Re: iceweasel based on firefox 6.0 for squeeze
Ah, that webpage did the trick, thanks! -PT On Sat, Sep 24, 2011 at 5:04 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: I would like to migrate to firefox 6.0, but I'd like to do it using the debian iceweasel distribution. Can anyone tell me how to go about setting that up? Thanks in advance, -PT
iceweasel based on firefox 6.0 for squeeze
I would like to migrate to firefox 6.0, but I'd like to do it using the debian iceweasel distribution. Can anyone tell me how to go about setting that up? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Needed: a grub2 expert
That worked, thanks! -PT On Mon, Jun 27, 2011 at 12:00 PM, lee l...@yun.yagibdah.de wrote: martin f krafft madd...@debian.org writes: also sprach Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com [2011.06.26.0227 +0200]: I suppose that is possible. However, the workstation has 2 internal hard drives (both in the RAID-1 array), 1 internal DVD-ROM player, and the external USB hard drive; total of 4. Is there something else in the system which can take a drive slot from the BIOS? If not, then 4 slots should be enough to allow them all to initialize properly. It could be that the external USB drive causes the BIOS to reorder the drives, which might throw off grub2 as well. See if you can somehow stabilise the drive order in the BIOS. He could try to turn off USB legacy support in the BIOS.
Needed: a grub2 expert
I'm having a problem with my debian squeeze desktop. The problem is as follows: I have a system with a software raid-1 root partition (set up with mdadm) and a non-raid boot partition. The system uses grub2 as its bootloader. Under ordinary circumstances everything works correctly, but when I have my (non-bootable) Seagate FreeAgent USB hard drive connected via the front-panel USB port, booting hangs. Through use of echo statements, I've traced the problem to a block of code at the top of my grub.cfg file: insmod raid insmod mdraid insmod part_msdos insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 The first statement executes correctly, but execution hangs between completion of the insmod raid statment and the insmod mdraid statement. Since this is clearly a grub2 problem rather than a true debian problem, is there anyone who can point me to a resource on grub2 which might help me resolve this? A grub2 guru would be wonderful, if any are known! Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Needed: a grub2 expert
I suppose that is possible. However, the workstation has 2 internal hard drives (both in the RAID-1 array), 1 internal DVD-ROM player, and the external USB hard drive; total of 4. Is there something else in the system which can take a drive slot from the BIOS? If not, then 4 slots should be enough to allow them all to initialize properly. -PT On Sat, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:32 PM, martin f krafft madd...@debian.orgwrote: also sprach Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com [2011.06.25.2028 +0200]: Under ordinary circumstances everything works correctly, but when I have my (non-bootable) Seagate FreeAgent USB hard drive connected via the front-panel USB port, booting hangs. Your USB drive probably get initialised and takes one of the x (usually 4) slots of drives provided by the BIOS. When your internal drives initialise, one does not get a slot. Hence grub2 hangs. Not much you can do I think. -- .''`. martin f. krafft madduck@d.o Related projects: : :' : proud Debian developer http://debiansystem.info `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~madduckhttp://vcs-pkg.org `- Debian - when you have better things to do than fixing systems gentoo: the performance placebo.
Re: Unable to boot squeeze on sw raid array when external USB drive connected
The consensus of people whom I've talked to is that, at the point where grub freezes, there's a problem with misidentification of hard drives when the USB drive is present (in essence, the USB drive is being mistaken for a member of the RAID-1 array; when the drive is absent, this mistake is not made). When grub2 is used with a RAID-1 array configured via mdadm, how do I determine which drives grub2 will identify as being in the RAID array? Is there some configuration information somewhere that I can see which will tell me this? Thanks in advance, -PT On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi there -- I am running squeeze with a non-RAID boot partition and a RAID-1 main partition. I use GRUB2 as my bootloader. My problem is the following: When I have my Seagate FreeAgent USB hard drive connected to the computer, it's unable to boot, instead it hangs with the Welcome to GRUB! message on the screen. Through copious use of echo statements, I've traced the problem down to the following code block near the top of grub.cfg: insmod raid insmod mdraid insmod part_msdos insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 The first statement executes correctly; it hangs while trying to execute the second statement, insmod mdraid. Any idea what the problem might be, and how to cure it? Thanks in advance, -PT
Unable to boot squeeze on sw raid array when external USB drive connected
Hi there -- I am running squeeze with a non-RAID boot partition and a RAID-1 main partition. I use GRUB2 as my bootloader. My problem is the following: When I have my Seagate FreeAgent USB hard drive connected to the computer, it's unable to boot, instead it hangs with the Welcome to GRUB! message on the screen. Through copious use of echo statements, I've traced the problem down to the following code block near the top of grub.cfg: insmod raid insmod mdraid insmod part_msdos insmod part_msdos insmod ext2 The first statement executes correctly; it hangs while trying to execute the second statement, insmod mdraid. Any idea what the problem might be, and how to cure it? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Netgear WG111 USB wifi adapter works with squeeze / gnome
Camaleon -- unfortunately the wifi / USB page you pointed me to specifies which chipsets work well with Debian, but not which devices you can buy at a store or on Amazon. I was never able to figure out how to make use of that page as most vendors and retailers do not think that the chipset information is of vital importance to the buyer, hence it is obscure at the time of purchase. Klistvud -- Here is the output of lsusb: Bus 002 Device 005: ID 0846:4260 NetGear, Inc. WG111v3 54 Mbps Wireless [realtek RTL8187B] So the chipset happens to be one of the ones which is well-supported, but I had no way to know this prior to purchase (and believe me, I tried to find out). Fortunately a user posted a review to Amazon saying that it worked for him on his linux desktop. -PT On Wed, Dec 29, 2010 at 8:10 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: I recently had to add wifi to my squeeze / gnome desktop. Based on some reviews I bought a Netgear WG111 USB wifi adapter, and I found that when I plugged it into a USB port on my desktop it worked instantly -- no configuration or package installation necessary. Is there a repository where these sorts of success stories are tracked? -PT
Netgear WG111 USB wifi adapter works with squeeze / gnome
I recently had to add wifi to my squeeze / gnome desktop. Based on some reviews I bought a Netgear WG111 USB wifi adapter, and I found that when I plugged it into a USB port on my desktop it worked instantly -- no configuration or package installation necessary. Is there a repository where these sorts of success stories are tracked? -PT
Wireless internet for squeeze desktop
Hi, everyone -- In the near future I need to change the network setup for my desktop squeeze workstation so that it uses a wireless internet connection (it's using the ethernet spigot right now). Can anyone suggest a wireless card or wireless USB adaptor which has good compatibility / support in squeeze? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Question about Seamonkey, Iceape, and Debian
FWIW, I'm running Squeeze, and I just installed iceape 2.0.10, which I believe is the most recent version of SeaMonkey. I'm running on an AMD64 platform, if that matters. -PT PS: I think this is the first time I'm answering a Debian question, rather than asking it...
