Re: [GTALUG] HP Z420 + rx5600 + MSI MAG272CQR ?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: steve--- via talk 

| Subject: Re: [GTALUG] HP Z420 + rx5600 + MSI MAG272CQR ?

Does HP support linux on its workstations?  That would be nice.

For some reason AMD video support has seemed slow to settle.  Is the
rx5600 support solid?

I've never needed that much video horsepower.  But plenty of people
do.

| >  Just looking at some stuff.. looking to replace my DELL Vostro
| > 220S 4G machine with
| > something.

I take it that it has an Intel Core 2 Duo processor.  Yeah, it's
probably worth upgrading.  On the other hand, if you've lived with
that, an middle-of-the-road current machine should be fine.

The z420 is probably expensive overkill.  Is it old?  I saw a review
from 2013.  Are you buying used?

If you don't want to fuss, I kind of like the Lenovo ThinkCentre M75q
Tiny computer (but I am having a problem with the WiFi 6 driver):

Or if you wish to choose things (like DVD burner)

This second thread mentions a deal for the m75q, a Small Form Factor
variant that allows more expansion.

The m75q has all mod cons.  Since you're old too, you probably
remember that term.  For others: all modern conveniences.  WiFi6, some
magic USB-c stuff, HDMI (dongle, supplied) USB-3.x, 1G ethernet,
support for gobs of RAM.  NVMe.  I think that it has a 2.5" bay but
I'm too lazy to check.

Note that HP z series and Lenovo ThinkCentre are not cheap consumer
junk.  (I don't mind cheap consumer junk.)


Monitors are very personal.  For me, a decent but inexpensive 40"
UltraHD TV beats a 27" monitor every time.  Gamers would disagree
because the refresh rates can be better on monitors.

| > Cant go to Movies anyMore.
| >
| > GoTa bring the Movie to Me.

You will want quiet, then.  Not guaranteed with a workstation.

You also need to take a little care with the video, depending on your
monitor (the rx5600 would be fine).

For our household, a separate, non-computer solution is better for
watching movies.  Example device: a $65 Google ChromeCast with Google
TV.  We do have a dedicated tiny PC connected to our TV for viewing
the few things that our Android TV device does not support.

|Ooops forgot Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver.
| 
| This is my last upgrade ever, and the perfect place to stop.

18.04 is already 2 years stale.  Surely 20.04 LTS would be a wiser
choice.  And more likely to support the rx5600 (just a guess).

And don't say never.  Not a good way to think about computers.  They
are kind of disposable (not quite as badly as mobile phones).

Planning for the distant future is hard.  Perfection is the enemy of
getting things done.  I know.
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Re: [GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Giles Orr via talk 
| 
| - I think raw GRUB still works from a single .conf file that can be
| edited by hand.  The problem you're seeing is that most distros have
| built out a complex system to construct and replace that .conf file
| whenever a new kernel arrives.  The assumption is of course that mere
| mortals shouldn't be touching that config.  I learned a lot about
| GRUB2 configuration at one time, but I don't mess with Fedora's GRUB
| config system.

Yes.  Fedora follows a proposed standard.  I discovered this in
boilerplate comments in Fedora's grub.cfg, albeit with an obsolete URL
(I submitted a bugzilla about this).
  

| - Nicholas mentioned the in-place replacement of kernels: I think(?)

I don't think so.  But maybe.

| I've seen that behaviour on Debian with same-version kernels with
| security updates, but I don't think I've ever seen it for any reason
| on Fedora.

Are you talking about on-the-fly kernel updates?  kexec?  
kGraft/kpatch/ksplice?
  

They've always seemed scary.

| - if you have a separate /boot/ partition (very likely these days) and
| you're never deleting kernels, you stand a good chance of over-filling
| that partition and getting into trouble, particularly on Fedora which
| likes to push a new kernel every couple weeks.  You'll want to keep an
| eye on the space remaining in /boot/ and delete some of the newer
| kernels you don't need by hand.

Good point.

I see no point in a separate /boot so I never configure one.  Is there a 
point?  Does /boot have enough to fsck / before mounting it?

/boot/efi is the ESP (EFI System Partition), a dedicated FAT partition
that is required by UEFI.  Generally kernels are not placed there.  So
it doesn't grow that much.

