Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi David, which "driver doesn't seem to have a clue"?

//Erik

sorry for top posting

On 17 July 2019 01:22:52 CEST, David Wright  wrote:
>On Sat 11 May 2019 at 10:10:42 (+0200), Erik Josefsson wrote:
>> […]
>> That encourages me to ask another stupid question: I'd like to know
>> why the "Keyboard model" has to be set before "Keyboard layout" when
>> walking through the dpkg-reconfigure menues?
>> 
>> If it was the other way around, the first choice, "Keyboard layout",
>> could perhaps make an informed selection from the list of "Keyboard
>> models" that could be relevant at all.
>
>I wasn't aware that dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration had
>any decision-making abilities like that. I think it just turns
>multiword descriptive lists into the pithy descriptions, so that
>you don't have to know that a "Generic 105-key (Intl) PC" keyboard
>becomes "pc105" and a Right Alt key for AltGr becomes
>"lv3:ralt_switch".
>
>> In any case, what you care about as a user is "Keyboard layout", and
>> in most cases when you have to make a series of choices, you start
>> with your known knowns, not your known unknowns.
>
>My experience is that Keyboard Models is critical. Without getting
>that correct, defining CapsLock as my Compose key is futile because
>the driver doesn't seem to have a clue where the CapsLock is.
>(That's for an "Acer laptop" PC.)
>
>Cheers,
>David.

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/23/19 8:40 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


Is it meaningful to test the SD cards with an USB-adapter? (the MicroSD
slot would be occupied by the SD card the machine is running from/on)

Testing SD cards on a different controller may help understand
_potential_  features of cards, but not_actual_  reachable potentials.

If you prefer an analogy: Reading in a magazine that some Formel-1
driver can cut a corner while driving 60km/h in same model car as yours
does not mean that you can expect to cut that same corner at that speed:
Depends not only on the vehicle (disk device) but also on the driver!



Sure. I have tried to drive the 4 cards along exactly the same path 
(i.e. flashbench) to reduce my influence on the performance. 
Unfortunately I cannot tell which one is the best from the resulting data.


If the fio benchmark can tell me which card is the best, I will try it 
at some point.






Of those figures, I consider the random ones more important in most
configurations. i.e. if I had to choose between a device that
supported a bit higher sequential read/write but much lower random
read/write, I'd rather have the random read/write, because that
tends to have more impact on interactive usage than sequential.

Yes, going back and forth between Thunderbird and Firefox while
copying text snippets from one app to the other sometimes ends in a
mouse pointer freeze.

That's basically what I do most of the time...

Biggest speed gain (on a limited computer like Teres-I) is likely had
with changing to less ressource hungry tools.

Instead of Firefox try GNOME Web (apt install epiphany-browser).  It
uses the rendering engine "Webkit" so is likely to handle most websites.
For an radically lighter browser rendering fewer real-world websites
properly and with an arguably less friendly user interface, try Surf.



This is very helpful. I have installed epiphany now. Thanks!



A lighter alternative with ok UI and somewhat decent rendering engine is
Netsurf, but unfortunately that one won't make it into Debian Buster.

Instead of Thunderbird try Balsa or Claws Mail.



OK. Thanks!






SD cards tend to have poor random IO speed so I would never use one
for general purpose computing if I could use an HDD or SSD instead.

If random IO speed most likely is the real bottle neck, do you know of
any particular brand/label/kind/category of MicroSD card that is
significantly better than others in that regard?

https://github.com/ThomasKaiser/Knowledge/blob/master/articles/A1_and_A2_rated_SD_cards.md

(this is perhaps 5th time I share that link with you; 2nd on this list)



The article by Thomas Kaiser ends with an open discussion that you can 
probably just as well buy A1 cards made before 2017. The last card I 
bought is neither A1 or A2 but marked with a XC II logo. That particular 
markup is not mentioned in Kaiser's article.


So the article cannot tell me which of my 4 cards is likely to be the 
best for my usecase:


MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PRO  64GB  [3]  XC II
MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  64GB  [3]  XC I  V30  A2
MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  32GB  [3]  HC I  V30  A1
MicroSD SanDisk Ultra  32GB  [1]  HC I  (10)  A1



Not sure if chasing some microseconds of better performance will make
a difference, but if it is anything like parking with a heavy truck
with heavy trailer in a small parking lot with other cars, then I
guess a microsecond extra is just as important as an extra centimeter
:-)



To give you some idea of what decent SSDs manage:

  
http://strugglers.net/~andy/blog/2019/05/29/linux-raid-10-may-not-always-be-the-best-performer-but-i-dont-know-why/


I don't think I can make Teres-I boot from an external SSD.

Through the USB2 interface you can.  Won't reach the full potentials of
SSD (see Formel-1 analogy above) but may still beat SD-cards.

You cannot_boot_  via USB2 interface but you can store your data there
which helps some scenarios (e.g. possibly helps Firefox hanging, as that
might be due to its working on cache data below your $HOME.



Ahh.. there's another hint! For some applications, disk partition matters?

I hope there is no downside to having two browsers installed, as long as 
you don't use them at the same time!


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi Andy, thanks for taking time and for your advise!

On 6/22/19 10:22 PM, Andy Smith wrote:

Hi Erik,

On Fri, Jun 21, 2019 at 03:02:46PM +0200, Erik Josefsson wrote:

Maybe flashbench cannot tell me anything about that anyway?

Are there other tools?

I'm not familiar with flashbench. I like fio. It's available in
Debian.

I like to do the following tests. Example fio command line follows
for each.

- sequential read speed (MB/sec)

 $ fio --name="seqread" \
   --filename="/mnt/fioscratch" \
   --ioengine=libaio \
   --readwrite=read \
   --direct=1 \
   --numjobs=2 \
   --bs=4k \
   --iodepth=4 \
   --size=1g \
   --runtime=300s \
   --gtod_reduce=1 \
   --group_reporting | tee -a /home/$USER/fio.txt

- sequential write speed (MB/sec)

 $ fio --name="seqwrite" \
   --filename="/mnt/fioscratch" \
   --ioengine=libaio \
   --readwrite=write \
   --direct=1 \
   --numjobs=2 \
   --bs=4k \
   --iodepth=4 \
   --size=1g \
   --runtime=300s \
   --gtod_reduce=1 \
   --group_reporting | tee -a /home/$USER/fio.txt

- random 4KiB reads (IOPS)

 $ fio --name="randread" \
   --filename="/mnt/fioscratch" \
   --ioengine=libaio \
   --readwrite=randread \
   --direct=1 \
   --numjobs=2 \
   --bs=4k \
   --iodepth=4 \
   --size=1g \
   --runtime=300s \
   --gtod_reduce=1 \
   --group_reporting | tee -a /home/$USER/fio.txt

- random 4KiB writes (IOPS)

 $ fio --name="randread" \
   --filename="/mnt/fioscratch" \
   --ioengine=libaio \
   --readwrite=randwrite \
   --direct=1 \
   --numjobs=2 \
   --bs=4k \
   --iodepth=4 \
   --size=1g \
   --runtime=300s \
   --gtod_reduce=1 \
   --group_reporting | tee -a /home/$USER/fio.txt

Explanation:

name: Identifies the block of test output in the results output
   file.

filename: This file will be written out and then read from or
   written to. So your test device needs to be mounted on
   /mnt first.



Teres-I has one MicroSD slot, one HDMI and two USB ports.

Is it meaningful to test the SD cards with an USB-adapter? (the MicroSD 
slot would be occupied by the SD card the machine is running from/on)




  As long as your user has write access there,
   fio does not need to be run as root.

readwrite: Sets the mis of reads and writes and whether they are
sequential or random.

direct: Use direct IO, bypassing Linux's page cache. If you don't
 use this, you'll only be testing Linux's cache which would
 distort results since you're only testing 1GiB of data which
 could well fit entirely within your RAM. Note that many
 storage devices have their own cache, but this probably
 isn't relevant for your case.

numjobs: Spawn two processes each of which will be doing the same
  thing at once.

bs: Use 4KiB sized IOs. If you can benchark your real application
 you may find it uses different-sized IOs, but if you don't know
 then 4KiB is a reasonable start.

iodepth: Each process will issue 4 IOs at once, rather than issuing
  one and then waiting for it to complete.

size/runtime: The tests will read or write 1GiB of data but there is
   also a time limit of 5 minutes and if that runs out
   first then the test will stop. I don't think you need
   to do many hours of testing here. After 5 minutes I
   should think the card will be showing its reasonable
   performance.

gtod_reduce: Don't do some tests that require the gettimeofday
  system call. Without this, fio can spend a lot of its
  CPU time calling that system call instead of
  benchmarking, and you rarely require the info it gives
  back anyway. Run without this option once to see if you
  really require it.

group_reporting: Aggregate results from all jobs (processes) within
  the test.

| tee -a …: Output the results both to the screen and append to a
 file in your home directory.

Of those figures, I consider the random ones more important in most
configurations. i.e. if I had to choose between a device that
supported a bit higher sequential read/write but much lower random
read/write, I'd rather have the random read/write, because that
tends to have more impact on interactive usage than sequential.


Yes, going back and forth between Thunderbird and Firefox while copying 
text snippets from one app to the other sometimes ends in a mouse 
pointer freeze.


That's basically what I do most of the time...