Re: Extremely large level 1 backups with dump
Karl -- So on my first attempt, I realized that I need to exclude the /media directory, or else the backup drive will attempt to back up itself. OK, that's fine. On the second attempt, the backup got into the /proc directory, complained about some files disappearing, and then froze. I don't have these problems on my work computer, where I use rsync, but there I only back up my home directory. Here I'm trying to do the entire filesystem (actually both the root and boot filesystems). So it's a much larger world. -PT On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 7:15 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Well, after having some difficulty getting rsync to do exactly what I want, I've become convinced to try rsnapshot. I'll let you know how it goes. -PT On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Jochen, Paul -- In thinking this over, I think that the best approach is to simply have a daily rsync --archive from my main hard drive to the backup drive. While I understand that more sophisticated backup systems are often useful in a large system, the system in question is a home computer with only 2 users. The file complement changes but slowly, and we never delete and rarely overwrite files, so there's no need to be able to, say, recover the 3 days ago version of a file. The backup system is mainly there for disaster recovery, with daily backups preferred just so that we don't lose many e-mail messages in the event of a catastrophic failure. Do you concur that a simple rsync makes more sense in this context, or do you think that I would still benefit from using either the --link-dest option or rsnapshot? -PT
Problems with fast user switcher applet
I'm running Gnome and Squeeze on my home computer, and I have frequent problems with the fast user switcher applet. Does anyone else have these problems? 1. The applet will suddenly stop switching from one particular user to another (though it switches fine for all other combinations: so for example it won't switch from user X to user Y but will switch from user Y to user X) 2. Instead of switching between users, the applet switches from a user to a blank screen (but fortunately ctrl-alt-f7/8 still works) 3. The switcher will suddenly start to require passwords even though it is configured to not require them. I have had all these problems just in the last 15 minutes. Am I alone, or have other people had issues? -PT
Re: Extremely large level 1 backups with dump
Well, after having some difficulty getting rsync to do exactly what I want, I've become convinced to try rsnapshot. I'll let you know how it goes. -PT On Sat, Dec 4, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Jochen, Paul -- In thinking this over, I think that the best approach is to simply have a daily rsync --archive from my main hard drive to the backup drive. While I understand that more sophisticated backup systems are often useful in a large system, the system in question is a home computer with only 2 users. The file complement changes but slowly, and we never delete and rarely overwrite files, so there's no need to be able to, say, recover the 3 days ago version of a file. The backup system is mainly there for disaster recovery, with daily backups preferred just so that we don't lose many e-mail messages in the event of a catastrophic failure. Do you concur that a simple rsync makes more sense in this context, or do you think that I would still benefit from using either the --link-dest option or rsnapshot? -PT
Re: Towards a working initrd.img file
Thanks for all the helpful ideas, all! As it turns out, the solution to my problem was straightforward: I needed to do a dpkg-reconfigure mdadm, and specify that all multi-drive arrays need to be started in order to access root. Once that was completed, update-initramfs produced an initrd.img which permits booting on my computer. Like the man said about sharpening and aligning a plane, None of this is rocket science, but at the same time you're not born knowing it! -PT
Re: Extremely large level 1 backups with dump
Jochen, Paul -- In thinking this over, I think that the best approach is to simply have a daily rsync --archive from my main hard drive to the backup drive. While I understand that more sophisticated backup systems are often useful in a large system, the system in question is a home computer with only 2 users. The file complement changes but slowly, and we never delete and rarely overwrite files, so there's no need to be able to, say, recover the 3 days ago version of a file. The backup system is mainly there for disaster recovery, with daily backups preferred just so that we don't lose many e-mail messages in the event of a catastrophic failure. Do you concur that a simple rsync makes more sense in this context, or do you think that I would still benefit from using either the --link-dest option or rsnapshot? -PT
grub2 hangs / freezes when external USB hard drive is connected
Hi everyone -- My squeeze home machine cannot boot when an external hard drive is connected via USB. When the drive is disconnected, booting occurs normally; but when it is connected, I get a Welcome to Grub! message and then nothing further happens. I've tried going into the boot menu in BIOS and setting the boot order so that the external hard drive is used last, but I still have this problem. It seems like it must be at least partially successful in booting off the internal hard drives, since they have grub2 installed but the external hard drive does not. Any suggestions for how I can configure the system so that it does not get into trouble when the external hard drive is connected? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Extremely large level 1 backups with dump
Paul -- thanks for the suggestions. I guess that, since I am not using a tape drive for backup, there's no good reason to use dump rather than rsync, and the latter will leave me with a navigable file tree on the backup drive. This is what I use at work to back up /home/ptenenbaum (at the suggestion of the fellow who got me into Debian in the first place), so it makes sense that I should use it at home too. I'll look at your suggestions and do a migration soon. -PT
Towards a working initrd.img file
Hi again -- I've been having a problem since migrating my file system to RAID-1, which is that when I run update-initramfs, it produces an initrd.img file which doesn't work correctly; when I replace it with the initrd.img file which was constructed by the OS installer, I can boot correctly in my newly-RAIDified system. From studying the error messages and Googling around, I surmise that the problem is as follows: 1. In order for RAID-1 arrays to be correctly recognized, my initrd.img file needs to be generated with certain kernel modules, for example md_mod 2. For some reason, the original kernel module has these, but the ones produced by update-initramfs do not. So my question: how do I configure update-initramfs so that it automatically includes the kernel modules I need? I note that there is a file, /etc/initramfs-tools/modules, which in my case has no module names in it; presumably I can look at /proc/modules and copy the names of all the modules shown in the latter into the former. Would that solve my problem? Is there a better way? Thanks in advance for any advice on how to get update-initramfs working for me. Right now, since I depend on an initrd.img file which I can't reproduce, I feel like I'm living on borrowed time. -PT
Extremely large level 1 backups with dump
I've been using dump to perform backups of my home Debian workstation (I run squeeze, btw). I do a weekly level 0 dump and daily level 1 dumps. For some reason the level 1 backups are almost as large as the level 0 (the level 0 is 57.9 GB and the level 1 is 51.6 GB), even though we clearly don't modify anything like that many files in the interval from one day to the next. The commands that I am using for these backups are of the form: dump -0u -f /media/FreeAgent Drive/filename0 -A media/FreeAgent Drive/archive0 /dev/md3 dump -1u -f /media/FreeAgent Drive/filename1 -A media/FreeAgent Drive/archive1 /dev/md3 where /dev/md3 is my RAID1 array root partition. Any idea why the level-1 backups are almost as large as the level-0? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: update-initramfs produces unusable initrd.img
Hi again -- Does anyone have any post-thanksgiving suggestions for how to handle this issue? Thanks in advance, -PT On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: In my recent experiments with moving my home Debian desktop to RAID-1 arrays, I discovered that update-initramfs is producing intrd.img-* files which are unusable. What I mean by that is this: When I do update-initramfs -u (or -c), it produces a new initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64. When I attempt to boot with the new file, I get the following: Loading, please wait [long wait, and then:] Gave up waiting for root device ...[some suggestions about looking at /proc/cmdline and /proc/modules] Alert: /dev/md3 does not exist! Dropping to a shell! [etc] Note that /dev/md3 is the RAID-1 array which is mounted as / . When I replace the initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64 which was generated when I installed squeeze, the computer boots without any problems, informs me that /dev/md3 has been started with 2 drives, etc. My /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf has MODULES=most, my /etc/initramfs-tools/modules has nothing enabled, and /etc/initramfs-tools/update-initramfs.conf has update-initramfs=yes and backup-initramfs=no. My suspicion is that I need to add some modules to the modules file. Is this correct? If so, which ones do I need for a system running software RAID-1 configured with mdadm? Thanks in advance, -PT
update-initramfs produces unusable initrd.img
In my recent experiments with moving my home Debian desktop to RAID-1 arrays, I discovered that update-initramfs is producing intrd.img-* files which are unusable. What I mean by that is this: When I do update-initramfs -u (or -c), it produces a new initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64. When I attempt to boot with the new file, I get the following: Loading, please wait [long wait, and then:] Gave up waiting for root device ...[some suggestions about looking at /proc/cmdline and /proc/modules] Alert: /dev/md3 does not exist! Dropping to a shell! [etc] Note that /dev/md3 is the RAID-1 array which is mounted as / . When I replace the initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64 which was generated when I installed squeeze, the computer boots without any problems, informs me that /dev/md3 has been started with 2 drives, etc. My /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf has MODULES=most, my /etc/initramfs-tools/modules has nothing enabled, and /etc/initramfs-tools/update-initramfs.conf has update-initramfs=yes and backup-initramfs=no. My suspicion is that I need to add some modules to the modules file. Is this correct? If so, which ones do I need for a system running software RAID-1 configured with mdadm? Thanks in advance, -PT
Configuring RAID-1 boot partition
I'm running squeeze on my desktop and recently decided to configure it for
RAID-1 as part of my recovery from a hard drive failure. I found an article
online about how to do this:
http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup . I followed the
article's recipe as best I could, but could not in general do exactly as was
shown for setting up the boot partition as the instructions seem to
correspond to GRUB 1 and I am running GRUB 2 (well, 1.98). When I attempted
to boot off of my RAID-1 boot partition, I got into grub and then got the
following message:
error: file not found!
