Debian 10 doing WEIRD THINGS

[Kanito 73]

Hello

I've been using Debian 10 for almost a year on my old computer (bought it on 
december 2019), but it is doing weird things when using CHROME principally when 
I am in Facebook (but not only)...

Since a few weeks ago, it is very common to receive Facebook alerts when 
changing from one page to another, asking if I will not "finish the comment" 
but I AM NOT WRITTING A COMMENT. 5, 10, 20 times a day...

Frequently, 3 or 4 times a day, the mouse buttons stop responding like if 
"something" takes the control of it, ONLY WHEN USING CHROME... I jump to a 
console by pressing CTRL-ALT-F# and go back to KDE, then the mouse works 
again... it happens since a couple months ago... AND I HAVE CHANGED (NEW) MOUSE 
2 TIMES

Other times, ALSO WHEN USING CHROME, the filesystem is parsed or scanned 
entirely slowing down or hanging KDE (processor and disk work at 100%) until it 
finishes or I kill the CHROME process... It has happened all the year. (Notice 
that I bought a new computer and it does not scan the disk or filesystem, 
Debian 10 installed also).

Another times (but not all the time, it is not frequent, once or twice a week) 
the WIFI connection is lost and reconnected, once and again in an intermittent 
way... After 10, 20 or 30 minutes it works normally again... (hijacking or 
failure?)

And the top cherry on the cake (sarcasm)... Some days ago, I entered 
www.google.com and it showed up an alert asking if it 
was me because there was "unusual activity" on my user account and a checkbox 
to probe I am human...

I have reinstalled (restored a new fresh installation backed up with 
clonezilla) Debian 10, the first days works perfect and after some days or 
weeks it begins to behave weird again...

What can it be? What can I do? Would you recommend to perform a new REAL AND 
FULL INSTALLATION (not restore of backed up brand new installation) with latest 
Debian 10? And for security, how can I close all ports or services to the 
outside of my home network (at least in my Linux boxes)?


I don't want to provide ideas or theories that may create prejudices, so only I 
hear you...


Thanks!

Sharing files LINUX-LINUX / LINUX-WINDOWS / WINDOWS-WINDOWS

[Kanito 73]

Hello

I have up and running two dual boot LINUX (Debian 10) and WINDOWS 10 machines 
and want to connect them to be able to work without spending time copying files 
from/to on a usb device, have multiple copies of a same file, etc.

I may need to copy from Linux to Windows, sometimes from Windows to Linux, 
other ones from Linux to Linux, and so... Would you recommend me to use SAMBA 
for all of that? All data partitions are NTFS and there's no need to set 
permissions since all data are audio, video, image and document files and the 
only user is me.

At first I thought to use both SAMBA for LINUX-WINDOWS and maybe NFS for 
LINUX-LINUX but I used NFS long time ago and it was slow as a turtle. Is there 
another networking service available that runs faster only for LINUX-LINUX or 
it is better to use SAMBA for everything_

Good nite all 

Re: NTFS partitions can't be mounted

[Kanito 73]

to...@tuxteam.de Wrote:

> This is a pattern which I like to call "emergent evil". Most likely
> nobody does it on purpose, yet it happens often enough to annoy
> competing ecosystems. Magic!

HAHAHAHAHA (with capital letters)... As far as I remember, Microsoft (Windoze) 
used to annoy Linux users since long time ago... Installing Windoze disables 
Linux to boot... NTFS was cryptic for years with no tech specifications of the 
filesystem, a mystery so for many years Linux developers were unable to create 
a driver to access such partitions, in fact I remember that in the past it was 
only possible to mount as read only... Aaahhh and the recent damn habit of 
locking NTFS partitions so other operating systems are unable to use them... 
And I am not very sure, but I remember that in ancient versions, installing 
Windoze wiped out the entire hard disk removing all operating systems before 
installation...

I hate Windoze as an operating system but some programs and games are cool... 
And there is a fact: THE ONE WHO HITS FIRST, HITS TWICE (translated from 
spanish). Bill Gates was pioneer of the graphical environments (when computers 
had simple text terminals) and further graphical operating systems. It is a 
very selfish attitude but today virtually he's one of the most rich men in the 
world, so (fair or not) he can do whatever he wants 


From: to...@tuxteam.de
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2020 9:11 PM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: NTFS partitions can't be mounted

On Wed, Nov 25, 2020 at 03:47:12PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> > Microsoft changes the system required to kill the fast-boot every so often,
> > almost surely to make it difficult for users of Linux to access Windows from
> > the Linux system.
>
> That seems highly unlikely: it's a tiny number of users, and not only
> they're not a threat but annoying them won't bring any benefit to MS.

This is a pattern which I like to call "emergent evil". Most likely
nobody does it on purpose, yet it happens often enough to annoy
competing ecosystems. Magic!