SD cards tend to have 

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi David, time is my main constraint. I'm soon going to have none left for 
evaluating benchmarks. I think a better use of available time would be to start 
fundraising to get Teres-I boot without micro SD. But then I don't know if the 
ethical case for that laptop is strong enough compared to other pressing needs 
of the community. My use case seems minimal and/or unrealistic. Best regards. 
//Erik

On 22 June 2019 01:00:51 CEST, David Christensen  
wrote:
>On 6/21/19 12:28 AM, Erik Josefsson wrote:
>> Hi David,
>> 
>> On 6/19/19 3:38 AM, David Christensen wrote:
>>>
>>> The best way to answer your question regarding performance of a size
>N 
>>> SD card vs. a size 2*N SD card is to buy two cards and benchmark
>them 
>>> using your workload.  Please publish your findings.
>> 
>> Please find my four (4) findings below or at 
>> http://paste.debian.net/1088723
>> 
>> The only benchmark I know how to use is flashbench. But unfortunately
>I 
>> don't know how to interpret the resulting data.
>> 
>> I would be immensely grateful for advise on which of the 4 cards to
>use.
>> 
>> The testing was simple. I have downloaded and put the same copy of
>the 
>> redpill RC3 image from http://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/ onto each SD
>card, 
>> then I have followed the instructions. Each card now has an "Extended
>
>> system" created by the command box-add-gui on the same machine.
>> 
>> Then I have installed aptitude, run update and upgrade and autoclean,
>
>> and then installed and run flashbench with parameters: flashbench -a 
>> /dev/mmcblk0 --blocksize=1024
>> 
>> The four cards are:
>> 
>> MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PRO  64GB  [3]  XC II
>> MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  64GB  [3]  XC I  V30  A2
>> MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  32GB  [3]  HC I  V30  A1
>> MicroSD SanDisk Ultra  32GB  [1]  HC I  (10)  A1
>> 
>> I can send a picture of the cards off list if this is unclear.
>> 
>> So the question is, which card should I use for Teres-I ?
>> 
>> If there are further benchmarks or tests that could help determine
>which 
>> SD card is the best, I'd be happy to run them.
>> 
>> Best regards.
>> 
>> //Erik
>
>
>I'm not familiar with flashbench.  Every tool has a learning curve;
>it's 
>up to you to decide how much effort you want to put into it.
>
>
>When I wrote "benchmark them using your workload", I was thinking 
>"install Debian, install your apps, run your apps, quantify what you 
>can".  If you're doing command-line stuff, the 'time' built-in for Bash
>
>can be very useful.  But, it's also good to get a subjective feel for 
>the system on the various media -- does it lag?  Does it stutter/ 
>freeze?  Does it crash?
>
>
>I found that Debian and FreeBSD on SanDisk Ultra Fit 16 GB USB 3.0
>flash 
>drives was "good enough" for headless servers, but stuttered/ froze for
>
>interactive graphical desktop use (during disk I/O; especially writes).
>
>I have since migrated to used 16 GB SSD's.  (Does your target hardware 
>have a SATA port?)
>
>
>David

-- 
Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/21/19 12:17 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

Quoting Erik Josefsson (2019-06-21 09:28:38)

On 6/19/19 3:38 AM, David Christensen wrote:

The best way to answer your question regarding performance of a size
N SD card vs. a size 2*N SD card is to buy two cards and benchmark
them using your workload.  Please publish your findings.

Please find my four (4) findings below or at
http://paste.debian.net/1088723

The only benchmark I know how to use is flashbench. But unfortunately
I don't know how to interpret the resulting data.

flashbench is for benchmarking page/erase-blocks/allocation-group (not
transfer speed).

My tool to generate images supports custom-aligned since April 28:
https://salsa.debian.org/tinker-team/box/commit/be07a3a1b0-I


That's great, but granted all 4 cards are optimized by your scripts, the 
question is if flashbench can tell me which one to pick?


All of them work fine, but I want to spend time with the one that is 
best for "my workload", as suggested by David Christensen earlier in the 
thread.


Maybe flashbench cannot tell me anything about that anyway?

Are there other tools?

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi David,

On 6/19/19 3:38 AM, David Christensen wrote:


The best way to answer your question regarding performance of a size N 
SD card vs. a size 2*N SD card is to buy two cards and benchmark them 
using your workload.  Please publish your findings.


Please find my four (4) findings below or at 
http://paste.debian.net/1088723


The only benchmark I know how to use is flashbench. But unfortunately I 
don't know how to interpret the resulting data.


I would be immensely grateful for advise on which of the 4 cards to use.

The testing was simple. I have downloaded and put the same copy of the 
redpill RC3 image from http://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/ onto each SD card, 
then I have followed the instructions. Each card now has an "Extended 
system" created by the command box-add-gui on the same machine.


Then I have installed aptitude, run update and upgrade and autoclean, 
and then installed and run flashbench with parameters: flashbench -a 
/dev/mmcblk0 --blocksize=1024


The four cards are:

MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PRO  64GB  [3]  XC II
MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  64GB  [3]  XC I  V30  A2
MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  32GB  [3]  HC I  V30  A1
MicroSD SanDisk Ultra  32GB  [1]  HC I  (10)  A1

I can send a picture of the cards off list if this is unclear.

So the question is, which card should I use for Teres-I ?

If there are further benchmarks or tests that could help determine which 
SD card is the best, I'd be happy to run them.


Best regards.

//Erik

MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PRO  64GB  [3]  XC II
debian@box:~$ sudo flashbench -a /dev/mmcblk0 --blocksize=1024
align 17179869184   pre 515µs   on 809µspost 452µs  diff 
325µs
align 8589934592pre 515µs   on 736µspost 427µs  diff 
265µs
align 4294967296pre 537µs   on 823µspost 460µs  diff 
325µs
align 2147483648pre 545µs   on 893µspost 471µs  diff 
385µs
align 1073741824pre 517µs   on 749µspost 434µs  diff 
274µs
align 536870912 pre 526µs   on 763µspost 445µs  diff 277µs
align 268435456 pre 527µs   on 769µspost 448µs  diff 282µs
align 134217728 pre 540µs   on 820µspost 446µs  diff 327µs
align 67108864  pre 514µs   on 754µspost 449µs  diff 273µs
align 33554432  pre 506µs   on 722µspost 417µs  diff 261µs
align 16777216  pre 539µs   on 660µspost 460µs  diff 160µs
align 8388608   pre 539µs   on 670µspost 458µs  diff 171µs
align 4194304   pre 541µs   on 669µspost 466µs  diff 165µs
align 2097152   pre 547µs   on 649µspost 463µs  diff 144µs
align 1048576   pre 544µs   on 639µspost 458µs  diff 138µs
align 524288pre 545µs   on 658µspost 460µs  diff 155µs
align 262144pre 545µs   on 655µspost 460µs  diff 152µs
align 131072pre 540µs   on 620µspost 455µs  diff 122µs
align 65536 pre 541µs   on 624µspost 458µs  diff 125µs
align 32768 pre 538µs   on 622µspost 461µs  diff 122µs
align 16384 pre 478µs   on 633µspost 457µs  diff 165µs
align 8192  pre 501µs   on 516µspost 480µs  diff 25.7µs
align 4096  pre 509µs   on 528µspost 465µs  diff 41.2µs
align 2048  pre 514µs   on 538µspost 508µs  diff 27.6µs


MicroSD SanDisk Extreme PLUS  64GB  [3]  XC I  V30  A2
debian@box:~$ sudo flashbench -a /dev/mmcblk0 --blocksize=1024
align 17179869184   pre 567µs   on 603µspost 494µs  diff 
72.6µs
align 8589934592pre 557µs   on 583µspost 442µs  diff 
83.9µs
align 4294967296pre 689µs   on 784µspost 564µs  diff 
157µs
align 2147483648pre 654µs   on 726µspost 593µs  diff 
103µs
align 1073741824pre 579µs   on 638µspost 522µs  diff 
87.7µs
align 536870912 pre 570µs   on 652µspost 529µs  diff 102µs
align 268435456 pre 524µs   on 564µspost 500µs  diff 52.5µs
align 134217728 pre 654µs   on 730µspost 616µs  diff 95.3µs
align 67108864  pre 664µs   on 728µspost 600µs  diff 96.3µs
align 33554432  pre 576µs   on 637µspost 530µs  diff 84.1µs
align 16777216  pre 628µs   on 694µspost 568µs  diff 95.9µs
align 8388608   pre 594µs   on 654µspost 567µs  diff 73.6µs
align 4194304   pre 628µs   on 680µspost 580µs  diff 76µs
align 2097152   pre 576µs   on 602µspost 562µs  diff 33.5µs
align 1048576   pre 578µs   on 577µspost 572µs  diff 2.21µs
align 524288pre 585µs   on 585µspost 578µs  diff 3.55µs
align 262144pre 587µs   on 592µspost 584µs  diff 6.52µs
align 131072pre 616µs   on 636µspost 613µs  diff 21.4µs
align 65536 pre 594µs

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/19/19 2:04 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

Or, a better question, is it within reach to run a Debian Pure Blend
on Teres-I without an external SD card? If so, is Dan Ritter right
that it will be 2x to 8x faster?

Yes, it certainly is within reach, just needs someone to do the
reaching.

This seems a good starting point for such adventure:
https://github.com/armbian/build/blob/master/packages/bsp/common/usr/sbin/nand-sata-install


Very good!

Indeed, one of the comments to the code on that page says ""In case of 
eMMC it's also possible to transfer the bootloader to eMMC in a single 
step so from then on running without SD card is possible.".


Somehow the Olimex folks managed to make Teres-I run Ubuntu without SD card.

Grateful for advice who to talk to!

Best regards.

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/19/19 1:15 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


Quoting deloptes (2019-06-19 12:42:13)

Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


In short, you really_really_  want netinstall from MicroSD!

What about debootstrap? IS it possible to use it for that SoC?

Certainly.  Debian-installer uses debootstrap internally so that is a
must.  The images Erik has used until now -http://box.redpill.dk/  - are
also built with debootstrap (or rather the more flexible multistrap)
using the framework I referenced in my previous post:
https://salsa.debian.org/tinker-team/box

My point in above quote is which_medium_  you want to boot from
initially on a Teres-I: MicroSD rather than USB (not which method of
installation you want).

My work specifically explores how to avoid the tedious process of
running debian-installer on the relatively slow Teres-I but reach_same_  
result as if doing so - because in my experience running debootstrap

directly can easily lead to a slightly broken system.


It is quite possible that my impression that the Ubuntu instance that 
Teres-I is shipped with is significantly faster than your redpills is 
just imaginary, but then Dan Ritter seemed to confirm that that "native 
Ubuntu" probably is 2x to 8x faster.


If "native Ubuntu" is faster than "SD redpill", then I wonder how the 
Olimex people got their Ubuntu installed in the first place? They 
couldn't have used the Debian Installer, could they?


Or, a better question, is it within reach to run a Debian Pure Blend on 
Teres-I without an external SD card? If so, is Dan Ritter right that it 
will be 2x to 8x faster?


//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi Dan,

On 6/18/19 11:57 PM, Dan Ritter wrote:

Nicholas Geovanis wrote:

On Tue, Jun 18, 2019, 4:10 PM Erik Josefsson <
erik.hjalmar.josefs...@gmail.com> wrote:


The Ubuntu version that Teres-I comes with feels almost as good, which is
why I still don't understand why running Debian from the SD-card doesn't.


Then I would be interested to know which release of Ubuntu and see an
installed package list. But i will hit the websites, no need to post here.

He seems to be comparing speed of Ubuntu on an internal eMMC
storage (16GB, 8 bit interface) to the speed of Debian on an
SD card interface (either 4 bit or 1 bit interface, depending
on what they chose).

The eMMC should transfer twice as fast at minimum, and possibly
8x as fast as the SD card.


I obviously didn't get that memo.


-dsr- (I looked at the spec.)