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue
At the moment I am booting off of a Debian Live DVD. Here is the content of
the grub.cfg file on the RAID boot partition:
set default=0
set timeout=5
menuentry 'Debian GNU/Linux, with Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64' {
set root=(hd0,1)
echo'Loading Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 ...'
linux /vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 ro root=/dev/md3 quiet
echo'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.32-5-amd64
}
Note that /dev/md3 is the RAID-1 array which is going to be root in the
fully booted system, and it is made of /dev/sda3 and /dev/sdb3. The boot
array is /dev/md1, which is made of /dev/sda1 and /dev/sdb1.
Any suggestions about how to correctly configure a RAID-1 boot partition
(ie, what I did wrong and how to fix it) will be very much appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
-PT
Problem with gnome in recovered squeeze system
I recently had to recover from a hard drive failure in my Debian squeeze desktop computer. After the usual thrashing around I have managed to (I think) recover all my files and configuration information from backup, get grub installed, and get all the grub configurations set properly so that Debian boots and I am greeted with the Gnome login screen. Unfortunately, When I enter my username and password I am informed that my session lasted less than 10 seconds, and that if I did not log myself out then something must be wrong. When I view the ~/.xsession-errors file, what I see is: /etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup ... mkdtemp: private socket dir: Permission denied When I try to use failsafe gnome, I get the error: /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256 I can log in using failsafe terminal (so user account information has been recovered properly). Any suggestions for what needs to be done? I have a Debian-live rescue CD and a Debian-live with Gnome DVD, both of which run correctly. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Problem with gnome in recovered squeeze system
...adding: is it possible that some permission was not set correctly when I restored backups (the backups were made via dump command). On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: I recently had to recover from a hard drive failure in my Debian squeeze desktop computer. After the usual thrashing around I have managed to (I think) recover all my files and configuration information from backup, get grub installed, and get all the grub configurations set properly so that Debian boots and I am greeted with the Gnome login screen. Unfortunately, When I enter my username and password I am informed that my session lasted less than 10 seconds, and that if I did not log myself out then something must be wrong. When I view the ~/.xsession-errors file, what I see is: /etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup ... mkdtemp: private socket dir: Permission denied When I try to use failsafe gnome, I get the error: /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256 I can log in using failsafe terminal (so user account information has been recovered properly). Any suggestions for what needs to be done? I have a Debian-live rescue CD and a Debian-live with Gnome DVD, both of which run correctly. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Problem with gnome in recovered squeeze system
Never mind. JFGI. Had to chmod 777 on /tmp. I now appear to have a normal session on my computer, woo hoo! -PT On Mon, Nov 15, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: I recently had to recover from a hard drive failure in my Debian squeeze desktop computer. After the usual thrashing around I have managed to (I think) recover all my files and configuration information from backup, get grub installed, and get all the grub configurations set properly so that Debian boots and I am greeted with the Gnome login screen. Unfortunately, When I enter my username and password I am informed that my session lasted less than 10 seconds, and that if I did not log myself out then something must be wrong. When I view the ~/.xsession-errors file, what I see is: /etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup ... mkdtemp: private socket dir: Permission denied When I try to use failsafe gnome, I get the error: /usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256 I can log in using failsafe terminal (so user account information has been recovered properly). Any suggestions for what needs to be done? I have a Debian-live rescue CD and a Debian-live with Gnome DVD, both of which run correctly. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Recovery from hard drive failure
OK, steps 1-3 went fairly smoothly. Now, however, I'm unable to get grub-install to work. When I do the following: mount /dev/sda1 /newboot grub-install '(sd0,0)' I get the error message: /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for /boot/grub (is /dev mounted?) I get the same when I do grub-install /dev/sda1 . Clearly, I have not done some crucial preparatory step for installing grub from the live rescue CD to the new hard drive's partition. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance, -PT On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 12:46 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi again -- As I'm studying the situation, my plan for how to do this recovery has evolved a bit. What I'm planning now is the following: 1. Install the new hard drives 2. Boot off the rescue CD 3. Use fdisk to set up one of the drives as the system / boot drive, with 3 DOS-style partitions (boot, swap, and everything else) 4. Install grub in the boot partition 5. Recover my backup to the new system disk via restore 6. Update /etc/fstab to match the configuration I set up in (3) and (4), since I'm not setting up the new hard drives exactly the way that the old drive was configured 7. Follow the instructions at http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup to incorporate the system disk and the second disk as a RAID-1 array. If anyone wants to jump in and shout, No, you fool! when they see this plan, let me know. Mark -- I've decided against using LVM because (a) it adds another level of complication to the overall recovery / RAID-ification procedure, which at my low level of expertise I really do not need, and (b) it's not clear to me that LVM offers that much benefit for a relatively simple home system with more hard drive capacity than I really need. Maybe on my next system... -PT On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Klistvud -- excellent, thanks, that is definitely the way to go! I can see that the rescue CD from live.debian.net (actually from cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/squeeze_live_beta1/amd64/iso-hybrid/) contains everything I need, so I'll use that. Now: in the interim, I've decided to take this opportunity to make my system RAID-1, so that I get an extra level of protection and also so that if I ever have another drive failure I can limp along on the other drive for the few days it will take me to get myself organized to recover. Also, I get to set up a RAID-1 array, which I don't yet know how to do, and learning is fun. As I understand it, the steps I need to take are: 1. Install the new hard drives 2. Boot off the rescue CD 3. Use fdisk and mdadm to set up the 2 drives as a RAID-1 array 4. Use LVM (or fdisk?) to partition the resulting array (boot, linux, and swap) 5. Recover my backup to the array via restore command. So now, a few new questions: 1. Is the list above generally correct? 2. When I installed Debian back in the summer I let the install script handle the disk partitioning. This time I have to do it manually. What size should I use for the boot and swap partitions? 3. Do I need to manually install and configure grub in order to make the RAID-1 array the boot disk? Again, this was handled for me by the installer script the first time around. 4. What, if anything, do I need to do so that the RAID-1 array is activated at boot time? Whew! Sorry for the huge stack of questions, any and all help, encouragement, etc, is welcome! Thanks in advance, -PT On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:16 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone -- a few days ago the hard drive in my home Debian system started making unhappy noises and refuses to boot. I discussed the situation with knowledgeable people and they diagnosed that indeed the hard drive had failed and needs replacement. I have a recent backup of the hard drive which I made using dump, and I have a new hard drive on order. My recovery plan is as follows: 1. Burn a new netinst CD from a recent build (I am running Squeeze, btw) 2. Replace the hard drive 3. Use the netinst CD to set up the filesystem on the new hard drive 4. Recover the backup using restore. Here's my question: should I allow the netinst CD to install Debian on the new hard drive, given that I plan to use restore to restore everything and thus would overwrite any new installation? I realize that I can probably tune the action of the restore command so that it only restores what I need from the backup and doesn't touch a new OS install; but I think that the process of making the decisions for what needs to be restored and what does not would be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone; so I would rather just restore the whole thing. Any advice you can offer would be welcome. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Recovery from hard drive failure