If you did put the kernel+intramdisk in the ESP, you could probably
boot Linux via UEFI without the aid of GRUB.  I don't know of distros
that do this.  It's kind of tempting to cut out a whole layer of
complexity.  (You may have discussed this on your blog -- I don't
remember.)
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Re: [GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

| From: Michael Galea via talk 

| I have to do the same thing on my mythtv station to prevent the 5.10 series of
| kernels from installing/running.  Debian lets you do this by placing specific
| revision number packages on "hold", disabling further updating.
| 
| Fedora seems to have the same sort of feature.  Can't you use it?
| 
https://www.tecmint.com/yum-lock-disable-blacklist-certain-package-update-version/

Good and useful point.  I've used this with Ubuntu when Thunderbird
grew a bug (actually, it was a library bug, but the effect was the
same).

I want kernel updates to install.  I keep hoping that the bug will be
fixed so I need to test each one.  But I don't wish to accidentally
test them :-)

Unfortunately, I've left that fix in the Ubuntu installation because
it is so awkward to test.  Unlike kernels, most other packages expect
only one version to be installed at a time. (I don't count python2 and
python3 to be "the same package" in this sense.)
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Re: [GTALUG] HP Z420 + rx5600 + MSI MAG272CQR ?

[steve--- via talk]

>
>   Howdy!
>
>  Any experiences with any of the above?  Which is my worst choice?
>
>  Just looking at some stuff.. looking to replace my DELL Vostro
> 220S 4G machine with
> something.
>
> Cant go to Movies anyMore.
>
> GoTa bring the Movie to Me.
>
>  -steve

   Ooops forgot Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver.

This is my last upgrade ever, and the perfect place to stop.

 -steve

>
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>


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Re: [GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[Michael Galea via talk]

On 2021-02-08 4:01 p.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Anything that can get more complicated will get more complicated.  Boot
loaders seem to be an example.

It used to be straightforward to read /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg.
Now, building the list of kernels for the menu is farmed out to blscfg (a
grub module).

I needed to have a Fedora box default to booting a kernel that isn't the
latest (because the latest cannot bring up the display on my computer).

1. I needed to make updates not delete the working kernel.  Normally
updates keep only the last three kernels.  As of today, two are duds.
Fix: change /etc/dnf/dnf.conf's installonly_limit from 3 to 0

2. Find the list of kernels known to grub:
sudo ls /boot/loader/entries/*.conf

3. set the default to one of those.  Use the filename, without the
directory and without the .conf
  sudo grub2-set-default 
2733f1c892a5422c98bdb188c4f62737-5.10.9-201.fc33.x86_64

I don't know how long this sticks.
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I have to do the same thing on my mythtv station to prevent the 5.10 
series of kernels from installing/running.  Debian lets you do this by 
placing specific revision number packages on "hold", disabling further 
updating.


Fedora seems to have the same sort of feature.  Can't you use it?
https://www.tecmint.com/yum-lock-disable-blacklist-certain-package-update-version/

--
Michael Galea
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[GTALUG] HP Z420 + rx5600 + MSI MAG272CQR ?

[steve--- via talk]

  Howdy!

 Any experiences with any of the above?  Which is my worst choice?

 Just looking at some stuff.. looking to replace my DELL Vostro
220S 4G machine with
something.

Cant go to Movies anyMore.

GoTa bring the Movie to Me.

 -steve

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Re: [GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[Giles Orr via talk]

On Mon, 8 Feb 2021 at 16:01, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk
 wrote:
>
> Anything that can get more complicated will get more complicated.  Boot
> loaders seem to be an example.
>
> It used to be straightforward to read /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg.
> Now, building the list of kernels for the menu is farmed out to blscfg (a
> grub module).
>
> I needed to have a Fedora box default to booting a kernel that isn't the
> latest (because the latest cannot bring up the display on my computer).
>
> 1. I needed to make updates not delete the working kernel.  Normally
> updates keep only the last three kernels.  As of today, two are duds.
> Fix: change /etc/dnf/dnf.conf's installonly_limit from 3 to 0
>
> 2. Find the list of kernels known to grub:
> sudo ls /boot/loader/entries/*.conf
>
> 3. set the default to one of those.  Use the filename, without the
> directory and without the .conf
>   sudo grub2-set-default 
> 2733f1c892a5422c98bdb188c4f62737-5.10.9-201.fc33.x86_64
>
> I don't know how long this sticks.