You don't happen to see in the spec. which boot key to press to get 
Teres-I to start a netinstall from USB?


The new Debian-Installer worked perfectly fine with an old HP 
workstation a couple of weeks ago.


https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

I'd love to try it on Teres-I.

Thanks a million!

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/18/19 9:04 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

I need either to drop gui or figure out a way to make the Teres-I
laptop perform almost as good as a Lenovo N22-20 Chromebook model 80SF
(which is what the kids had last year).

Such a Lenovo Chromebook outperforms the Teres-1 on every way.


I know, that's why I wrote "almost as good".

The Ubuntu version that Teres-I comes with feels almost as good, which 
is why I still don't understand why running Debian from the SD-card doesn't.


Maybe it's just a technical fact that it can never do, regardless of 
optimizations and settings, and that I didn't get that memo?



You should use Teres-I not for its speed but its price and ethics:
https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/


The real world cost of using Teres-I with a Pure Blend can only be 
justified with the latter.


The only other, in that sense, ethical laptop I know of are the ones you 
can buy from puri.sm.


Because PureOS is a Debian Pure Blend, isn't it?

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/18/19 5:46 PM, Nicholas Geovanis wrote:


If the computer runs from the SD card, the memory you are talking
about is also on that same SD card, no?

No. The SD card is analogous to the hard drive, not to the RAM.


Thanks! Now things start to make sense again :-)

That means there could be some margin of performance optimization of 
Teres-I, but the non-SD-card hardware together with the "IO bus design" 
songbird mentioned (thank you songbird!) is non-configurable, i.e. the 
real bottleneck.


I need either to drop gui or figure out a way to make the Teres-I laptop 
perform almost as good as a Lenovo N22-20 Chromebook model 80SF (which 
is what the kids had last year).


Or drop Teres-I.

//Erik

Re: System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi Andy, thanks for taking time!

On 6/18/19 3:14 PM, Andy Smith wrote:

There is a very expensive 64GB SD card from SanDisk that is called Extreme
Pro that costs twice as much as same size Extreme Plus. Specs say it is
"super duper blazing fast" for video in "Ultra HD 4K", but would Pro also be
faster than Plus for the task of running Thunderbird and Firefox at the same
time?

Running big apps like that will benefit more from having enough
memory. After that is satisfied, fast storage will certainly help.
You'll have to look at the exact specifications of Plus vs Pro.


Here's probably one of my large white spots, but what do you mean with 
"enough memory"?


If the computer runs from the SD card, the memory you are talking about 
is also on that same SD card, no?


If yes, then optimizing available SD card memory (e.g. 32GB or 64GB) 
would yield different performance results, but that does not seem to be 
the case!




What are you trying to achieve?


I want to make up my mind whether I will have the time to use Teres-I 
with redpill RC3 at work (i.e. in school).


Thanks again!

//Erik

System on a chip - performance relative size and setup (how can the (Debian) setup make a difference?)

[Erik Josefsson]

This is another quite open question that I probably could research 
myself, if I had the time.


As far as I understand, it is quite recent that SD cards are fast and 
large enough to be able to carry and run an entire Debian instance.


If this is the case, maybe there is only theory available regarding 
whether you can make a computer "run faster" on a 64GB SD card than on a 
32GB SD card when cards are otherwise identical.


I don't really know how swap works on a standard computer, even less how 
it works when the whole computer runs from/on a SD card.


Swap is supposed to be make your computer pretend that you have more RAM 
than it actually has, but if the whole computer is running from/on RAM 
(or is it?), then what does swap mean?


On Teres-I with redpill RC2 (now there is a RC3 that I have not yet 
installed) an unfortunate website with pop up commercials (like dn.se) 
can eat all performance there is and freeze the mouse for hours. I would 
guess that could have been fixed on a normal computer with "more RAM", 
i.e., "more swap"? But is the same true for e.g. Teres-I?



Second question is if it is meaningful to buy a "super duper blazing 
fast" SD card for the task to run a whole Debian system?


There is a very expensive 64GB SD card from SanDisk that is called 
Extreme Pro that costs twice as much as same size Extreme Plus. Specs 
say it is "super duper blazing fast" for video in "Ultra HD 4K", but 
would Pro also be faster than Plus for the task of running Thunderbird 
and Firefox at the same time?



Best regards.

//Erik

Teres-I

[Erik Josefsson]

Hej!

Jag har köpt två byggsatser Teres-I:

https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/

och prövar mig fram med en Debian Pure Blend:

http://box.redpill.dk/

Är det någon på listan som också har en (eller flera) och har provat 
installera enligt instruktionen på box.redpill.dk?


mvh

//Erik

Re: Diagnosing what applications are doing

[Erik Josefsson]

On 6/15/19 9:27 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

When I get around to using it myself I will likely add it to one of the
addon profiles of thehttps://box.redpill.dk/  images but not the gui
profile specifically: It is a command-line tool, not graphical.



As far as I can see, pullimap needs libconfig-tiny-perl and
libinterimap, and offlineimap needs python-imaplib2 and python-socks.

Perhaps one is more lightweight than the other?

interimap should be more efficient but requires a good IMAP server like
Dovecot (see package description) whereas offlineimap works with a wider
variety of servers including Gmail.


Which email client comes with the Teres-I tui profile?

Maybe I should just start to use that and drop gui email when I have 
learned how to live with tui email.


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: Diagnosing what applications are doing

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/26/19 4:36 PM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

Quoting Gene Heskett (2019-05-26 16:25:43)

On Sunday 26 May 2019 07:05:45 am Jonas Smedegaard wrote:


Quoting Paul Sutton (2019-05-26 12:28:43)

On my netbook,  Thunderbird seems really unstable, it stars up
fine then seems to stall and fails to respond,  it eventually
picks up.

[...]

One thing that will "freeze" it is using its own download facilities
to fetch the mail, used to bug me pretty badly, but when it did come
back, everything I had typed into a message came back with it.  So I
offloaded that fetching of emails by making fetchmail, procmail,
clamscan and spamassassin all into background tasks that have minimal
effect on kmail.  Now my freezes are maybe a second as it sorts an
incoming email that has servived the spam and viri filters.

Good point!  (this is Thunderbird not KMail but still applies)

For IMAP mail, I recommend more modern alternatives to fetchmail:

   * pullimap
   * offlineimap


Could you recommend one of them to use with an install of the 
box-add-gui alternative for Teres-I?


As far as I can see, pullimap needs libconfig-tiny-perl and 
libinterimap, and offlineimap needs python-imaplib2 and python-socks.


Perhaps one is more lightweight than the other?

Best regards.

//Erik

Can any setting be changed after an "install Buster from scratch"-procedure?

[Erik Josefsson]

Hello,

I followed Ken's thread about date format in Thunderbird:

https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2019/06/msg00133.html

and ended up reading about Dot files:

https://wiki.debian.org/DotFiles

This was very helpful for me, because I think I can now ask the right 
question:


Can every setting made with an "install Buster from scratch"-procedure 
(like the one for [Teres-I DIY laptop] available at box.redpill.dk) be 
changed after the install procedure is completed?


I mean, can some settings be "hard-coded" by an install procedure?

Or in other words, which settings need to be set correctly during install?

The reason I ask is that, for me, every install from scratch is quite 
time consuming and makes it very hard to check mail and do other basic 
stuff while installing, so if everything can be tinkered with after an 
install, I can probably find out how I want my laptop to be set up 
without an Ethernet connection (which I happen to need for the install 
procedure).


Maybe my my question doesn't make sense, but for me it does, because I 
have now managed to install a fresh new Teres-I image that is available 
at box.redpill.dk, with a result that I hope I "fix", i.e. tinker with 
further to make it into a Swedish laptop.


This is my sequence of commands that brought me here:

1.Prepare image on SD card (done on another fully functional machine):
1.1.  wget http://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0rc2.img.gz
1.2.  gunzip nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0rc2.img.gz
1.3.  sudo cp nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0rc2.img /dev/sda
2. Move SD card to Teres-I, connect ethernet-via-USB-cable, turn on 
machine and follow instructions on screen:

2.1.  sudo box-finalize
2.1.1.  Dialog
2.1.2.  high
2.1.2.  install language support - yes
2.1.2.  Select default language code (none to skip) - none
2.2.  sudo apt update
2.3.  sudo box-add-gui
2.4.  sudo shutdown -h now

I think that is pretty neat! (thank you Jonas!)

I have then started Teres-I again with network via tethering via USB 
turned on from a Galaxy III GT-i9300 mobile phone running LineageOS. 
Somehow Teres-I gets network early enough in the boot process to later 
do the following flawlessly:


sudo apt install aptitude
sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude upgrade
sudo aptitude autoclean
sudo aptitude install gedit
man gedit

To me it now looks like I have a fully functional laptop, but as I wrote 
above, I need to tinker with it to get it to behave like it is a Swedish 
laptop.


The most wonderful thing is that it looks as if I could do this with 
tethering via USB (with which my DNS-issues seems gone!).


Thanks for helping out!

Best regards.

//Erik

[Teres-I DIY laptop] https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/

Re: What to buy for Buster?

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/24/19 5:12 AM, David Christensen wrote:


If you get a major brand computer with 64-bit Intel Core technology 
(ca. 2006) or newer, Debian should run on it.


Great! Thanks!

The HP Compaq 8200 Elite SFF that I'm about to grab has a Intel Core 
i5-2400S processor.


I browsed the Debian installer pages and as far as I understand I should 
use "other images (netboot, USB stick, etc.)" for the installation, but 
to me it is not obvious if I should use the image for the amd64 or the 
i386 architecture:


https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

My typcal problem. I should know basic stuff like that.

Is the "Debian Designation" for the Intel Core i5-2400S processor "Intel 
x86-based" or "AMD 64 & Intel 64"?


(I am looking at the table "2.1.1. Supported Architectures" in the 
Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide on the pages of d-i.debian.org/manual/)


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: What to buy for Buster?

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/23/19 4:59 PM, Joe wrote:

On Thu, 23 May 2019 15:17:15 +
Erik Josefsson  wrote:


Thanks all for feedback, help and answers to many of my questions,
but I feel my available time and my skills put together won't meet
the threshold for being able to contribute to Debian in any
meaningful way for another year or two.

I'll have to go back to piggybacking, as I have done for decades.

As such a piggyback, I'd anyway like to ask if anyone would know a
reasonably powerful second hand stationary office computer that can
run a Debian Buster Pure Blend from a net install? No need for
wireless, I will just connect with ethernet cable.