Hi again -- As I'm studying the situation, my plan for how to do this recovery has evolved a bit. What I'm planning now is the following: 1. Install the new hard drives 2. Boot off the rescue CD 3. Use fdisk to set up one of the drives as the system / boot drive, with 3 DOS-style partitions (boot, swap, and everything else) 4. Install grub in the boot partition 5. Recover my backup to the new system disk via restore 6. Update /etc/fstab to match the configuration I set up in (3) and (4), since I'm not setting up the new hard drives exactly the way that the old drive was configured 7. Follow the instructions at http://linuxconfig.org/Linux_Software_Raid_1_Setup to incorporate the system disk and the second disk as a RAID-1 array. If anyone wants to jump in and shout, No, you fool! when they see this plan, let me know. Mark -- I've decided against using LVM because (a) it adds another level of complication to the overall recovery / RAID-ification procedure, which at my low level of expertise I really do not need, and (b) it's not clear to me that LVM offers that much benefit for a relatively simple home system with more hard drive capacity than I really need. Maybe on my next system... -PT On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Klistvud -- excellent, thanks, that is definitely the way to go! I can see that the rescue CD from live.debian.net (actually from cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/squeeze_live_beta1/amd64/iso-hybrid/) contains everything I need, so I'll use that. Now: in the interim, I've decided to take this opportunity to make my system RAID-1, so that I get an extra level of protection and also so that if I ever have another drive failure I can limp along on the other drive for the few days it will take me to get myself organized to recover. Also, I get to set up a RAID-1 array, which I don't yet know how to do, and learning is fun. As I understand it, the steps I need to take are: 1. Install the new hard drives 2. Boot off the rescue CD 3. Use fdisk and mdadm to set up the 2 drives as a RAID-1 array 4. Use LVM (or fdisk?) to partition the resulting array (boot, linux, and swap) 5. Recover my backup to the array via restore command. So now, a few new questions: 1. Is the list above generally correct? 2. When I installed Debian back in the summer I let the install script handle the disk partitioning. This time I have to do it manually. What size should I use for the boot and swap partitions? 3. Do I need to manually install and configure grub in order to make the RAID-1 array the boot disk? Again, this was handled for me by the installer script the first time around. 4. What, if anything, do I need to do so that the RAID-1 array is activated at boot time? Whew! Sorry for the huge stack of questions, any and all help, encouragement, etc, is welcome! Thanks in advance, -PT On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:16 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone -- a few days ago the hard drive in my home Debian system started making unhappy noises and refuses to boot. I discussed the situation with knowledgeable people and they diagnosed that indeed the hard drive had failed and needs replacement. I have a recent backup of the hard drive which I made using dump, and I have a new hard drive on order. My recovery plan is as follows: 1. Burn a new netinst CD from a recent build (I am running Squeeze, btw) 2. Replace the hard drive 3. Use the netinst CD to set up the filesystem on the new hard drive 4. Recover the backup using restore. Here's my question: should I allow the netinst CD to install Debian on the new hard drive, given that I plan to use restore to restore everything and thus would overwrite any new installation? I realize that I can probably tune the action of the restore command so that it only restores what I need from the backup and doesn't touch a new OS install; but I think that the process of making the decisions for what needs to be restored and what does not would be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone; so I would rather just restore the whole thing. Any advice you can offer would be welcome. Thanks in advance, -PT
Recovery from hard drive failure
Hi everyone -- a few days ago the hard drive in my home Debian system started making unhappy noises and refuses to boot. I discussed the situation with knowledgeable people and they diagnosed that indeed the hard drive had failed and needs replacement. I have a recent backup of the hard drive which I made using dump, and I have a new hard drive on order. My recovery plan is as follows: 1. Burn a new netinst CD from a recent build (I am running Squeeze, btw) 2. Replace the hard drive 3. Use the netinst CD to set up the filesystem on the new hard drive 4. Recover the backup using restore. Here's my question: should I allow the netinst CD to install Debian on the new hard drive, given that I plan to use restore to restore everything and thus would overwrite any new installation? I realize that I can probably tune the action of the restore command so that it only restores what I need from the backup and doesn't touch a new OS install; but I think that the process of making the decisions for what needs to be restored and what does not would be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone; so I would rather just restore the whole thing. Any advice you can offer would be welcome. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Recovery from hard drive failure
Klistvud -- excellent, thanks, that is definitely the way to go! I can see that the rescue CD from live.debian.net (actually from cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/squeeze_live_beta1/amd64/iso-hybrid/) contains everything I need, so I'll use that. Now: in the interim, I've decided to take this opportunity to make my system RAID-1, so that I get an extra level of protection and also so that if I ever have another drive failure I can limp along on the other drive for the few days it will take me to get myself organized to recover. Also, I get to set up a RAID-1 array, which I don't yet know how to do, and learning is fun. As I understand it, the steps I need to take are: 1. Install the new hard drives 2. Boot off the rescue CD 3. Use fdisk and mdadm to set up the 2 drives as a RAID-1 array 4. Use LVM (or fdisk?) to partition the resulting array (boot, linux, and swap) 5. Recover my backup to the array via restore command. So now, a few new questions: 1. Is the list above generally correct? 2. When I installed Debian back in the summer I let the install script handle the disk partitioning. This time I have to do it manually. What size should I use for the boot and swap partitions? 3. Do I need to manually install and configure grub in order to make the RAID-1 array the boot disk? Again, this was handled for me by the installer script the first time around. 4. What, if anything, do I need to do so that the RAID-1 array is activated at boot time? Whew! Sorry for the huge stack of questions, any and all help, encouragement, etc, is welcome! Thanks in advance, -PT On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 8:16 AM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone -- a few days ago the hard drive in my home Debian system started making unhappy noises and refuses to boot. I discussed the situation with knowledgeable people and they diagnosed that indeed the hard drive had failed and needs replacement. I have a recent backup of the hard drive which I made using dump, and I have a new hard drive on order. My recovery plan is as follows: 1. Burn a new netinst CD from a recent build (I am running Squeeze, btw) 2. Replace the hard drive 3. Use the netinst CD to set up the filesystem on the new hard drive 4. Recover the backup using restore. Here's my question: should I allow the netinst CD to install Debian on the new hard drive, given that I plan to use restore to restore everything and thus would overwrite any new installation? I realize that I can probably tune the action of the restore command so that it only restores what I need from the backup and doesn't touch a new OS install; but I think that the process of making the decisions for what needs to be restored and what does not would be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone; so I would rather just restore the whole thing. Any advice you can offer would be welcome. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Issue with fast-user-switcher-applet
Camaleon -- Thanks, the Ctrl+Alt+F7/8 is exactly what I'm looking for! Sorry for the confusion about FUSA, that's fast user-switcher applet. I'd seen it written that way when I google'd for other people reporting the same error, and decided to try to be cool and use the abbreviation. -PT On Tue, Sep 28, 2010 at 9:24 PM, Peter Tenenbaum peter.g.tenenb...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, everyone -- I'm having an issue with the fast-user-switcher-applet (2.24.0) on squeeze. The problem is this: every so often, it stops switching! I left-click on it on the panel, pull down to the user I want to switch to, and -- nothing happens. It seems to be a problem with the applet itself, since I can get it to work correctly again by removing the applet from the panel and reattaching it. So, two questions: First, does anyone else have this problem? I don't see any Debian bugs with fast-user-switcher-applet, but I may not be searching correctly. I'm reluctant to enter a bug report for something which I can't reliably reproduce and which nobody else has seen (to me, that's more of a UFO sighting than a bug report). Second: is there a command I can use at the command line to switch between multiple users who are logged in and running gnome, without the need of passwords? In other words, I'd like to replicate the FUSA functionality with a linux command if possible. We really only have 2 accounts here (mine and my wife's), so I could put a shortcut on her menus or desktop which switches to me, and one on mine which switches to her. Thanks in advance for any help or advice, -PT
Issue with fast-user-switcher-applet