A couple comments:

- I think raw GRUB still works from a single .conf file that can be
edited by hand.  The problem you're seeing is that most distros have
built out a complex system to construct and replace that .conf file
whenever a new kernel arrives.  The assumption is of course that mere
mortals shouldn't be touching that config.  I learned a lot about
GRUB2 configuration at one time, but I don't mess with Fedora's GRUB
config system.
- Nicholas mentioned the in-place replacement of kernels: I think(?)
I've seen that behaviour on Debian with same-version kernels with
security updates, but I don't think I've ever seen it for any reason
on Fedora.
- if you have a separate /boot/ partition (very likely these days) and
you're never deleting kernels, you stand a good chance of over-filling
that partition and getting into trouble, particularly on Fedora which
likes to push a new kernel every couple weeks.  You'll want to keep an
eye on the space remaining in /boot/ and delete some of the newer
kernels you don't need by hand.

-- 
Giles
https://www.gilesorr.com/
giles...@gmail.com
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Re: [GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[Nicholas Krause via talk]

On 2/8/21 4:01 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:

Anything that can get more complicated will get more complicated.  Boot
loaders seem to be an example.

It used to be straightforward to read /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg.
Now, building the list of kernels for the menu is farmed out to blscfg (a
grub module).

I needed to have a Fedora box default to booting a kernel that isn't the
latest (because the latest cannot bring up the display on my computer).

1. I needed to make updates not delete the working kernel.  Normally
updates keep only the last three kernels.  As of today, two are duds.
Fix: change /etc/dnf/dnf.conf's installonly_limit from 3 to 0

2. Find the list of kernels known to grub:
sudo ls /boot/loader/entries/*.conf

3. set the default to one of those.  Use the filename, without the
directory and without the .conf
  sudo grub2-set-default 
2733f1c892a5422c98bdb188c4f62737-5.10.9-201.fc33.x86_64

I don't know how long this sticks.


Normally I don't play around with grub but from memory default settings
are either a) written forever or b) until a new kernel or grub is
installed. I would doubt it's the second as that's rare i.e. I've
also never seen it but if your talking kernel packages it may occur
from memory. Sometimes package managers will overwrite the default
kernel if it's a newer version then any installed.

Maybe this helps a little,
Nick

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[GTALUG] grub2 on Fedora war story

[D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk]

Anything that can get more complicated will get more complicated.  Boot 
loaders seem to be an example.

It used to be straightforward to read /boot/efi/EFI/fedora/grub.cfg.
Now, building the list of kernels for the menu is farmed out to blscfg (a 
grub module).

I needed to have a Fedora box default to booting a kernel that isn't the 
latest (because the latest cannot bring up the display on my computer).

1. I needed to make updates not delete the working kernel.  Normally 
updates keep only the last three kernels.  As of today, two are duds.
Fix: change /etc/dnf/dnf.conf's installonly_limit from 3 to 0

2. Find the list of kernels known to grub:
sudo ls /boot/loader/entries/*.conf

3. set the default to one of those.  Use the filename, without the 
directory and without the .conf
  sudo grub2-set-default 
2733f1c892a5422c98bdb188c4f62737-5.10.9-201.fc33.x86_64

I don't know how long this sticks.
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Re: [GTALUG] How do you send out email?

[o1bigtenor via talk]

On Sun, Feb 7, 2021 at 9:30 PM Slackrat via talk  wrote:
>
>
> On 02/05/2021 08:28 AM, Peter King via talk wrote:
>
> On Thu, Feb 04, 2021 at 03:20:37PM +, William Park via talk wrote:
>
>
>The solution that worked for Fetchmail is not working for Sendmail.  I
>guess, it's time for upgrade to Postfix.  But, I suspect, I'll have the
>same problem.
>So, bigger question for you guys...
>- How do you send out email?  via Postfix/Sendmail?  Or, via
>Thunderbird?
>
> My Mail is currently sent out via Thunderbird.
>
> After using Emacs/GNUS for many years I have finally had to abandon it for 
> mail unfortunately because at 81 years my eyes cannot handle the tiny print 
> on the menu bars. Claws I tried but although it will automatically bring in 
> GNUS mails I abandoned > it for several reasons.

I, for one, would be interested in knowing why you did not continue with Claws.

TIA
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