Reasonably powerful? Is this 'games' powerful or 'office' powerful?
Most business computers are bought for size, quietness and cost, not raw
power. Even servers don't need to be particularly powerful unless they
run MS operating systems and/or multiple VMs. The most powerful
ex-office machines will be MS servers, but they are generally large and
noisy and produce a fair bit of heat. Whatever you buy, throw away the
hard drive and buy new.


I don't know more than that I should avoid Nvidia.

In theory, since it is a Pure Blend, I would then never have to
bother you again :-)

I mean, I would know for certain that there is nothing wrong with the
computer, but rather with the computeur.

I thought that maybe I would master the Teres-I and its
box.redpill.dk promise, but the combo of wireless- and DNS-issues is
too steep.

Next life maybe.


Always difficult to advise, so many computers, so few recent ones
listed as Linux-compatible. All I can offer is that I've never had
problems with HP business desktops,


Thanks a million! I'm not a gamer, would this machine be OK you think?

https://www.bluecity.se/hp-compaq-8200-elite-sff-2-50ghz-250gb-hdd-windows-10-8gb-ram-svart-50074

It's on the shelf for sale just down town, so I could buy it tomorrow!


  or Acer portables. But then, I
don't play games (beyond solitaire) so I'm not looking for blazing fast
graphics. Other people swear by Dell, but I've never used one and I've
heard a few stories about them.

Something else you might consider is a decent motherboard, such as
Gigabyte, preferably bundled with RAM and CPU to avoid compatibility
problems. With a new power supply and hard drive (SSD prices are
falling quickly at the moment), an old case can be revived, and most of
us have one or two of those.


Great advice, thanks again!

//Erik

What to buy for Buster?

[Erik Josefsson]

Thanks all for feedback, help and answers to many of my questions, but I 
feel my available time and my skills put together won't meet the 
threshold for being able to contribute to Debian in any meaningful way 
for another year or two.


I'll have to go back to piggybacking, as I have done for decades.

As such a piggyback, I'd anyway like to ask if anyone would know a 
reasonably powerful second hand stationary office computer that can run 
a Debian Buster Pure Blend from a net install? No need for wireless, I 
will just connect with ethernet cable.


I don't know more than that I should avoid Nvidia.

In theory, since it is a Pure Blend, I would then never have to bother 
you again :-)


I mean, I would know for certain that there is nothing wrong with the 
computer, but rather with the computeur.


I thought that maybe I would master the Teres-I and its box.redpill.dk 
promise, but the combo of wireless- and DNS-issues is too steep.


Next life maybe.

Best regards.

//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/22/19 12:40 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Wed 22 May 2019 at 04:06:46 (+), Erik Josefsson wrote:

On 5/5/19 7:21 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

I don't know if there is a screw loose in your laptop, or
warewolves pissed on a USB plugs.

Well, what comes out of one of the keyboards now is p.

In response to your pressing keys, or spontaneously?
Rapidly or intermittently?


I found the laptop "p"-ing when coming back after wiping, among other 
things, baby drool in another room. My daughter is 19 months.


More specifically, I came back to a growing line of p's in an open text 
document in Mousepad (the xfce editor). I did not press any key, nor was 
the p's coming rapidly or intermittently. I just closed Mousepad.



Is this permanent (whenever you switch on) or just occasional?


It continued in Thunderbird, but less aggressive, kind of like at the 
end of the walk with the dog (if the allegory still holds for another joke).



Or did it start mid-session?


I think more like mid session, but not sure. I have now put that laptop 
on the shelf.


If something similar happens with this laptop, we can rule out baby 
drool. I'm keeping it safe from now on.


But it also means I will have to stop testing things and instead find 
for another mode of working with Debian.



After dpkg-reconfigure console-setup or keyboard-configuration?


Probably unrelated.

But you never know (full moons etc).

Best regards.

//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/5/19 7:21 AM, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:

I don't know if there is a screw loose in your laptop, or
warewolves pissed on a USB plugs.


Well, what comes out of one of the keyboards now is p.

Could be warewolf p's, or baby drool.

It's magic either way.

//Erik

Re: intermittent or not? "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'"

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/19/19 7:11 AM, Erik Josefsson wrote:


Maybe this is of general interest, so a code snippet with where wifi 
parameters are set could be interesting?


And the default(?) DNS settings I guess.

Best regards.

//Erik

Re: intermittent or not? "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'"

[Erik Josefsson]

On 5/13/19 11:28 AM, Dan Ritter wrote:

The same command of course works perfectly fine when I connect the Teres
laptop directly to the internet with an ethernet cable (through USB).


I got this same behavior yesterday when firing up a new Debian
laptop. Turned out the wireless card was down.


Thanks Dan.

The card is not down.

Right now:

- My laptop from work opens https://fosdem.org and 
https://lists.debian.org with my home wifi router without any problem.


- My phone running LineageOS opens https://fosdem.org and 
https://lists.debian.org with my home wifi router without any problem.


- My Teres-I laptop cannot open https://fosdem.org nor 
https://lists.debian.org with my home wifi router, but with Ethernet/USB 
cable the pages opens just fine (cable connected to laptop directly from 
the wall, no router in between).


- My Teres-I laptop "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'" with wifi when 
asked to aptitude install something. But with Ethernet/USB it installs 
just fine (just as above).



However, right now, I can open lots of other web pages with my Teres-I 
laptop, and mail (Thunderbird) works fine (at least as far as I can 
tell, it's quite slow).


To me it seems like there is a wifi setting somewhere in my Teres-I 
laptop that is the reason for the intermittent(?) behavior, but of 
course it can be more complex than that.


Maybe a peek in the [source code] could shed some light on whether that 
could explain the behavior?


Unfortunately my Teres-I cannot reach the source code website either.

Maybe this is of general interest, so a code snippet with where wifi 
parameters are set could be interesting?


It would definitely be a great help for me.

//Erik

[source code] https://salsa.debian.org/tinker-team/box

Off topic: non zero error codes

[Erik Josefsson]

Good morning,

I have wanted to ask for a long time about something I made up from 
hearsay whether it is remotely true. I hope that's OK.


Is there is a shell/language where the returncode for TRUE is zero and 
that that is the opposite of how all other shells/languages are made?


The argument for creating it was that it then becomes handier to say "no 
errors, one error, two errors..." than to say "success, one error, two 
errors...".


I mean: (0, 1, 2, ...) is handier than (1, 0, whatever, ...).

Best regards.

//Erik

clone a bootable image (was: Re: intermittent or not? "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'")

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi john!

First, thanks to you and everyone for helpful suggestions.

Den 2019-05-12 kl. 08:45, skrev john doe:

focus on one card first then clone it!:)
I'll focus on this suggestion now l because it sounds like it could save 
me a lot of time.


But before I start, I have to ask if it is actually possible to clone a 
bootable image (that's what I have, right?) from one SD-card to another, 
if the SD-cards are a bit different?


I have one 64GB Extreme, one 64GB Extreme PLUS and one 32GB Extreme 
PLUS, all SD-cards from SanDisk.


Let's say I start with the smallest, what's the command line sequence 
for cloning it onto e.g. 64GB Extreme PLUS?


One of the reasons I ask is that I got the impression that the speed 
optimisations that are made by the box-fill-disk command somehow has a 
dialogue with the card when the card's read/write parameters are set:


"Optionally tune ext4 filesystems for specific MicroSD NAND chip pattern."
https://salsa.debian.org/tinker-team/box/commit/be07a3a1b0

If each card type (and size) talks back in its own way, then I guess I 
can only clone a card onto cards of identical type (and size)?



Best regards.

//Erik

intermittent or not? "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'"

[Erik Josefsson]

I have successfully put the [5 May Teres image] on three SD cards and 
all is fine (well, as far as that the exploration of the box-add-gui 
option goes), except that it seems only one of the SD cards can 
sometimes connect to deb.debian.org when I do sudo apt update.


The other two say "Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'", every time i try.

The old hp laptop that is about to break down does sudo apt update 
without complaining.


The three SD cards should be identical.

Can there be a limit on the server deb.debian.org on how many times I 
can ask it for data?


Can there be a limit on my wifi router?

Are the SD cards not identical after all? If not, where do I look for a 
difference that could explain the difference between how they work when 
doing apt update?


Server response looks like this:

debian@box:~$ sudo apt update
Err:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster InRelease
  Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'
Err:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates InRelease
  Could not resolve 'deb.debian.org'
Err:3 http://security.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates InRelease
  Could not resolve 'security.debian.org'

The same command of course works perfectly fine when I connect the Teres 
laptop directly to the internet with an ethernet cable (through USB).


Best regards.

//Erik

[5 May Teres image] 
https://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0rc1.img.gz

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-11 kl. 01:22, skrev Jonas Smedegaard:

Quoting Erik Josefsson (2019-05-11 00:51:38)

My original problem was that I could not figure out how to get both
Swedish and pipe "|" at all (which Jonas duly noted by removing "¦"
from the original subject line).

I edited the subject line in my posts unrelated to the content of the
thread: Since recently emails sent by my "alot" which is my main Mail
User Agent (MUA) gets rejected by Debian servers if header fields
contain non-ASCII characters.


The unintended consequence of interpreting your slight edit of the 
subject line as a comment on the content of the thread was that I 
learned a lot about my own mistakes :-)


Thank you!

That encourages me to ask another stupid question: I'd like to know why 
the "Keyboard model" has to be set before "Keyboard layout" when walking 
through the dpkg-reconfigure menues?


If it was the other way around, the first choice, "Keyboard layout", 
could perhaps make an informed selection from the list of "Keyboard 
models" that could be relevant at all.


In any case, what you care about as a user is "Keyboard layout", and in 
most cases when you have to make a series of choices, you start with 
your known knowns, not your known unknowns.


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-10 kl. 18:21, skrev David Wright:

On Fri 10 May 2019 at 15:45:34 (+0200), Erik Josefsson wrote:



https://www.iso.org/standard/57852.html

If it was compliant, then I guess that would make an informed choice
of "Keyboard model" easier than it is now.





The only rule I know is that claiming compliance with standards can
cost serious money.



Thanks for that insight and explanation!



And there's my major hick-up: 7 keys would be plenty if the output
would suffice to consist of about 100 different signals since 2^7=128
(to later map on characters, numbers and whatnot). 8 keys would be
excessive. I do understand the historical reasons for 105 keys (or
80), but how they relate to what really matters (the digital output)
is a mystery.

I don't think that these shifty keys are treated in such a logical
manner. I've always assumed that there's a keyboard controller chip
that's stamping "personality" on the keys, particularly Fn.



Indeed there is a keyboard controller chip that "takes care of all 
keyboard matrix scanning, key de-bouncing and communications with the 
computer, and has an internal buffer if the keystroke data cannot be 
sent immediately. The PC motherboard decodes the data received from the 
keyboard via the PS/2 port using interrupt IRQ1".