Hi, everyone -- I'm having an issue with the fast-user-switcher-applet (2.24.0) on squeeze. The problem is this: every so often, it stops switching! I left-click on it on the panel, pull down to the user I want to switch to, and -- nothing happens. It seems to be a problem with the applet itself, since I can get it to work correctly again by removing the applet from the panel and reattaching it. So, two questions: First, does anyone else have this problem? I don't see any Debian bugs with fast-user-switcher-applet, but I may not be searching correctly. I'm reluctant to enter a bug report for something which I can't reliably reproduce and which nobody else has seen (to me, that's more of a UFO sighting than a bug report). Second: is there a command I can use at the command line to switch between multiple users who are logged in and running gnome, without the need of passwords? In other words, I'd like to replicate the FUSA functionality with a linux command if possible. We really only have 2 accounts here (mine and my wife's), so I could put a shortcut on her menus or desktop which switches to me, and one on mine which switches to her. Thanks in advance for any help or advice, -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Aaron -- I'll be glad to, if you will help me. Right now I don't reply because I don't get individual messages from the listserv, I get the digest. Thus I'm sending a new message with the Re: subject line subject every time. Also, I am using gmail (don't know if that matters). Is there some way to configure the listserv so that I get replies to my posts from the listserv, but everything else is in the digest? Is there some other way to configure gmail, the listserv, etc, which does what you want done? -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Camaleon -- As far as I can recall, the crashes always occur some seconds after I wake the monitor from sleep, and usually I am downloading a web page in ice weasel (not too surprising, since I usually wake the monitor and check traffic reports first thing in the morning). I've never had a problem during login or immediately after login. I don't use any fancy desktop effects, though I do have a nice wallpaper of a garden photo. My screensaver is a blank screen. I've posted the relevant syslog at http://pastebin.com/KeACjyEC, and my .xsession-errors at http://pastebin.com/YTrehGMt . I note that both my web browsers (ice weasel and sea monkey) produce a lot of warnings of the form: (firefox-bin:2532): Gdk-WARNING **: XID collision, trouble ahead Could that be related at all? Shall I go ahead and file a ticket with Debian? Thanks for all your help with this! -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Camaleon -- I've set it so that the screen saver and screen sleep are disabled. However, I note that since this problem occurs rather infrequently, it will take more than a day to see whether this helps! Anyway, I can leave it like this for as long as needed to convince myself that this is (or is not) related to the problem. I'll open a report today or tomorrow on this item. Thanks again for all your help! -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Camaleon -- That certainly looks like my problem! Now for my next ignorant question: where do I go to find the kernel command line, so I can see whether it includes a vga= clause? I am using squeeze with all normal default options, if that helps any. -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Camaleon -- I've looked at several of the Xorg.#.log and Xorg.#.log.old files, and no error is reported there. All that I can see, in fact, appears to be startup information, not real log information (no datestamps are present, for example). Am I looking in the wrong place? Bob -- I followed your procedure, and it indicates that there are no vga= clauses in the command line which invokes my kernel: quar...@tibouchina:~$ cat /proc/cmdline BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-amd64 root=/dev/mapper/tibouchina-root ro quiet -PT
Re: gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Camaleon -- OK, I've posted a concatenation of the last 3 Xorg log files to http://pastebin.com/eXhSQyEL . I'm pretty sure that the last one of the 3 (Xorg.20.log) was the one which was in use at the time of the problem, the next-most-recent (Xorg.0.log.old) was the one which started at that time, and the most recent one (Xorg.0.log) is from a restart performed this morning. Thanks for all your help with this! -PT
gdm crashes unexpectedly every now and then
Hi, everyone -- I've had 2 instances recently in which gdm unexpectedly crashed and restarted. This morning, the log reported the following: Aug 20 06:33:21 tibouchina kernel: [481166.096049] [drm:i915_gem_do_execbuffer] *ERROR* Failed to pin buffer 35 of 43, total 159727616 bytes: -28 Aug 20 06:33:21 tibouchina kernel: [481166.096053] [drm:i915_gem_do_execbuffer] *ERROR* 2020 objects [40 pinned], 399417344 object bytes [133828608 pinned], 133828608/234881024 gtt bytes Aug 20 06:33:22 tibouchina gdm[1994]: WARNING: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0 Can anyone give me guidance about what the problem is and/or how to resolve it? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Any experience with Brother MFC-420 CN printer?
I finally found some time to look into this more deeply. Turns out it was never a printer or driver problem at all. The problem was that my cupsd.conf was set so restrictively that not even root could print! I reconfigured so that root and I can print, and everything is now fixed. Duh. Well, this is how Linux newbies learn, I suppose, and I'm having fun in the process. -PT On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:41 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Additional information: looking in the error log, I see that I did in fact get this error the last time I tried to print: E [14/Jun/2010:22:35:43 -0700] Returning IPP client-error-not-authorized for Print-Job (ipp://localhost:631/printers/Mrs.Cat) from localhost This looks like a configuration error (in cupsd.conf?), but for the life of me I don't know how to fix it. -PT On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.comwrote: I've been migrating my computer resources over from a 6 year old WXP computer to a brand-new Debian Linux one. Most recently I tried to migrate our old printer, a Brother MFC-420 CN printer / scanner / fax with USB connection. Brother has CUPS and LPD drivers for it, and they have 2 sets of instructions for installing the drivers (one pretty much automatic, one more manual). I've tried both sets of instructions, and it almost works. The printer is detected by the computer when it is first connected; the install appears to go correctly, and the printer appears correctly in the CUPS browser interface. When I send print jobs, no errors appear, and the print jobs are shown as completed in the CUPS browser interface. However, no printed pages ever appear. Printing from the command line, applications, test prints -- none of them result in printed output. Has anyone else had problems like this? Any suggestions for how to resolve? I realize that this is something of a long shot, but I have to say that the responses I've gotten to questions and problems on this list have been borderline-miraculous in fixing my problems, so I figured I'd give it a shot! I've also asked the Linux support people at Brother for assistance. Thanks in advance, -PT
Any experience with Brother MFC-420 CN printer?
I've been migrating my computer resources over from a 6 year old WXP computer to a brand-new Debian Linux one. Most recently I tried to migrate our old printer, a Brother MFC-420 CN printer / scanner / fax with USB connection. Brother has CUPS and LPD drivers for it, and they have 2 sets of instructions for installing the drivers (one pretty much automatic, one more manual). I've tried both sets of instructions, and it almost works. The printer is detected by the computer when it is first connected; the install appears to go correctly, and the printer appears correctly in the CUPS browser interface. When I send print jobs, no errors appear, and the print jobs are shown as completed in the CUPS browser interface. However, no printed pages ever appear. Printing from the command line, applications, test prints -- none of them result in printed output. Has anyone else had problems like this? Any suggestions for how to resolve? I realize that this is something of a long shot, but I have to say that the responses I've gotten to questions and problems on this list have been borderline-miraculous in fixing my problems, so I figured I'd give it a shot! I've also asked the Linux support people at Brother for assistance. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Any experience with Brother MFC-420 CN printer?
Additional information: looking in the error log, I see that I did in fact get this error the last time I tried to print: E [14/Jun/2010:22:35:43 -0700] Returning IPP client-error-not-authorized for Print-Job (ipp://localhost:631/printers/Mrs.Cat) from localhost This looks like a configuration error (in cupsd.conf?), but for the life of me I don't know how to fix it. -PT On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I've been migrating my computer resources over from a 6 year old WXP computer to a brand-new Debian Linux one. Most recently I tried to migrate our old printer, a Brother MFC-420 CN printer / scanner / fax with USB connection. Brother has CUPS and LPD drivers for it, and they have 2 sets of instructions for installing the drivers (one pretty much automatic, one more manual). I've tried both sets of instructions, and it almost works. The printer is detected by the computer when it is first connected; the install appears to go correctly, and the printer appears correctly in the CUPS browser interface. When I send print jobs, no errors appear, and the print jobs are shown as completed in the CUPS browser interface. However, no printed pages ever appear. Printing from the command line, applications, test prints -- none of them result in printed output. Has anyone else had problems like this? Any suggestions for how to resolve? I realize that this is something of a long shot, but I have to say that the responses I've gotten to questions and problems on this list have been borderline-miraculous in fixing my problems, so I figured I'd give it a shot! I've also asked the Linux support people at Brother for assistance. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Configuring java plugin for iceweasel on amd64