Cheers
 - t

Re: NTFS partitions can't be mounted [SOLVED]

[Kanito 73]

Hello!

> john doe: Is "fastboot" disabled in Windows or in the bios?

Windows 10 -> Control Panel -> Power Control -> disable fast startup. As I 
found in a few posts and publications, Windows stores some data on the disks to 
load faster the next time and sets a flag to deny access or mount to ensure it 
remains there for the next startup. In the BIOS I disabled SECURE BOOT to allow 
boot from USB (installation) and later for Linux (Debian).

> Joe:
> I had that happen the other day, booted to Windows and it did indeed
> claim something was wrong with the partition and offered to fix it.
> After that, I was back to rw mounting on Linux. It has only happened
> once in about 18 months of dual booting. There is no problem here with
> disc naming, as one drive is sda and the other is mmc
> ... I don't know how it happened ...

> The Wanderer:
> Modern Windows versions have a quirk that, in a default configuration,
> "Shut Down" doesn't actually shut all the way down

> John Boxall:
> You are running into Windows "hibernation" that leaves the disks in an
> "unclean" state when shut down

Well, by 1:30am I found some posts about this problem. It was solved in the 
Windows control panel at POWER CONTROL configuration section... Just had to 
turn of the FAST STARTUP (hibernation turn off is not required unless disabling 
fast startup does not work) XD

I've read all your answers and all of them are valid, turn off the hibernation 
(although it is not necessary if the fast startup is disabled) or disabling it 
manually on a shell window by command line... The control panel option is the 
fastest way, just a few seconds... but as I said, all of your solutions work...



> Linux-fan:
> Which parts went onto the SSD and which onto the HDD in the end?
> Which of the two systems do you intend to use more often?
> Which of the two systems will run computation-intensive (CPU, RAM, GPU)
> applications?

HDD:
sda1-sda4 Windows 10 (100Gb+)
sda5-sda7 Debian 10 (100Gb+)
sda8 Data partition (700Gb NTFS)

SDD:
sdb1 Data partition (128Gb NTFS)

My primary OS is Linux, rarely I use Windows but I require a native 
installation to run some programs with direct access to the hardware... Most 
programs can be run into a VirtualBox machine but some games will not work and 
a few programs would run better directly on the computer. The most hungry 
programs (processor and memory) are in Linux, basically KDEnlive and OBS, 
except for a few games and programs in Windows (not commonly used but they are 
available when I need them).



Thanks all of you (and the other people who helped me along the installation 
and configuration) for your help and comments. My Windows 10 / Debian 10 box is 
up and running. Once everything was working and tuned up I made a Clonezilla 
backup of all partitions, so when one of the systems gets saturated or damaged 
I just need to restore the corresponding boot partition or the whole system 
partitions with the system already installed and configured, since my work and 
files are stored in the external data partitions I have not to make or restore 
a backup...



From: ...
Sent: ...
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: ...

... REPLY TO ALL COMMENTS IN A SINGLE MAIL ...

NTFS partitions can't be mounted

[Kanito 73]

Hello

Al the previous issues I published are now solved. Relative to the RTL8821CE, I 
searched for a module rtl8821ce.ko but the generated module was just 8821ce.ko 
so when I loaded the only RTL* (rtl8821ae.ko) the right 8821ce.ko was already 
loaded and I thought it was the rtl8821ae activating my wifi. [SOLVED]

Now I have another BIG problem.  I installed both Windows10 (version OCTOBER 
2020) and Debian 10.0.6 in dual boot and left a large NTFS partition for data 
on the primary disk (HDD) and the whole secondary disk (SDD) also as a unique 
NTFS partition.

Well, I installed Windows, then Installed Linux and tested the NTFS partitions 
from Linux (Debian) mounting and copying some files successfully. After 
rebooting with Windows those partitions were not accessible from Linux anymore. 
If they are mounted at boot time via /etc/fstab it silently mounts them as "ro" 
(read only) although from time to time they are mounted ocasionally as "rw" but 
as soon as I try to write or copy there they are turned to "ro". If I mount 
manually with the mount command, they are also mounted as "ro" showing a 
message indicating that the NTFS partition was unmounted uncleanly (and to fix 
with Windows) or that it is locked by windows to perform a check or 
installation of something or an update BUT THEY ARE CLEAN EMPTY PARTITIONS.

What can I do? At this moment I am formating the 700Gb HDD partition and just 
formated the 128Gb SDD from Windows with the full format (not quick format) to 
see if there is a physical error on the disks. The SDD was fully formated with 
no errors. The HDD partition currently at 80% has not showed errors... So I 
think that Windows 10 locks the partitions or something weird is going on.