More from same source: "If, for example, you press 'shift' and 'A' then 
both keys will generate their own scan codes, the 'A' scan code value is 
not changed if a shift or control key is also pressed. Pressing the 
letter 'A' generates 'lC'h make code and when released the break code is 
'F0'h, 'lC'h.

Pressing 'shift' and 'A' keys will generate the following scan codes:
The make code for the 'shift' key is sent '12'h.
The make code for the 'A' key is sent 'lC'h.
The break code for the 'A' key is sent 'F0'h, 'lC'h.
The break code for the 'shift' key is sent 'F0'h,' 12'h.
If the right shift was pressed then the make code is '59'h and break 
code is 'F0'h, '59'h.
By analysing these scan codes the PC software can determine which key 
was pressed. By looking at the shift keystroke the software can 
distinguish between upper and lower case."


source: 
https://www.isy.liu.se/edu/kurs/TSTE12/laboration/TSTE12_Lab1_170824.pdf


Thanks for the hints leading me to that page.



It cannot really be physicality of the "Keyboard models", nor the
(brand) names of the them, but rather the digital output that is
defining whether one "Keyboard model" is different from the other. Or
am I completely wrong here?

If I am not wrong, the next question is if there are really 193
different keyboard models in that sense?

I mean, with the same keyboard layout (e.g. Finnish), how many of the
193 would give the exact same result on screen with one particular
keyboard (e.g. the Teres laptop)?

I guess more than two (which I now know is the case).

My own take: to be on that list, someone maintaining X has to obtain a
model of that keyboard to map out all the keys. By the time that's
been done, time has past and you likely will find that that model is
history as far as shopping is concerned. Unlike with kernel
development, there's not the pressure to keep up with new models as
they come out. Pruning the list of its older models is not a
priority either.



Unfortunately that makes perfect sense.





I guess that with only 80 keys on your keyboard, many of the
differences between these different models are dealing with keys you
simply don't have. I can use pc105 for all my laptop, however many
keys they have.

As far as I can see, the "source code" to Teres' keyboard does not say
anything about that, but the Schematics file lists 25 different keys
(KBD_X0 to KBD_X16 and KBD_Y0 to KBD_Y7), and there is a micro
controller ATMEGA16U4-AU.

https://github.com/OLIMEX/DIY-LAPTOP/blob/master/HARDWARE/A64-TERES/TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD/Rev.A/TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD_Rev.A.sch

I'm fine with thinking that KBD_X0, KBD_X1 etc on the "inside" are
connected to the 40 physical keys on the "outside". Actually with 23
electronic keys to combine, it would be enough with an unique output
per electronic key plus ,  and + to get 92
different combinations. That should be enough, no?

Enough for what? I'm not sure what you mean. But as far as your use of
the keyboard is concerned, the keypresses have been through the
microprocessor, the kernel, and perhaps the xorg driver, so you're
not going to see any one-to-one mapping.



Sorry for writing out loud, I'm not sure what I was thinking. But 
anyway, it should be possible to write a program that listens to 
keypresses and asks you to press different keys like the "left-of-z key" 
and then suggest to you which "Keyboard model" you actually have, 
regardless which "Keyboard model" you have chosen with dpkg-reconfigure. 
Then no pruning of the list would be necessary.


(I mean something like "people who have ¦ left of Z of

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Hi David!

Thanks for helping me sort out my thoughts!

Den 2019-05-06 kl. 22:42, skrev David Wright:

On Sun 05 May 2019 at 20:52:40 (+0200), Erik Josefsson wrote:

Den 2019-05-05 kl. 16:26, skrev David Wright:

Is this some sort of ticking off for wondering why the OP is*so*
keen to be able to type ¦ directly on the keyboard that they are
almost willing to use a USB keyboard with a laptop to get it?
Particularly as the wiki page referred to above has a reference to
http://jkorpela.fi/latin1/3.html#A6
which states "It is advisable to avoid using this character, since its
code position is occupied by another character in ISO Latin 9 (alias
ISO 8859-15), which will probably widely replace ISO Latin 1 at least
in European usage."

Now, using Unicode might avoid this danger, but it's still odd to
want this character so much when it appears to be as much of a relic
as the aforementioned ECU is. And, after all, the answer is that
they didn't.

For what it's worth, I had the foggy idea that I had to figure out how
to make the Teres keyboard reproduce the output from the Scandinavian
USB keyboard. What else would be "right"?

[Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with the Teres keyboard beyond looking at
https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/SPARE-PARTS/TERES-006-Keyboard/
(assuming this is it), and I've no idea of what keys your USB keyboard
has, nor knowledge of Swedish keyboard conventions.]


Yes, that's the Teres keyboard.

The wikipedia picture ofISO/IEC 9995-3:2002 applied to the US keyboard 
layout has 3 keys to the left and 4 keys to the right of the spacebar. 
Teres has 4 keys to the left and 3 keys to the right, otherwise they 
look the same (also the print on the keys):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#/media/File:KB_US-ISO9995-3.svg

This similarity makes me wonder why I cannot find any information from 
Olimex (or elsewhere) whether the Teres keyboard is fully compliant with 
the ISO standard that seems to be the one at hand (and which also seems 
current):


https://www.iso.org/standard/57852.html

If it was compliant, then I guess that would make an informed choice of 
"Keyboard model" easier than it is now.


I also guess that compliance would not only mean that the number of 
keys, their relative positions and the print on the keycaps would be 
defined, but also, and more importantly, that the digital output would 
follow certain rules.


And there's my major hick-up: 7 keys would be plenty if the output would 
suffice to consist of about 100 different signals since 2^7=128 (to 
later map on characters, numbers and whatnot). 8 keys would be 
excessive. I do understand the historical reasons for 105 keys (or 80), 
but how they relate to what really matters (the digital output) is a 
mystery.



It cannot really be physicality of the "Keyboard models", nor the 
(brand) names of the them, but rather the digital output that is 
defining whether one "Keyboard model" is different from the other. Or am 
I completely wrong here?


If I am not wrong, the next question is if there are really 193 
different keyboard models in that sense?


I mean, with the same keyboard layout (e.g. Finnish), how many of the 
193 would give the exact same result on screen with one particular 
keyboard (e.g. the Teres laptop)?


I guess more than two (which I now know is the case).



When the 105 and 102 options then gave the same result, it got
completely lost.

And I'm still kind of lost since I don't really understand what a
"Keyboard model" is. So already at the first menu choice of
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration I don't really know what I'm
doing there.

In the dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration menu there are [193
different keyboard models] to choose from.

But two of them are the same, at least from the point of view of a
Teres laptop.

How does that work?

I guess that with only 80 keys on your keyboard, many of the
differences between these different models are dealing with keys you
simply don't have. I can use pc105 for all my laptop, however many
keys they have.



As far as I can see, the "source code" to Teres' keyboard does not say 
anything about that, but the Schematics file lists 25 different keys 
(KBD_X0 to KBD_X16 and KBD_Y0 to KBD_Y7), and there is a micro 
controller ATMEGA16U4-AU.


https://github.com/OLIMEX/DIY-LAPTOP/blob/master/HARDWARE/A64-TERES/TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD/Rev.A/TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD_Rev.A.sch

I'm fine with thinking that KBD_X0, KBD_X1 etc on the "inside" are 
connected to the 40 physical keys on the "outside". Actually with 23 
electronic keys to combine, it would be enough with an unique output per 
electronic key plus ,  and + to get 92 
different combinations. That should be enough, no?




What's more important is the layout: for example a British layout
puts \| left of z, whereas a US one will make that key <> and the
\| will be 3 keys right of p. In response 

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-05 kl. 16:26, skrev David Wright:

Is this some sort of ticking off for wondering why the OP is*so*
keen to be able to type ¦ directly on the keyboard that they are
almost willing to use a USB keyboard with a laptop to get it?
Particularly as the wiki page referred to above has a reference to
http://jkorpela.fi/latin1/3.html#A6
which states "It is advisable to avoid using this character, since its
code position is occupied by another character in ISO Latin 9 (alias
ISO 8859-15), which will probably widely replace ISO Latin 1 at least
in European usage."

Now, using Unicode might avoid this danger, but it's still odd to
want this character so much when it appears to be as much of a relic
as the aforementioned ECU is. And, after all, the answer is that
they didn't.


For what it's worth, I had the foggy idea that I had to figure out how 
to make the Teres keyboard reproduce the output from the Scandinavian 
USB keyboard. What else would be "right"?


When the 105 and 102 options then gave the same result, it got 
completely lost.


And I'm still kind of lost since I don't really understand what a 
"Keyboard model" is. So already at the first menu choice of 
dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration I don't really know what I'm 
doing there.


In the dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration menu there are [193 
different keyboard models] to choose from.


But two of them are the same, at least from the point of view of a Teres 
laptop.


How does that work?

//Erik

[193 different keyboard models]