Eduardo -- thanks, your fix worked! I now have Java working correctly on iceweasel. Ron -- I'm having a problem which is unrelated to the one I posted on. For some reason I can't get aptitude to locate and install packages which are clearly visible in the repository. This happened earlier with my evince upgrade, which I ultimately achieved via gdebi. This time I went to synaptic and it was able to locate and install the sun-java6-plugin package. In both cases aptitude was not able to locate the package. Eventually I'll have to figure out what the problem is, but so far I've just worked around it. Thanks for all the help, everyone! -PT On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 9:40 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I've been trying to get Java to work correctly on iceweasel (I'm using squeeze and amd64). I managed to get the sun-java6-plugin downloaded and installed. Currently, I see /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/libjavaplugin.so, which is a link to /etc/alternatives/iceweasel-javaplugin.so . my ~/.mozilla/plugins directory does not contain any Java-related libraries or links. When I check Iceweasel's add-ons GUI, I see Java Plug-in 1.6.0_20, and when I do about:plugins I see Java Plug-in 1.6.0_20. In my preferences, Java is enabled. However: when I navigate to the Java test webpage ( http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp) and push the big red verify java version button, it errors out after about 2 minutes. Is there some other configuration work which needs to be done to make Iceweasel fully Java-functional? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: aptitude can't find a package? (was Re: Configuring java plugin for iceweasel on amd64)
Hi, Ron -- Unfortunately I can't currently reproduce the problem: since I installed the package using synaptic, aptitude reports that the package is installed! I think for now we should regard this issue as closed. If it comes up again (likely, given my absurdly low level of linux competence), I'll reopen it in a fresh thread. -PT
Configuring java plugin for iceweasel on amd64
I've been trying to get Java to work correctly on iceweasel (I'm using squeeze and amd64). I managed to get the sun-java6-plugin downloaded and installed. Currently, I see /usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/libjavaplugin.so, which is a link to /etc/alternatives/iceweasel-javaplugin.so . my ~/.mozilla/plugins directory does not contain any Java-related libraries or links. When I check Iceweasel's add-ons GUI, I see Java Plug-in 1.6.0_20, and when I do about:plugins I see Java Plug-in 1.6.0_20. In my preferences, Java is enabled. However: when I navigate to the Java test webpage ( http://java.com/en/download/installed.jsp) and push the big red verify java version button, it errors out after about 2 minutes. Is there some other configuration work which needs to be done to make Iceweasel fully Java-functional? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Trouble upgrading to evince 2.30.1-3
I did try aptitude update; no luck, I'm still at 2.30.1-2. -PT On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I'm trying to upgrade evince to 2.30.1-3, which has a fix for a segfault bug in the version I have now (2.30.1-2). Unfortunately, when I use aptitude, it stubbornly insists that 2.30.1-2 is the latest version and can't find the 2.30.1-3 version. I have the following line in /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main Is there something that I have to do other than aptitude install evince? (I guess obviously so, since that doesn't work!). Thanks in advance for any advice, -PT
Re: Trouble upgrading to evince 2.30.1-3
Jimmy -- that did the trick, thanks! -PT On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 8:29 AM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I did try aptitude update; no luck, I'm still at 2.30.1-2. -PT On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 10:03 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.comwrote: I'm trying to upgrade evince to 2.30.1-3, which has a fix for a segfault bug in the version I have now (2.30.1-2). Unfortunately, when I use aptitude, it stubbornly insists that 2.30.1-2 is the latest version and can't find the 2.30.1-3 version. I have the following line in /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main Is there something that I have to do other than aptitude install evince? (I guess obviously so, since that doesn't work!). Thanks in advance for any advice, -PT
Re: Problem playing DVD in Squeeze
Ron -- I installed mplayer, and it works! Thanks! Interestingly, once I'd installed mplayer, totem mysteriously started working for playing DVDs as well, so now I have a choice. -PT 2010/6/8 Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com I've been trying to get my new Squeeze installation to play store-bought DVDs using the Totem movie player and the AMD64 version of libdvdcss2. I can see the first 12 seconds of the DVD (before the main menu comes up), but then the player exits. Here is the output stream from running totem at the command line: Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.10 for DVD access libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 4.1.3 libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.10 for DVD access libdvdnav: DVD Title: WESTSIDE_STORY libdvdnav: DVD Serial Number: 2ed794f4 libdvdnav: DVD Title (Alternative): WESTSIDE_STORY libdvdnav: Unable to find map file '/home/quarkpt/.dvdnav/WESTSIDE_STORY.map' libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fe. Regions: 1 libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x0133 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x137d libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x1608 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB at 0x00388c07 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB at 0x0038a196 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Found 3 VTS's libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 *** libdvdread: CHECK_VALUE failed in /build/buildd-libdvdread_4.1.3-9-amd64-aWhxsa/libdvdread-4.1.3/src/ifo_read.c:1704 *** *** for info_length % sizeof(uint32_t) == 0 *** libdvdnav: ifoRead_VOBU_ADMAP vtsi failed libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fe. Regions: 1 No accelerated IMDCT transform found Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started *** libdvdread: CHECK_VALUE failed in /build/buildd-libdvdread_4.1.3-9-amd64-aWhxsa/libdvdread-4.1.3/src/ifo_read.c:1704 *** *** for info_length % sizeof(uint32_t) == 0 *** libdvdnav: ifoRead_TITLE_VOBU_ADMAP vtsi failed totem: /build/buildd-libdvdnav_4.1.3-7-amd64-u8RLQr/libdvdnav-4.1.3/src/vm/vm.c:1485: process_command: Assertion `0' failed. Aborted Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance, -PT
Trouble upgrading to evince 2.30.1-3
I'm trying to upgrade evince to 2.30.1-3, which has a fix for a segfault bug in the version I have now (2.30.1-2). Unfortunately, when I use aptitude, it stubbornly insists that 2.30.1-2 is the latest version and can't find the 2.30.1-3 version. I have the following line in /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main Is there something that I have to do other than aptitude install evince? (I guess obviously so, since that doesn't work!). Thanks in advance for any advice, -PT
Problem playing DVD in Squeeze
I've been trying to get my new Squeeze installation to play store-bought DVDs using the Totem movie player and the AMD64 version of libdvdcss2. I can see the first 12 seconds of the DVD (before the main menu comes up), but then the player exits. Here is the output stream from running totem at the command line: Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.10 for DVD access libdvdnav: Using dvdnav version 4.1.3 libdvdread: Using libdvdcss version 1.2.10 for DVD access libdvdnav: DVD Title: WESTSIDE_STORY libdvdnav: DVD Serial Number: 2ed794f4 libdvdnav: DVD Title (Alternative): WESTSIDE_STORY libdvdnav: Unable to find map file '/home/quarkpt/.dvdnav/WESTSIDE_STORY.map' libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fe. Regions: 1 libdvdread: Attempting to retrieve all CSS keys libdvdread: This can take a _long_ time, please be patient libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VIDEO_TS.VOB at 0x0133 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_0.VOB at 0x137d libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_01_1.VOB at 0x1608 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_02_1.VOB at 0x00388c07 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Get key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB at 0x0038a196 libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 libdvdread: Found 3 VTS's libdvdread: Elapsed time 0 *** libdvdread: CHECK_VALUE failed in /build/buildd-libdvdread_4.1.3-9-amd64-aWhxsa/libdvdread-4.1.3/src/ifo_read.c:1704 *** *** for info_length % sizeof(uint32_t) == 0 *** libdvdnav: ifoRead_VOBU_ADMAP vtsi failed libdvdnav: DVD disk reports itself with Region mask 0x00fe. Regions: 1 No accelerated IMDCT transform found Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory Cannot connect to server socket jack server is not running or cannot be started *** libdvdread: CHECK_VALUE failed in /build/buildd-libdvdread_4.1.3-9-amd64-aWhxsa/libdvdread-4.1.3/src/ifo_read.c:1704 *** *** for info_length % sizeof(uint32_t) == 0 *** libdvdnav: ifoRead_TITLE_VOBU_ADMAP vtsi failed totem: /build/buildd-libdvdnav_4.1.3-7-amd64-u8RLQr/libdvdnav-4.1.3/src/vm/vm.c:1485: process_command: Assertion `0' failed. Aborted Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: A few minor issues in Squeeze with Gnome
Thanks, everyone -- I've successfully resolved both these questions! -PT On Sat, Jun 5, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I just migrated my new workstation from Lenny to Squeeze (the workstation is all relatively new hardware, so Lenny was just a bit too old to have correct drivers for everything). Most things are working fine, but I have a couple of minor questions. 1. In Nautilus, I can't figure out how to make the navigation bar the default when looking at folders (ie, the window in which one can type a location). I can make any particular window give me a nav bar by hitting Ctrl-L, but I would like that to be the default. 2. On Lenny, there was a menu app which, amongst other things, did CPU speed-testing. I believe it also showed the properties of the various hardware (processor, memory, hard drive, etc). Is that still available? I can't find it on the menus (alas, I can't remember the name; I only had Lenny for a few days). Thanks in advance for any advice, -PT
A few minor issues in Squeeze with Gnome