If not solved I will clear the entire disks and install only Debian and run 
Windoze on VirtualBox, I don't want since there are some games that I want to 
play on native Windows but if it does not work will have to remove it from the 
computer. CHKDSK.EXE reports no errors when I run it on such partitions.

THEORIES
---
- Disk geometry may be interpreted different in Windows and Linux so it can 
cause problems. Windows partitions were created by Windows and Debian 
partitions were created by Linux.
- It may be related to some UEFI configuration (I only disabled secure boot and 
disk legacy to use UEFI) blocking or interferring
- A few times, Linux has swapped the disk devices. First disk (sda) is HDD and 
second disk (sdb) is SDD, but two or three times when I checked the partitions 
with fdisk (only see the partition types and numbers) HDD was sdb and SDD was 
sda, and after reboot they were again HDD:sda SDD:sdb... Is it a Linux problem 
or a UEFI problem or WTF? It is WEIRD, never have seen something like that...

Damn Windows it is making me cry blood but I need it for some games and 
programs...

Thanks for your patience (sorry for too many posts)

P.S. Debian is working 100% perfectly, it is up and running, the unique problem 
is the access to the NTFS partitions

RTL8821CE does not load automatically at boot time

[Kanito 73]

Hello community

I have (almost) ready mylaptop, but there are still a few details to fix... 
I've used an external driver for my RTL8821CE wifi 
(https://github.com/tomaspinho/rtl8821ce) but it is not loaded during the boot 
process. The generated module is "rtl8821ae.ko" (not "rtl8821ce.ko") but 
apparently it works fine (have to test it thoroughly).

When I first tried to load rtl8821CE the system said that could not be find at 
/lib/modules/5.8... so I searched for it manually and found rtl8821AE at 
/lib/modules/5.8.../kernel/drivers/net/wireless and loaded manually "modprobe 
rtl8821ae", then the wifi device appeared and worked.

My question is: How can I load automatically the driver? Perhaps the kernel 
detects RTL8821CE and expects for rtl8821ce.ko... Is there some way to load it 
explicitly maybe adding rtl8821ae.ko to a list of modules to load?

Thanks again for your help and patience

Re: Dual Win10/Linux on HDD+SDD installation & RTL8821CE

[Kanito 73]

Hi

> Are you sure that operation will benefit from faster storage (as opposed
> to more CPU and/or RAM)?

It is a new computer, it has good processor/RAM and already has the highest 
memory possible (12Gb), the idea is to help now by speed on the storage 
device...

Relative to the size of partitions I am checking, currently my Linux root 
partition has 25Gb on use and 25Gb free (50 in total).  The same sizes and 
proportions on the 50Gb Windows partition (barely used)... I plan to install 
games on the new computer (Windows and Linux) so maybe I will set 100Gb for 
each OS and leave the rest for shared data storage...

Thanks for the hints, I was thinking about using 150Gb partitions but most 
space would be unused, commonly I use space for data (work, music, video) more 
than programs... 100Gb would be fine 

Thanks again


From: Andrei POPESCU
Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 6:00 PM
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Dual Win10/Linux on HDD+SDD installation & RTL8821CE

On Lu, 23 nov 20, 17:10:56, Kanito 73 wrote:
> Hello
>
> Finally I bought the laptop with Ryzen 5, it arrived yesterday. At first I 
> backed up (clonezilla) the whole brand new system (Windows 10) before running 
> for first time to have a virgin copy of the original system. Today I will 
> erase the disks to create partitions and install both Windows 10 and Linux, 
> but I'm not sure about how to organize the space. The laptop comes with a 1Tb 
> HDD and a 128Gb SDD. Windows 10 is installed on the 128Gb SDD and the whole 
> 1Tb HDD is empty and available for data.
>
> Well, I have two options to organize (partitionate) and want to hear (read) 
> opinions:
>
> OPTION 1:
> - Install Windows 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb
> - Leave the remainder of 1Tb HDD for NTFS data partition (shared for 
> Win10+Linux)
> - Install Debian 10 on the 128Gb SDD
> (Can Linux run on "sdb" (Windows on "sda")?)
>
> OPTION 2:
> - Install Windows 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb
> - Install Debian 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb

A (slightly trimmed) LXDE installation is less than 10 GiB. Even if
Gnome or KDE are 3 times bigger, that's still only 30 GiB.

You could check the size of your current installation with something
like

du -hx --max-depth=1 /

It will show you how the space is distributed among your top-level
directories (assuming all in one partition).

I'm guessing most of your space will be taken up by /home, which could
be its own partition on the HDD.