A4Tech KB-21
A4Tech KBS-8
A4Tech Wireless Desktop RFKB-23 — безжична
Acer AirKey V
Acer C300
Acer Ferrari 4000
Acer portàtil
Advance Scorpius KI
Amiga
Apple
Apple Aluminium (ANSI)
Apple Aluminium (ISO)
Apple Aluminium (JIS)
Apple portàtil
Asus portàtil
Atari TT
Azona RF2300 wireless Internet
BenQ X-Touch
BenQ X-Touch 730
BenQ X-Touch 800
Brother Internet
BTC 5090
BTC 5113RF Multimedia
BTC 5126T
BTC 6301URF
BTC 9000
BTC 9000A
BTC 9001AH
BTC 9019U
BTC 9116U Mini Wireless Internet and Gaming — безжична, за Интернет и игри
Cherry Blue Line CyBo@rd
Cherry Blue Line CyBo@rd (alt.)
Cherry B.UNLIMITED
Cherry CyBo@rd USB-Hub
Cherry CyMotion Expert
Cherry CyMotion Master Linux
Cherry CyMotion Master XPress
Chicony Internet
Chicony KB-9885
Chicony KU-0108
Chicony KU-0420
Chromebook
Classmate PC
Compaq Armada portàtil
Compaq Easy Access
Compaq Internet (13 tecles)
Compaq Internet (18 tecles)
Compaq Internet (7 tecles)
Compaq iPaq
Compaq Presario portàtil
Creative Desktop Wireless 7000 — безжична
Dell
Dell 101-key PC
Dell Inspiron 6000/8000 portàtil
Dell Latitude portàtil
Dell Precision M65 portàtil
Dell Precision M portàtil
Dell SK-8125
Dell SK-8135
Dell USB Multimedia
Dexxa Wireless Desktop
Diamond 9801/9802
DTK2000
eMachines m6800 portàtil
Ennyah DKB-1008
Everex STEPnote
FL90
Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo portàtil
Generies 101-sleutel PC
Generies 104-sleutel PC
Genius Comfy KB-12e
Genius Comfy KB-16M/Multimedia KWD-910
Genius Comfy KB-21e-Scroll
Genius KB-19e NB
Genius KKB-2050HS
Gyration
Happy Hacking
Happy Hacking per Mac
Hewlett-Packard Internet
Hewlett-Packard Mini 110 portàtil
Hewlett-Packard NEC SK-2500 Multimedia
Hewlett-Packard nx9020
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook 500
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook 500 FA
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook 6000/6100
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook XE3 GC
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook XE3 GF
Hewlett-Packard Omnibook XT1000
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv5
Hewlett-Packard Pavilion ZT1100
Honeywell Euroboard
HTC Dream
IBM Rapid Access
IBM Rapid Access II
IBM Space Saver
IBM ThinkPad 560Z/600/600E/A22E
IBM ThinkPad R60/T60/R61/T61
IBM ThinkPad Z60m/Z60t/Z61m/Z61t
Keytronic FlexPro
Logitech
Logitech Access
Logitech Cordless Desktop
Logitech Cordless Desktop (alt.)
Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110
Logitech Cordless Desktop iTouch
Logitech Cordless Desktop LX-300 — безжична
Logitech Cordless Desktop Navigator
Logitech Cordless Desktop Optical
Logitech Cordless Desktop Pro (2a. alt.)
Logitech Cordless Freedom/Desktop Navigator
Logitech diNovo
Logitech diNovo Edge
Logitech G15, допълнителни клавиши чрез G15daemon
Logitech Internet
 Logitech Internet 350
Logitech Internet Navigator
Logitech iTouch
Logitech iTouch Cordless Y-RB6
Logitech iTouch Internet Navigator SE
Logitech iTouch Internet Navigator SE USB
Logitech Ultra-X
Logitech Ultra-X Cordless Media Desktop
MacBook/MacBook Pro
MacBook/MacBook Pro (intl.)
Macintosh
Macintosh (oud)
Memorex MX1998
Memorex MX2500 EZ-Access
Memorex MX2750
Microsoft Comfort Curve 2000
Microsoft Internet
Microsoft Internet Pro (Suec)
Microsoft Natural Elite
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000
Microsoft Natural Pro OEM
Microsoft Natural Pro/Internet Pro
Microsoft Natural Pro USB/Internet Pro
Microsoft Natural Wireless Ergonomic 7000
Microsoft Natuurlik
Microsoft Office sleutelbord
Microsoft Wireless Multimedia 1.0A
NEC SK-1300
NEC SK-2500
NEC SK-6200
NEC SK-7100
Northgate OmniKey 101
OLPC
Ortek Multimedia/Internet MCK-800
PC-98
PC genèric de 102 tecles (intl.)
PC genèric de 105 tecles (intl.)

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-05 kl. 12:47, skrev Jonas Smedegaard:

Quoting Erik Josefsson (2019-05-05 12:06:53)

With some stickers to put onto the printed keys I'll be fine. Grateful
for pointers to such.

Did you try search the web e.g. for "keyboard stickers"?

I did! And "swerty" came up!

http://johanegustafsson.net/projects/swerty/

He says "Swerty for Linux" has been tested  on Ubuntu 9.04, 9.10, 10.04, 
and 12.04.


I guess this means I could file a whishlist bug for both "TERES-I 
keyboard" as 'Keyboard model' and and "Swerty" as 'Keyboard layout' as 
choices presented by dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration :-)


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-05 kl. 04:29, skrev Erik Josefsson:

Den 2019-05-04 kl. 21:43, skrev Jonas Smedegaard:

For danish, picking the layout "Danish (Win keys) has pipe key reachable
as AltGr+= (where AltGr is the right Alt key).

I also set "Menu" (which is the key between right Alt and right Ctrl) as
compose key.


So if you were to make a Danish Teres laptop, you'd make the following 
choices in dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration?


Keyboard model:  Generic 102-key PC (intl.)
Keyboard layout: Danish - (Win keys)
Key to function as AltGr:    The default for the keyboard layout
Compose key: Menu key
Use Control+Alt+Backspace to
terminate the X server?  

Those won't work for me, but there are a couple of Finnish options I 
will try. 


Found that keyboard model "Generic 102-key PC (intl.)" and keyboard 
layout "Finnish - Finnish (Winkeys)" works for me (the rest as above).


At last! :-)

With some stickers to put onto the printed keys I'll be fine. Grateful 
for pointers to such.


Sorry for the noise.

//Erik


Configuring keyboard-configuration

Please select the model of the keyboard of this machine.
-Keyboard model: Generic 102-key PC (intl.)
Please select the layout matching the keyboard for this machine.
-Keyboard layout: Danish - Danish (Win keys) [and below "Finnish - 
Finnish (Winkeys)"]
With some keyboard layouts, AltGr is a modifier key used to input some 
characters, primarily ones that are unusual for the language of the 
keyboard layout, such as foreign currency symbols and accented letters. 
These are often printed as an extra symbol on keys.

-Key to function as AltGr:  The default for the keyboard layout
The Compose key (known also as Multi_key) causes the computer to 
interpret the next few keystrokes as a combination in order to produce a 
character not found on the keyboard. On the text console the Compose key 
does not work in Unicode mode. If not in Unicode mode, regardless of 
what you choose here, you can always also use the Control+period 
combination as a Compose key.

-Compose key:  Menu key
By default the combination Control+Alt+Backspace does nothing. If you 
want it can be used to terminate the X server.

-Use Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate the X server? 

Danish - Danish (Win keys)

½½11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨''
aassddffgghhjjkkllææøø
zzxxccvvbbnnmm,,..--


§§!!""##¤¤%%&&//(())==??`
QQWWEERRTTYYUUIIOOPPÅÅ^**
AASSDDFFGGHHJJKKLLÆÆØØ
ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__


¾¾¡¡@@££$$€€¥¥{{[[]]}}±±||
@@łł€€®®þþ←←↓↓→→œœþþ¨~˝
ªªßßððđđŋŋħħ̉ĸĸłł´^
««»»©©““””nnµµ¸··̣

+
¶¶¹¹²²³³¼¼¢¢⅝⅝÷÷««»»°°¿¿¦¦
ΩΩŁŁ¢¢®®ÞÞ¥¥↑↑ııŒŒÞÞ°ˇ××
ºº§§ÐЪªŊŊĦĦ̛&&ŁŁ˝ˇ
<<>>©©‘‘’’NNºº˛˙˙

Finnish - Finnish (Winkeys)

§§11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨''
aassddffgghhjjkkllööää
zzxxccvvbbnnmm,,..--


½½!!""##¤¤%%&&//(())==??`
QQWWEERRTTYYUUIIOOPPÅÅ^**
AASSDDFFGGHHJJKKLLÖÖÄÄ
ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__


/@@££$$€€‚‚{{[[]]}}\\¸
qqww€€rrþþyyuuııœœ̛˝~ˇ
əəßßððffgghhjjĸĸ/øøææ
ʒʒ××ccvvbbŋŋµµ’’̣––

+
¡¡””»»««““„„<<>>°°¿¿˛
QQWWRRÞÞYYUU||ŒŒ̉°ṓ
ƏƏẞẞÐÐFFGGHHJJØØÆÆ
ƷƷ··CCVVBBŊŊ——‘‘˙,

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|" and "¦"?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-05 kl. 04:31, skrev Doug:


What is on the last key on the right, directly above the right Enter 
key? On a US keyboard, the is a back slant (unshifted) and the pipe, 
shifted. You haven't mentioned that key at all.


The print on that physical key on the Teres laptop is backslash \ and 
(shifted) pipe | .


The keyboard physically looks like this (also the black letters map on 
the print on the keys):


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#/media/File:KB_US-ISO9995-3.svg

except for the last row that from left has 
.


Btw, that svg file seems to refer to an ISO standard that looks current:

https://www.iso.org/standard/57852.html

So maybe the Teres keyboard is actually standard compliant, despite (or 
thanks to?) the penguin key?


//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-04 kl. 21:43, skrev Jonas Smedegaard:

For danish, picking the layout "Danish (Win keys) has pipe key reachable
as AltGr+= (where AltGr is the right Alt key).

I also set "Menu" (which is the key between right Alt and right Ctrl) as
compose key.


So if you were to make a Danish Teres laptop, you'd make the following 
choices in dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration?


Keyboard model:  Generic 102-key PC (intl.)
Keyboard layout: Danish - (Win keys)
Key to function as AltGr:    The default for the keyboard layout
Compose key: Menu key
Use Control+Alt+Backspace to
terminate the X server?  

Those won't work for me, but there are a couple of Finnish options I 
will try.


Thanks for taking time.

//Erik

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|")

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-04 kl. 19:08, skrev Jonas Smedegaard:

Quoting Kenneth Parker (2019-05-04 18:23:48)

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 10:37 AM Erik Josefsson  wrote:



-> Generic 105-key PC (intl.)
-> Other
-> Swedish
-> Swedish
-> The default for the keyboard layout
-> No compose key
-> Use Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate the X server? 
sudo shutdown -h now

And it works! Now I am just missing "|" and "¦".

Nothing specific to Teres-I laptop about that.


How do you know?

There are no signs on the box telling me that the Teres laptop keyboard 
is one or the other of the [keyboards listed] by dpkg-reconfigure 
keyboard-configuration and the link to the hardware source don't say 
either:


https://github.com/OLIMEX/DIY-LAPTOP/tree/master/HARDWARE/A64-TERES/TERES-PCB5-KEYBOARD


Problem is that you want a pipe key "|" reachable


Yes, that is the problem!


on a 102-key keyboard


The Teres laptop keyboard has 80 physical keys. Why do you call it a 
"102-key keyboard"?



with a swedish layout.

Swedish layout is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#Swedish

Notice how "<" and ">" (on a 105-key US layout is right of "M", shifted)
is left of "Z" on a key which is missing on 102-char keyboards.


Myscandinavian USB keyboard has 105 physical keys, but since the Teres 
laptop keyboard has 80 physical keys I cannot really notice "a key which 
is missing on 102-char keyboards".


Please note that both myUSB keyboard and the Teres keyboard delivers 
identical output with the two dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration 
options I have tried "Generic 105-key PC (intl.)" and "Generic 102-key 
PC (intl.)".