I just migrated my new workstation from Lenny to Squeeze (the workstation is all relatively new hardware, so Lenny was just a bit too old to have correct drivers for everything). Most things are working fine, but I have a couple of minor questions. 1. In Nautilus, I can't figure out how to make the navigation bar the default when looking at folders (ie, the window in which one can type a location). I can make any particular window give me a nav bar by hitting Ctrl-L, but I would like that to be the default. 2. On Lenny, there was a menu app which, amongst other things, did CPU speed-testing. I believe it also showed the properties of the various hardware (processor, memory, hard drive, etc). Is that still available? I can't find it on the menus (alas, I can't remember the name; I only had Lenny for a few days). Thanks in advance for any advice, -PT
Re: Configuring ethernet tap on a new Debian install
Wolodja -- thanks, that worked! My NIC now works, and I am in fact writing this e-mail from my Debian workstation! -PT On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Wolodja -- in looking at the instructions on the backports.org website, I surmise that the instructions will download the new packages from the backports.org website and then install the updated kernel and everything that the updated kernel needs (ie, all its dependencies). Unfortunately, since the problem I'm trying to solve is that the network connection on my Debian workstation isn't supported, I'm assuming that this won't work. I think that leaves me with two options: 1. Walk through the dependency information provided at backports.org to identify all the packages which are needed by the updated kernel; download on my working computer (WinXP) and copy to optical or USB drive; use that to do the install. 2. Since my Debian installation is brand new, I could also simply replace the Lenny install with a Squeeze install -- essentially, start over Squeeze. Does option (1) sound utterly unappealing? I'm inclined to give it a shot, knowing that I can always fall back on option (2) if I totally botch (1). -PT On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:14 AM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Wolodja -- the output from the lspci command is 00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:10f0] (rev 06) Papul -- the kernel is 2.6.26-2-amd64. Sounds like I should just go ahead and update my kernel, and that should solve some other, unrelated and less critical issues. I'll try that tonight (right now it's 7:15 AM local time and I'm off to work). Thanks for the suggestions, -PT On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.comwrote: I just finished building a new computer around the Intel DH55TC motherboard. I would like to configure the computer to use DHCP via its built-in ethernet tap, but the ethernet was not detected or configured on installation. There is no eth0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces, no eth0 entry displayed by ifconfig, no dhcpd.conf file is present, and dhcpd is not listed in inetd.conf. I suspect that the problem is that the motherboard is so new that it's not supported in the 2.6.26 version of the kernel: when I looked at the Intel webpage relevant to the board, http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/dh55tc/sb/CS-031186.htm, it suggests that a LAN driver may be needed for Linux, and I infer from their table of information that this is more likely to be the case for kernel versions prior to about 2.6.31. So what I think I need to do is the following: 1. Download and install the LAN driver 2. Manually configure the system so that it recognizes the Ethernet tap 3. Add eth0 to /etc/network/interfaces 4. add a dhcpd.conf file 5. add dhcpd to inetd.conf. Does that sound about right, or is the reality simpler / less simple than that? Assuming I've got it right: how do I accomplish step 2? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Configuring ethernet tap on a new Debian install
Wolodja -- the output from the lspci command is 00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:10f0] (rev 06) Papul -- the kernel is 2.6.26-2-amd64. Sounds like I should just go ahead and update my kernel, and that should solve some other, unrelated and less critical issues. I'll try that tonight (right now it's 7:15 AM local time and I'm off to work). Thanks for the suggestions, -PT On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I just finished building a new computer around the Intel DH55TC motherboard. I would like to configure the computer to use DHCP via its built-in ethernet tap, but the ethernet was not detected or configured on installation. There is no eth0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces, no eth0 entry displayed by ifconfig, no dhcpd.conf file is present, and dhcpd is not listed in inetd.conf. I suspect that the problem is that the motherboard is so new that it's not supported in the 2.6.26 version of the kernel: when I looked at the Intel webpage relevant to the board, http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/dh55tc/sb/CS-031186.htm, it suggests that a LAN driver may be needed for Linux, and I infer from their table of information that this is more likely to be the case for kernel versions prior to about 2.6.31. So what I think I need to do is the following: 1. Download and install the LAN driver 2. Manually configure the system so that it recognizes the Ethernet tap 3. Add eth0 to /etc/network/interfaces 4. add a dhcpd.conf file 5. add dhcpd to inetd.conf. Does that sound about right, or is the reality simpler / less simple than that? Assuming I've got it right: how do I accomplish step 2? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Configuring ethernet tap on a new Debian install
Wolodja -- in looking at the instructions on the backports.org website, I surmise that the instructions will download the new packages from the backports.org website and then install the updated kernel and everything that the updated kernel needs (ie, all its dependencies). Unfortunately, since the problem I'm trying to solve is that the network connection on my Debian workstation isn't supported, I'm assuming that this won't work. I think that leaves me with two options: 1. Walk through the dependency information provided at backports.org to identify all the packages which are needed by the updated kernel; download on my working computer (WinXP) and copy to optical or USB drive; use that to do the install. 2. Since my Debian installation is brand new, I could also simply replace the Lenny install with a Squeeze install -- essentially, start over Squeeze. Does option (1) sound utterly unappealing? I'm inclined to give it a shot, knowing that I can always fall back on option (2) if I totally botch (1). -PT On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 7:14 AM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Wolodja -- the output from the lspci command is 00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:10f0] (rev 06) Papul -- the kernel is 2.6.26-2-amd64. Sounds like I should just go ahead and update my kernel, and that should solve some other, unrelated and less critical issues. I'll try that tonight (right now it's 7:15 AM local time and I'm off to work). Thanks for the suggestions, -PT On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.comwrote: I just finished building a new computer around the Intel DH55TC motherboard. I would like to configure the computer to use DHCP via its built-in ethernet tap, but the ethernet was not detected or configured on installation. There is no eth0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces, no eth0 entry displayed by ifconfig, no dhcpd.conf file is present, and dhcpd is not listed in inetd.conf. I suspect that the problem is that the motherboard is so new that it's not supported in the 2.6.26 version of the kernel: when I looked at the Intel webpage relevant to the board, http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/dh55tc/sb/CS-031186.htm, it suggests that a LAN driver may be needed for Linux, and I infer from their table of information that this is more likely to be the case for kernel versions prior to about 2.6.31. So what I think I need to do is the following: 1. Download and install the LAN driver 2. Manually configure the system so that it recognizes the Ethernet tap 3. Add eth0 to /etc/network/interfaces 4. add a dhcpd.conf file 5. add dhcpd to inetd.conf. Does that sound about right, or is the reality simpler / less simple than that? Assuming I've got it right: how do I accomplish step 2? Thanks in advance, -PT
Configuring ethernet tap on a new Debian install
I just finished building a new computer around the Intel DH55TC motherboard. I would like to configure the computer to use DHCP via its built-in ethernet tap, but the ethernet was not detected or configured on installation. There is no eth0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces, no eth0 entry displayed by ifconfig, no dhcpd.conf file is present, and dhcpd is not listed in inetd.conf. I suspect that the problem is that the motherboard is so new that it's not supported in the 2.6.26 version of the kernel: when I looked at the Intel webpage relevant to the board, http://www.intel.com/support/motherboards/desktop/dh55tc/sb/CS-031186.htm, it suggests that a LAN driver may be needed for Linux, and I infer from their table of information that this is more likely to be the case for kernel versions prior to about 2.6.31. So what I think I need to do is the following: 1. Download and install the LAN driver 2. Manually configure the system so that it recognizes the Ethernet tap 3. Add eth0 to /etc/network/interfaces 4. add a dhcpd.conf file 5. add dhcpd to inetd.conf. Does that sound about right, or is the reality simpler / less simple than that? Assuming I've got it right: how do I accomplish step 2? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: driver for Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer
