty of checks besides those of Devuan).
- Networks are unreliable. If you are implementing network checks
against other hosts; you should make use of the "for X times within Y
cycles", that will ensure that network hiccups won't trigger an alert of
something that is not going to be an issue.
  A downside of this is, you don't get that information in the
notification, e.g. if you have a cycle of 1 minute and say check "for 3
times within 5 cycles": your alert will say "failure at 10.11 am", but
it will imply that the service is probably down since 10.09 (3 failures
in 5 minutes).
- You *can* run arbitrary scripts when something happens (or to check
against the script's result / output). This gives you tons of
flexibility; if you do that for too many things though, you may be
better off checking Nagios :).

I hope that helps,
-- 
Evilham
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Re: [DNG] new behaviour of /dev

[Ron]

On Wed, 23 Aug 2017 09:24:28 +0200
Alessandro Selli  wrote:

> > I really don't know why so many people think hotplugging is a major
> > need, anyway.  I happily used Linux for a very long time before it
> > existed.

>   People were happy even before the steam engine was invented.

 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short' come to mind
 
Cheers,
 
Ron.
-- 
 It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals;
   let them make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
   -- Henrik Ibsen

   -- http://www.olgiati-in-paraguay.org --
 
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Didier Kryn]

Le 23/08/2017 à 09:51, Alessandro Selli a écrit :

   Actually, changing an interface's MAC address is not at all "severe
hacking", it's as easy as running ip link set address 00:e0:4d:78:5b:5b dev
eth0


By "severe", I didn't mean "difficult" :-)

Didier


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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Michael Siegel]

Am 23.08.2017 um 09:31 schrieb Harald Arnesen:
> Steve Litt [2017-08-22 23:59]:
> 
>> As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean? A session is something
>> that runs for awhile, and usually the implication is it's already
>> running. I think the word "session" needs to be changed to "GOSFUI". If
>> you'd rather not use a word directly created to handle the exact
>> concept, you could substitute "window manager or desktop environment".
> 
> "Window Manager" would be the best, I think. I agree that "Session" can
> be misleading. How many users would know what you mean by "GOSFUI", a
> not at all intuitive and far too long abbreviation almost never used
> outside of this mailing list?

What is being chosen there, is actually a profile for the graphical
environment. So, neither "window manager" nor "desktop environment"
really fit. You could say "profile", but "session" seems to be the
(de-facto) standard term. Also, it makes some sense if you think about
what session management is.


msi
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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On 22/08/2017 at 15:36, Didier Kryn wrote:

[...]

> The advantage of supporting an option like "hwaddr=a0:d3:c1:9d:a5:86"
> is that the admin is free to specify interfaces by names or by MAC
> address. Of course, there is now the possibility to change the MAC address
> of an interface, but this is a case of severe hacking where the admin has
> to understand what s?he does.

  I wholeheartedly agree.

  Actually, changing an interface's MAC address is not at all "severe
hacking", it's as easy as running ip link set address 00:e0:4d:78:5b:5b dev
eth0, but a boot script needs not do that and anyway there are tools that
can extract the MAC address directly from the hardware.


Alessandro

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On 22/08/2017 at 02:01, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Adam Borowski (kilob...@angband.pl):
> 
>> Manually creating the configuration -- or even manually triggering its
>> creation -- is a pretty bad idea.  It just guarantees you won't have
>> working X when you make any change to your hardware -- and sometimes
>> software as well.
> 
> Gosh, what you call a bad idea was utterly routine and what everyone was
> used to for decades.  You simply knew that, if you changed your video
> chipset or changed to a radically different pointing device, or if you
> wanted to do something very different like Xinerama, you'd need to
> generate a new one.

  Not having to login as root to manually configure Xorg just to change
video card or monitor was one of the best and most wanted improvements in
Linux in the past 10 years.  Manual Xorg configuration is so tedious, time
consuming and error prone that requiring users to be capable of it is just
crazy.


Alessandro

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Re: [DNG] An alternative to renaming [was Re: Proposed change in behaviour for ascii: eudev net.ifnames]

[Alessandro Selli]

On 22/08/2017 at 13:36, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Aug 2017 03:38:50 +0200, Adam wrote in message 
> <20170822013850.ute5cf7ycrlvc...@angband.pl>:
> 
>> There are cases when the old way had its merit -- but here, we have an
>> equivalent of a car that needs to be started with a hand-crank.
>
> ..you may have missed "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and George
> Orwell's "1984", or at the very least, the main point of these 2 books
> and your own nation's history, in these Trumpian times.
>
> ..an hand-crank car keeps you in control of what's going on around you,
> if you pay attention.

  Why do you think an electric motor cannot do the same?

>  Your new shiny AI car may decide to kill you to 
> save e.g. "a more worthy person" from something really, really bad, e.g.
> Trumpian embarrasment, e.g. because you pay attention to what's going
> on around you. ;oD

  First off, an electric engine starter does not have to have any AI
built-in.  The XX century auto industry proved it.

  Secondly, AI is not inherently a user alien technology, no more that
computers are per se a tools against the users.  It all depends on who is in
charge.  As there is software that puts the user in charge (Free/OS
software) and software that deprives the user of any freedom (proprietary
software), so there is AI that just serves users and AI that controls them.
If this could not be, then your only option would be forsaking IT altogether.

Alessandro
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Harald Arnesen]

Steve Litt [2017-08-22 23:59]:

> As far as #1, what the hell does "session" mean? A session is something
> that runs for awhile, and usually the implication is it's already
> running. I think the word "session" needs to be changed to "GOSFUI". If
> you'd rather not use a word directly created to handle the exact
> concept, you could substitute "window manager or desktop environment".

"Window Manager" would be the best, I think. I agree that "Session" can
be misleading. How many users would know what you mean by "GOSFUI", a
not at all intuitive and far too long abbreviation almost never used
outside of this mailing list?
-- 
Hilsen Harald

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Re: [DNG] new behaviour of /dev

[Alessandro Selli]

On 22/08/2017 at 15:22, Rick Moen wrote:

> I really don't know why so many people think hotplugging is a major
> need, anyway.  I happily used Linux for a very long time before it
> existed.

  People were happy even before the steam engine was invented.


Alessandro
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Re: [DNG] fvwm

[Joel Roth]

I usually fire up fvwm for the rare instances that an
app is awkward using tiles under i3. 


-- 
Joel Roth
  

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