Thanks for feedback!

//Erik


[keyboards listed]

A4Tech KB-21
A4Tech KBS-8
A4Tech Wireless Desktop RFKB-23 — безжична
Acer AirKey V
Acer C300
Acer Ferrari 4000
Acer portàtil
Advance Scorpius KI
Amiga
Apple
Apple
Apple Aluminium (ANSI)
Apple Aluminium (ISO)
Apple Aluminium (JIS)
Apple portàtil
Asus portàtil
Atari TT
Azona RF2300 wireless Internet
BenQ X-Touch
BenQ X-Touch 730
[and more...]

Re: dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|" and "¦"?)

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-04 kl. 18:23, skrev Kenneth Parker:


On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 10:37 AM Erik Josefsson  wrote:


-> Generic 105-key PC (intl.)
-> Other
-> Swedish
-> Swedish
-> The default for the keyboard layout
-> No compose key
-> Use Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate the X server? 
sudo shutdown -h now

And it works! Now I am just missing "|" and "¦".


With US Keyboards, I see either of those characters, right of the "p" 
key.  I was not aware that there were two, distinct characters.


One of them ("|" on my current keyboard) is used as a "Pipe" symbol, 
for when I "pipe" the results of one command into another.


Which?



Actually, I'm just missing pipe (for exactly that reason).

The "¦" symbol is apparently called "broken bar" and happens to be the 
what my "scandinavian" USB- keyboard gives when the physical key between 
the  and the  key is pressed together with gr>+. I have never used it before and I don't think it has a 
function in any language, see wikipedia:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar#Solid_vertical_bar_vs_broken_bar

I have not yet figured out how to make the Teres keyboard do the pipe.

//Erik

dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration (Swedish with "|" and "¦"?)

[Erik Josefsson]

I've now repeated the same sequence of commands a couple of times to 
make [SD-cards for the Teres laptop] and finally it looks like I get the 
same results every time :-)


*** make new Teres SD-card with new Teres laptop
mkdir /home/debian/teres
cd /home/debian/teres
wget http://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0b22.img.gz
gunzip nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0b22.img.gz
lsblk --paths
lsblk --paths
umount /dev/sda
sudo cp nonfree-teres1-buster-1.0b22.img /dev/sda
*** move new Teres SD-card to new Teres laptop
sudo box-fill-disk
sudo apt update
sudo box-add-gui
sudo apt install etckeeper
sudo apt install man
sudo dpkg-reconfigure keyboard-configuration
-> Generic 105-key PC (intl.)
-> Other
-> Swedish
-> Swedish
-> The default for the keyboard layout
-> No compose key
-> Use Control+Alt+Backspace to terminate the X server? 
sudo shutdown -h now

And it works! Now I am just missing "|" and "¦".

I have tried "Generic 105-key PC (intl.)" and "Generic 102-key PC 
(intl.)" in the menue following the command 'dpkg-reconfigure 
keyboard-configuration' (see above), but there is no difference between 
105 and 102 wrt what the Teres keyboard produce on screen (see below).


I have also tried with an USB keyboard which has one extra key between 
 and . That extra key delivers "|") and "¦" with both 
"Generic 105-key PC (intl.)" and "Generic 102-key PC (intl.)" (and Swedish).


I can of course use the USB keyboard with my laptop, but it would be 
more convenient if I could get the Teres keyboard to do "|" and "¦".


So, does anyone know how to make the Teres keyboard not only output 
Swedish letters, but also "|" and  "¦"?


Maybe there is a "keyboard model" I can choose that is a better fit than 
"Generic 105-key PC (intl.)" and"Generic 102-key PC (intl.)"?


Thank you for your time.

//Erik


[SD-cards for the Teres laptop] https://box.redpill.dk/nonfree/


Generic 105-key PC (intl.)

DELTACO USB keyboard

No key pressed
§§11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨
aassddffgghhjjkkllööää''
<>ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__

ALT+GR
¶¶¡¡@@££$$€€¥¥{{[[]]}}\\±±
@@łł€€®®þþ←←↓↓→→œœþþ¨~
ªªßßððđđŋŋħħ̉ĸĸłłøøææ´´
||««»»©©““””nnµµ¸··̣

ALT+GR+SHIFT
¾¾¹¹²²³³¼¼¢¢⅝⅝÷÷««»»°°¿¿¬¬
ΩΩŁŁ¢¢®®ÞÞ¥¥↑↑ııŒŒÞÞ°ˇ
ºº§§ÐЪªŊŊĦĦ̛&&ŁŁØØÆÆ××
¦¦<<>>©©‘‘’’NNºº˛˙˙


Teres keyboard

No key pressed
§§11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨''
aassddffgghhjjkkllööää
zzxxccvvbbnnmm,,..--

SHIFT
½½!!""##¤¤%%&&//(())==??`
QQWWEERRTTYYUUIIOOPPÅÅ^**
AASSDDFFGGHHJJKKLLÖÖÄÄ
ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__

ALT+GR
¶¶¡¡@@££$$€€¥¥{{[[]]}}\\±±
@@łł€€®®þþ←←↓↓→→œœþþ¨~´´
ªªßßððđđŋŋħħ̉ĸĸłłøøææ
««»»©©““””nnµµ¸··̣

ALT+GR+SHIFT
¾¾¹¹²²³³¼¼¢¢⅝⅝÷÷««»»°°¿¿¬¬
ΩΩŁŁ¢¢®®ÞÞ¥¥↑↑ııŒŒÞÞ°ˇ××
ºº§§ÐЪªŊŊĦĦ̛&&ŁŁØØÆÆ
<<>>©©‘‘’’NNºº˛˙˙



Generic 102-key PC (intl.)

DELTACO USB keyboard

No key pressed
§§11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨
aassddffgghhjjkkllööää''
<>ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__

ALT+GR
¶¶¡¡@@££$$€€¥¥{{[[]]}}\\±±
@@łł€€®®þþ←←↓↓→→œœþþ¨~
ªªßßððđđŋŋħħ̉ĸĸłłøøææ´´
||««»»©©““””nnµµ¸··̣

ALT+GR+SHIFT
¾¾¹¹²²³³¼¼¢¢⅝⅝÷÷««»»°°¿¿¬¬
ΩΩŁŁ¢¢®®ÞÞ¥¥↑↑ııŒŒÞÞ°ˇ
ºº§§ÐЪªŊŊĦĦ̛&&ŁŁØØÆÆ××
¦¦<<>>©©‘‘’’NNºº˛˙˙


Teres keyboard

No key pressed
§§11223344556677889900++´
qqwweerrttyyuuiiooppåå¨''
aassddffgghhjjkkllööää
zzxxccvvbbnnmm,,..--

SHIFT
½½!!""##¤¤%%&&//(())==??`
QQWWEERRTTYYUUIIOOPPÅÅ^**
AASSDDFFGGHHJJKKLLÖÖÄÄ
ZZXXCCVVBBNNMM;;::__

ALT+GR
¶¶¡¡@@££$$€€¥¥{{[[]]}}\\±±
@@łł€€®®þþ←←↓↓→→œœþþ¨~´´
ªªßßððđđŋŋħħ̉ĸĸłłøøææ
««»»©©““””nnµµ¸··̣

ALT+GR+SHIFT
¾¾¹¹²²³³¼¼¢¢⅝⅝÷÷««»»°°¿¿¬¬
ΩΩŁŁ¢¢®®ÞÞ¥¥↑↑ııŒŒÞÞ°ˇ××
ºº§§ÐЪªŊŊĦĦ̛&&ŁŁØØÆÆ
<<>>©©‘‘’’NNºº˛˙˙

Re: How do I trace changes in configuration files?

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-05-01 kl. 13:29, skrev Dan Purgert:

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256

Erik Josefsson wrote:

I'm trying to learn how to set up my two Teres laptops so that they are
identical.

[...]

I have tried to document my personal preferences before, but I have
always ended up with unreadable handwritten notes.

This time I thought I should do it in a more systematic way by somehow
capture the difference between the default install and the result of my
(often irrational) efforts to make my machines look and feel like I want
it to.

So, is there a way to trace/record/capture changes in all configuration
files?


There are as many as people reading this channel :)

Probably the simplest (and, to some extent, most error prone) is to
simply make copies, edit only the copies. For example:

   cp orig.conf orig.conf.$(date +%y-%m-%d_%H%M%S)
   vi orig.conf

and then you'll end up with stuff like

   orig.conf
   orig.19-05-01_065356
   orig.19-05-01_104022
   (etc)

Then just use 'diff' against any two files to see what changed between
them.



Thanks Dan, I'll start with that method and maybe later I'll try Jonas' 
proposal with etckeeper and git.


But first, in which top level directories could files that change be 
located?


There are quite a few to choose from: bin, boot, dev, etc, home, lib, 
lib64, lost+found, media, mnt, opt, proc, root, run, sbin, srv, sys, 
tmp, usr and var.





Or you can use a revision tool. I ran across "rcs" a few years ago, and
while it's not something I always use, when I remember, it's pretty good
at what it does.

Either of these could be wrapped up in a little script --

   #!/bin/bash
   # 'rvi' - "revision-controlled" vi wrapper
   # create a backup then edit the original file

   cp -p "$1" "$1".$(date +%y-%m-%d_%H%M%S)
   vi "$1"

   ALTERNATE

   #!/bin/bash
   #'rvi' - revision control vi wrapper
   # use the 'rcs' tool to checkout/checkin files

   co -l "$1"
   vi "$1"
   ci -u "$1"

Personally I like vi, but if you don't, replace it with whatever your
editor of choice is.  The scripts probably have flaws that someone will
point out soon (like calling it with no file, or multiple files, etc).


The idea is then to just replace the default configuration files with
the files where my preferences have been saved.

As far as actually propagating changes, that gets a little more
difficult -- but if all the config files are in $HOME/.config ... well,
just use a cronjob to sync daily or something.



For now, I just want to see where (and if) my setup is stored (e.g. 
where does my wifi's SSID and passphrase end up? maybe in more than one 
place?).


Thanks for your help Dan!

//Erik

How do I trace changes in configuration files?

[Erik Josefsson]

I'm trying to learn how to set up my two Teres laptops so that they are 
identical.


I have now repeated the [first steps] a couple of times so that I feel 
that I know what I am doing (I don't necessarily understand what I am 
doing though). I have two identical machines that run from two identical 
SD cards.


So I'm ready for the next step, configuring some of the programs that 
are installed (e.g. shotwell, thunderbird and xfce itself).



I have tried to document my personal preferences before, but I have 
always ended up with unreadable handwritten notes.