Mr. Johnson -- Regarding your suggestion of adding a rootdelay=10 line to the boot kernel: how do I go about doing that? I'm attempting to install onto a blank hard drive from Debian Lenny DVDs, so I don't think there's anywhere that I can write to which makes sense. Would I need to do a boot from USB drive to make this work? -PT On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Does anyone know where I can find a linux driver for the Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer? I'm trying to install Debian on a brand-new, assembled-from-parts workstation, and I'm getting a complaint about this. Interestingly, the DVD reader is recognized well enough to boot from the Debian DVD I inserted into the drive! Thanks in advance for any suggestions, -PT
No common CD-ROM drive was detected
Hi, again -- I recently posted on an issue with installing Debian Lenny on a new workstation with a Lite-On DVD writer. I had thought that the problem was the driver, but it turns out that my problem is a more familiar one, the No common CD-ROM drive was detected error with SATA optical drives. I've seen a couple of suggestions around the internet for what to do, but I'm not able to understand them well enough to use them. 1. Boot in expert26 mode and deselect ata-piix. My problem is that I don't know how to boot into expert26 mode from the Debian Lenny DVD I have. Can I defeat the autorun of the installer on the Debian DVDs? It looks like I can edit the commands which come up on the installer boot menu, so maybe that's the thing to do. 2. Any other suggestions for how to get around this apparently-notorious issue in the installer? There are many references to it over the years, but many of them are several years old and I'm reluctant to try them out now. Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: driver for Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer
I just started a new thread which supersedes this one, as I think my problem is not actually a driver problem but the more notorious issue of SATA drives not being detected (specifically, No common CD-ROM drive was detected). On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 10:07 AM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Mr. Johnson -- Regarding your suggestion of adding a rootdelay=10 line to the boot kernel: how do I go about doing that? I'm attempting to install onto a blank hard drive from Debian Lenny DVDs, so I don't think there's anywhere that I can write to which makes sense. Would I need to do a boot from USB drive to make this work? -PT On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.comwrote: Does anyone know where I can find a linux driver for the Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer? I'm trying to install Debian on a brand-new, assembled-from-parts workstation, and I'm getting a complaint about this. Interestingly, the DVD reader is recognized well enough to boot from the Debian DVD I inserted into the drive! Thanks in advance for any suggestions, -PT
Re: No common CD-ROM drive was detected
Camaleon -- your suggestion did the trick! I changed the appropriate BIOS setting to AHCI, and the install was able to continue. The installer is currently setting up the filesystem on the hard drive... Thanks for straightening that out for me! -PT On Mon, May 31, 2010 at 11:27 AM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, again -- I recently posted on an issue with installing Debian Lenny on a new workstation with a Lite-On DVD writer. I had thought that the problem was the driver, but it turns out that my problem is a more familiar one, the No common CD-ROM drive was detected error with SATA optical drives. I've seen a couple of suggestions around the internet for what to do, but I'm not able to understand them well enough to use them. 1. Boot in expert26 mode and deselect ata-piix. My problem is that I don't know how to boot into expert26 mode from the Debian Lenny DVD I have. Can I defeat the autorun of the installer on the Debian DVDs? It looks like I can edit the commands which come up on the installer boot menu, so maybe that's the thing to do. 2. Any other suggestions for how to get around this apparently-notorious issue in the installer? There are many references to it over the years, but many of them are several years old and I'm reluctant to try them out now. Thanks in advance, -PT
driver for Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer
Does anyone know where I can find a linux driver for the Lite-on iHAS324-98 DVD writer? I'm trying to install Debian on a brand-new, assembled-from-parts workstation, and I'm getting a complaint about this. Interestingly, the DVD reader is recognized well enough to boot from the Debian DVD I inserted into the drive! Thanks in advance for any suggestions, -PT
Re: 64-bit netbooks with Debian linux
Hi, everyone -- I guess I should clarify my desirement for 64-bit. There are two things here. First, I intend to build a home computer which will run linux, and it will be 64-bit; since I'm quite new to maintaining my own linux computers, I'd rather limit the number of differences between the home machine and my portable. Second is just a desire to avoid early obsolescence in the portable, since at some point I expect 64 bit to become the standard and 32-bit to fade into the past. That day may not be near, and in any event it may be crazy to worry about obsolescence of a computer which costs less than an iPod, but that's just the way I roll. It also sounds like the respndents to my first message are underwhelmed by netbooks in general and recommend that I look at a low-end notebook / laptop computer instead. I confess that the distinction is a bit blurry to me. In any event, with those caveats, perhaps I should ask more generally for recommendations of netbooks or smallish laptops which people recommend as being compatible with Debian linux. Thanks again, -PT On Sun, May 2, 2010 at 12:17 PM, Peter Tenenbaum quar...@gmail.com wrote: I've been thinking about getting a netbook and I'd like to install Debian linux on it when / if I do. I'd also like to get one which uses an AMD64-class processor. Does anyone have any suggestions? The Gateway LT21 looks like just what I want in terms of hardware (ie, fairly low-end but 64-bit); has anyone got any positive / negative experience installing Debian on this computer? Thanks in advance, -PT
64-bit netbooks with Debian linux
I've been thinking about getting a netbook and I'd like to install Debian linux on it when / if I do. I'd also like to get one which uses an AMD64-class processor. Does anyone have any suggestions? The Gateway LT21 looks like just what I want in terms of hardware (ie, fairly low-end but 64-bit); has anyone got any positive / negative experience installing Debian on this computer? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Correct binary for Intel Core i5
Mark -- thanks for the warning about the limitations of the built-in video. I do intend to have Windows 7 on this computer as well, inside of a vmware cage. Based on the discussion, I will plan to press ahead with an Intel motherboard and use onboard video as Plan A. If that proves inadequate, I will add an nVidia-based video card as Plan B. -PT
Debian compatibility with US Robotics USR5637 external USB modem
Hi there -- I'm getting ready to assemble a computer, and intend to use Debian Linux as the OS. In addition to everything else I want to have a 56k modem for the computer -- partially as an emergency backup for the network, but mainly so that I can run a fax and answering machine app on the computer and get rid of my extremely low-quality answering machine. From what I've seen out there, the US Robotics USR5637 looks like a promising option: it's a small (almost tiny) external modem which connects via USB, and purports to have Linux support. My question: has anyone had any experiences (good or bad) with this component on a Debian system? Thanks in advance, -PT
Re: Correct binary for Intel Core i5
OK, you've convinced me to go with the Intel motherboard. Thanks for all the tips! -PT
Re: Re: Correct binary for Intel Core i5
Mark -- thanks for the information! Your explanation of IA64 vs AMD64 is about what I thought the situation was, but it never hurts to check. As far as hardware is concerned: I'm planning to use a Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3 motherboard, which in turn uses the Intel P55 Express chipset, the Realtek ALC888 audio chipset, and the Realtek 8111D LAN chipset. The Realtek website has linux drivers for both chips updated in Jan and Feb of this year. For video I plan to use the Gigabyte GV-NX84S512HP, which in turn uses nVidia GeForce 8400GS; the nVidia site has 64 bit linux drivers for that chipset. Thanks again for your help on this! Let me know if you can think of anything I've missed or any other research I should do before placing an order. -PT
Re: Correct binary for Intel Core i5
Mark -- I'm not expecting to be too into 3-D effects, so I'll plan on using the Debian drivers for the video. Thanks for the tip about ASUS, I'll look at their motherboards for my preferred CPU. The Gigabyte does indeed have a large number of USB 2 ports (8 on the back panel, with support for up to 4 more from the front panel). Right now I don't even own any USB 3 peripherals; I'm interested / willing to get a motherboard with USB 3 support basically as a hedge against future developments, since I'd like this computer to stay usable for some years, and can't predict what the future of port standards will be. Thanks again for all your help, -PT
Re: Correct binary for Intel Core i5
Stan -- It sounds like, if the Realtek drivers are not present on the Debian distribution, I have at least two options: going to the Realtek site and downloading their linux 64 bit drivers, or compiling my own kernel from source on kernel.org. Does that sound about right? As far as video cards are concerned, I have a (probably) ignorant question: how do I put the integrated northbridge video support to use on these motherboards, since they do not appear to have any video output spigots on them? Thanks for all your help with my project! -PT
Correct binary for Intel Core i5
Hello there -- I am planning to assemble a new computer for my home, and to run debian linux on it. I'm planning to use an Intel Core i5-660 CPU in this computer. From the documentation, it looks like the correct binary to use is the AMD64. Is this right? Does anyone know of any problems running debian AMD64 on Intel core-i5 processors? Thanks in advance, -PT