> - Leave the remainder of 1Tb HDD for NTFS data partition (shared for
> Win10+Linux)
> - Use the 128Gb SDD to edit/render FHD/4K video faster than in HDD
>
> I guess that the original Windows 10 is on SDD to load faster and run
> programs slightly, but Linux is lighter, my current laptop has a
> normal HDD and never required it to load Linux or run programs faster
> (except for some games or apps used ocasionally).

Debian will benefit from an SSD as well, just try it out ;)

> Windows is a big elephant while Linux is a cheetah. So I think it
> would be better to use the SDD rendering videos, I know the disk is
> short but once the videos are edited and rendered they are stored on
> external USB disk and probably I will begin to move to DVD since it is
> a lot of "dead space" on external disks that may have a more dynamic
> use.

Are you sure that operation will benefit from faster storage (as opposed
to more CPU and/or RAM)?

Kind regards,
Andrei
--
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser

Dual Win10/Linux on HDD+SDD installation & RTL8821CE

[Kanito 73]

Hello

Finally I bought the laptop with Ryzen 5, it arrived yesterday. At first I 
backed up (clonezilla) the whole brand new system (Windows 10) before running 
for first time to have a virgin copy of the original system. Today I will erase 
the disks to create partitions and install both Windows 10 and Linux, but I'm 
not sure about how to organize the space. The laptop comes with a 1Tb HDD and a 
128Gb SDD. Windows 10 is installed on the 128Gb SDD and the whole 1Tb HDD is 
empty and available for data.

Well, I have two options to organize (partitionate) and want to hear (read) 
opinions:

OPTION 1:
- Install Windows 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb
- Leave the remainder of 1Tb HDD for NTFS data partition (shared for 
Win10+Linux)
- Install Debian 10 on the 128Gb SDD
(Can Linux run on "sdb" (Windows on "sda")?)

OPTION 2:
- Install Windows 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb
- Install Debian 10 on the 1Tb HDD using 150Gb
- Leave the remainder of 1Tb HDD for NTFS data partition (shared for 
Win10+Linux)
- Use the 128Gb SDD to edit/render FHD/4K video faster than in HDD

I guess that the original Windows 10 is on SDD to load faster and run programs 
slightly, but Linux is lighter, my current laptop has a normal HDD and never 
required it to load Linux or run programs faster (except for some games or apps 
used ocasionally). Windows is a big elephant while Linux is a cheetah. So I 
think it would be better to use the SDD rendering videos, I know the disk is 
short but once the videos are edited and rendered they are stored on external 
USB disk and probably I will begin to move to DVD since it is a lot of "dead 
space" on external disks that may have a more dynamic use.

About wifi... Do anybody use RTL8821CE with a latest Debian 10 kernel (package) 
without installing an external driver? My old laptop has RTL8723 that required 
to install rtlwifi_new driver (from GIT) but currently runs fine with the 
kernel driver, would it work also for RTL8821CE? I found a post in a forum 
saying that rtlwifi_new also supports RTL8821CE ...

Well, what do you think?

Thanks,
Mike

AMD Ryzen 5 3550H + GPU AMD Radeon Vega 8 (+nVidia)

[Kanito 73]

Hello

I am about to buy a laptop (HP) that comes with the processor AMD Ryzen 5 3550H 
(link below) and the GPU AMD Radeon Vega 8 is integrated. In the description 
table of the laptop it shows the Vega 8 graphics, but just below it also shows 
the nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 graphics and I am a bit confused... Does it have 
both GPUs? Radeon integrated on the Ryzen processor and nVidia on the 
motherboard? Searching information at Google I found a post in a forum 
describing that laptops with Ryzen processors have both GPUs and you can switch 
them but it is a bit "tricky"...

By the way, at first I am more concerned about the drivers. I´ve read that 
latest nVidia drivers do not work with the latest linux kernels and it is 
required to downgrade to a previous kernel so you can install the official 
nVidia´s driver. Is it real or currently I can install the most fresh AMD.COM 
driver with no problems? Do the kernel support "nVidia GeForce GTX 1050 
graphics" with generic drivers and it will work fine for games or graphics 
software (design, video, etc)?

And related to the Vega 8 (integrated in the processor)... I visited AMD.COM to 
see details of the driver and I found that it is only available for Windows 10 
(at least on the driver´s link). Does the kernel have support for GPU Vega 8 
(generic drivers) and work fine for games and graphics software? Do you know 
about an alternative link or place where to get the official driver for Linux 
or it does not exist?

I am worried because don´t want to buy a USD 1200 laptop that will not work on 
Linux (Debian 10) due incompatibility or lack of drivers... I hope you can help 
me or tell me if it is safe to buy the laptop because it will work with the 
official or generic drivers...

https://www.amd.com/en/support/apu/amd-ryzen-processors/amd-ryzen-5-mobile-processors-radeon-vega-graphics/amd-ryzen-5-2

Thanks in advance for your comments and help