This time I thought I should do it in a more systematic way by somehow 
capture the difference between the default install and the result of my 
(often irrational) efforts to make my machines look and feel like I want 
it to.


So, is there a way to trace/record/capture changes in all configuration 
files?


The idea is then to just replace the default configuration files with 
the files where my preferences have been saved.



Thanks for taking time.

//Erik


[first steps] https://box.redpill.dk (I do box-add-gui, not box-add-tui )

iwd and DNS (was: Re: Attempting a VERY minimal install (using --no-install-recommends ;))

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-04-25 kl. 07:21, skrev David Wright:

The only thing guaranteed by installing the "Depends" is that
all the function calls will point at some runnable code rather than
just pointing into thin air.


Thin air and deep waters is where I'm at.

I'm trying to set up the "tui" [text-based user interface] for the 
[Teres debian laptop].


I think the tui is designed to be quite minimal (hence I post in this 
thread).


I am surprised that I got iwd to connect to MY_OWN_WIFI:

iwctl station wlan0 get-networks
iwctl station wlan0 connect MY_OWN_WIFI

by copying psk file MY_OWN_WIFI.psk from another machine and then by putting it 
into /var/lib/iwd/ on the Teres debian laptop.

But it seems I have no DNS resolution (I can use the links-browser to go to web 
pages by IP numbers, but not by domain names).

I cannot do apt update. I get a "temporary failure resolving 'deb.debian.org'".

I'm not sure what exactly I'm asking for here. I guess I need the IP number of 
a DNS-server that some program can ask where deb.debian.org is located.

Grateful for hints.

Best regards.

//Erik


[text-based user interface] https://box.redpill.dk/  (scroll down to ##Addons)
[Teres debian laptop] https://box.redpill.dk/cli_with_quirks/

Re: What's the device name of my microSD card?

[Erik Josefsson]

On 4/21/19 8:05 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Sun 21 Apr 2019 at 18:30:28 (+), Erik Josefsson wrote:

On 4/21/19 6:14 PM, Patrick Wiseman wrote:

 From the command line, 'df' returns free disk space and lists all
mounted devices by device name. (One of probably many ways to do
it!)

On 4/21/19 6:17 PM, Paul Sutton wrote:

if you run lsblk it will list devices connected to the system

Here's the output of both commands, not sure I can figure out which
one(s) is(are) my usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE (i.e. a microSD put into
a USB-thingie):

debian@hamlet:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev  961108    0    961108   0% /dev
tmpfs 201708 3260    198448   2% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2  61214500 11372112  47335168  20% /
tmpfs    1008520    50808    957712   6% /dev/shm
tmpfs   5120    0  5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs    1008520    0   1008520   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs    1008520    8   1008512   1% /tmp
tmpfs    1008520    0   1008520   0% /var/tmp
/dev/mmcblk0p1    202277    48430    143403  26% /boot
tmpfs 201704   24    201680   1% /run/user/1000

debian@hamlet:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda    8:0    1 29.7G  0 disk
└─sda1 8:1    1 29.7G  0 part
mmcblk0  179:0    0 59.5G  0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1  179:1    0  204M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2  179:2    0 59.3G  0 part /
mmcblk2  179:256  0 13.8G  0 disk
├─mmcblk2p1  179:257  0   50M  0 part
└─mmcblk2p2  179:258  0 13.7G  0 part
mmcblk2boot0 179:512  0   16M  1 disk
mmcblk2boot1 179:768  0   16M  1 disk


When I'm at it, here's the full ls completion from ls -al /dev/disk/by-id

debian@hamlet:~$ ls -al /dev/disk/by-id/
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part1
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part2
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part1
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part2
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0-part1

I don't understand this output from   ls -al   as the -l switch should
show a lot more information, viz:


Indeed, I only pasted completion, not the output. Apologies.

Here's the output:

debdebian@hamlet:/dev/disk/by-id$ ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 200 Apr 21 17:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 140 Apr 21 17:22 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  13 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7 -> 
../../mmcblk2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part1 -> 
../../mmcblk2p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part2 -> 
../../mmcblk2p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  13 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a -> 
../../mmcblk0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part1 -> 
../../mmcblk0p1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  15 Apr 21 17:22 mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part2 -> 
../../mmcblk0p2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   9 Apr 21 17:22 
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0 -> ../../sda
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 Apr 21 17:22 
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1




lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Apr 21 14:52 mmc-SD01G_0x00c2ed5b -> ../../mmcblk0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 15 Apr 21 14:52 mmc-SD01G_0x00c2ed5b-part1 -> 
../../mmcblk0p1

which is showing my SD card out of a digital camera.


Yes, looks the same.




The first line is the card itself, the second is a single partition
containing a FAT16 filesystem.


Thanks for your explanation, it's getting clearer that "disk" (from 
lsblk) is the same as "device name" (as asked for in the instructions) 
and what you call "the card itself".




The names you're quoting should be symbolic links created by udev, and
they should point to the /dev names assigned by the kernel.


It's the usb-Generic storage I want to copy the gz image to.

Your instructions would appear to write to the whole device, which is
quite normal. The image itself will contain any partitioning required.
In my case, that would be to /dev/mmcblk0. It looks like you have more
choice, so take care.



I now think I should copy to /dev/disk/by-id/sda, but I will sleep on it!




Cheers,
David.


Thank you David.

And thanks to everybody.

//Erik

Re: What's the device name of my microSD card?

[Erik Josefsson]

On 4/21/19 6:14 PM, Patrick Wiseman wrote:
From the command line, 'df' returns free disk space and lists all 
mounted devices by device name. (One of probably many ways to do it!)


On 4/21/19 6:17 PM, Paul Sutton wrote:

if you run lsblk it will list devices connected to the system


Here's the output of both commands, not sure I can figure out which 
one(s) is(are) my usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE (i.e. a microSD put into a 
USB-thingie):


debian@hamlet:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev  961108    0    961108   0% /dev
tmpfs 201708 3260    198448   2% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p2  61214500 11372112  47335168  20% /
tmpfs    1008520    50808    957712   6% /dev/shm
tmpfs   5120    0  5120   0% /run/lock
tmpfs    1008520    0   1008520   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs    1008520    8   1008512   1% /tmp
tmpfs    1008520    0   1008520   0% /var/tmp
/dev/mmcblk0p1    202277    48430    143403  26% /boot
tmpfs 201704   24    201680   1% /run/user/1000

debian@hamlet:~$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM  SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda    8:0    1 29.7G  0 disk
└─sda1 8:1    1 29.7G  0 part
mmcblk0  179:0    0 59.5G  0 disk
├─mmcblk0p1  179:1    0  204M  0 part /boot
└─mmcblk0p2  179:2    0 59.3G  0 part /
mmcblk2  179:256  0 13.8G  0 disk
├─mmcblk2p1  179:257  0   50M  0 part
└─mmcblk2p2  179:258  0 13.7G  0 part
mmcblk2boot0 179:512  0   16M  1 disk
mmcblk2boot1 179:768  0   16M  1 disk


When I'm at it, here's the full ls completion from ls -al /dev/disk/by-id

debian@hamlet:~$ ls -al /dev/disk/by-id/
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part1
mmc-R1J56L_0x7da477d7-part2
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part1
mmc-SN64G_0x3376cd3a-part2
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0
usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0-part1


It's the usb-Generic storage I want to copy the gz image to.

Thanks for your help!

//Erik

What's the device name of my microSD card?

[Erik Josefsson]

I have just assembled a [Teres machine] to learn how to set it up from 
the instructions on http://box.redpill.dk/ mentioned before on this list.


I run into my ignorance already at instruction 2: "Locate device name of 
your microSD card".


It turns out when I use completion with ls /dev/disk/by-id/ that my new 
USB microSD card reader says that my micro SD card has two names:


   usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0
   usb-Generic_STORAGE_DEVICE_1532-0:0-part1

This ambiguity becomes problematic when I try instruction 4) "Decompress 
and copy image onto card" with "Fast method" b):


   sudo sh -c 'zcat core-lime2-1.0b17.img.gz > /dev/disk/by-id/my-sd-card'

I guess that the placeholder "my-sd-card" is neither of the two names above.

Basically: How do I find out the device name of my microSD card?

Best regards.

//Erik

[Teres machine] 
https://www.olimex.com/Products/DIY-Laptop/KITS/TERES-A64-BLACK/

Re: /boot full (of old-dkms)

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-02-07 kl. 10:31, skrev john doe:

According to (1), you should be fine removing '.old-dkms' files in '/boot'.
However, I would do a backup of those files before removing them.

1)https://askubuntu.com/questions/863380/can-i-remove-old-dkms-files


Very good answer in the link, and now I feel stupid to ask anyway: Can I 
safely remove all '.old-dkms' files, or should I save the youngest (in 
/boot)?


(I don't yet understand what is needed to rescue the system would 
something go wrong with a update&)


Best regards.

//Erik

Re: /boot full (of old-dkms)

[Erik Josefsson]

Den 2019-02-07 kl. 10:31, skrev john doe:

On 2/7/2019 8:14 AM, Erik Josefsson wrote:

Hello,

I happen to have a couple of quite large old-dkms* files in my /boot
directory.

Apparently they are not removed by aptitude autoclean (which I use
regularly).


Can I safely remove those files manually with rm?

Or should I use another tool or command?

Thanks!


//Erik


*)

/boot$ ls -al | grep old
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 26018518 jul 26  2018
initrd.img-4.16.0-1-amd64.old-dkms
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  3538944 jul 26  2018
initrd.img-4.16.0-2-amd64.old-dkms
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 28866434 jan 16 18:06
initrd.img-4.19.0-1-amd64.old-dkms


According to (1), you should be fine removing '.old-dkms' files in '/boot'.
However, I would do a backup of those files before removing them.

1)  https://askubuntu.com/questions/863380/can-i-remove-old-dkms-files


Thank you!

Apparently there is also a new way of rid of old kernels coming up:

kthresher - Purge Unused Kernels

https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/kthresher

Best regards.

//Erik

/boot full (of old-dkms)

[Erik Josefsson]

Hello,

I happen to have a couple of quite large old-dkms* files in my /boot 
directory.


Apparently they are not removed by aptitude autoclean (which I use 
regularly).



Can I safely remove those files manually with rm?

Or should I use another tool or command?

Thanks!


//Erik


*)

/boot$ ls -al | grep old
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 26018518 jul 26  2018 
initrd.img-4.16.0-1-amd64.old-dkms
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  3538944 jul 26  2018 
initrd.img-4.16.0-2-amd64.old-dkms
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 28866434 jan 16 18:06 
initrd.img-4.19.0-1-amd64.old-dkms