Re: using intel i5 freqency governors
How do I get the intel cpu "turbo boost" fully engaged when I'm running my script and go back into power save mode when the machine is idle? >> >> That should be the default behavior (i.e. if you don't touch any cpu >> power configuration). > > Unfortunately, it clearly is _not_ the behavior I get. .. and I > hadn't touched any power config until I was trying things to get my > 900 second execution time down around the 600 seconds it takes on the > windows/cygwin machine. You might want to try and figure out why you get `powersave` as default governor, but until you've figured it out, you might like to force the use of the `schedutil` governor instead which should give you the same kind of speed as the `performance` governor under load while reverting to low-power state afterwards. Stefan
Re: [OT, deeply] Guix
> So why not use it as an install tool? Then your entire configuration > is recorded in and driven by a pretty simple text file. That's all you > need, so we can pre-seed that config file for automatic installs. And > we can customise that SAME file for installs configured in real-time, > because salt has excellent templating capability in the config files. I'm not interested in *installing*: I'm interested in evolving an already installed system. AFAIU Puppet can do that, don't know about the other tools you mentioned. Stefan
Re: [OT, deeply] Guix
> I stumble upon this article about (supposedly) Guix's > characteristics/advantages: [...] > , and was curious about the opinions of the educated Debian people on the > matter. I haven't read that article, but here's my opinion: I would love to see Debian move towards a model like that of NixOS or Guix. One of the main benefits I see of those systems is that it has a declarative description of what the system should contain. Think of it this way: currently, you can more or less figure out which packages you decided to install on your machine by going through the list of installed packages and filtering out all those that are marked as "automatically" installed. But you can only manipulate this list indirectly, via `apt install` and `apt remove`. In contrast, with NixOS/Guix that list is available in a plain text editable file. And in order to add a package or remove a package you can edit that list and then say something akin to "make" which will add/remove the needed packages to bring the system to the state described in the file. Another, slightly more subtle, benefit is that you'll always get the same system state from a given description. In contrast, with Debian, I have several Debian `testing` machines on which I have installed and removed over the years the same set of packages, but not exactly in the same order, and with a different interleaving of `apt upgrade`, and the result is that they don't all have exactly the same packages installed, and some suffer from problems that I don't see in the others. With the NixOS/Guix approach, it's much easier to make sure the systems are truly identical. It's not been enough to convince me to switch, but I do wish Debian would try and take some of those ideas. I think part of it could be done all within a new APT-like tool without any change to Debian itself (the part that decides which packages should be installed and removed based on some text file describing the desired configuration of the system). Stefan "happy Debian user since 2003"
Re: Sata Hard drive testing
> Essentially, I have been experienced data loss, where nodes become > unreadable, when I try to "fix it" with fdisk, it says it moves unreadable > to the trash, basically deleting data. "it says"? Can you clarify what is this "it"? Drive-level errors of "unreadable data" normally lead to errors that appear in the kernel log and say scary things and "read sense" and include hex numbers showing the actual bytes of the SATA command sent. I don't expect such error messages to say anything about a "trash". So maybe your errors occur elsewhere. Stefan
Re: A .profile puzzle
> normally when a storm comes through i turn off the PC anyways because > I really don't want to have things fried (even if i do have the UPS > and surge protection). Hmmm does turning them off make any difference w.r.t a surge large enough to pass through the surge suppression? I thought the only effective way to make a difference is to *unplug* them. Stefan
Re: why pae kernel has only 3G memory
> Any particular reason why you must use pae rather than > the standard 32 bit kernel? Hmm... isn't "the standard 32 bit kernel" `linux-image-686-pae` ? At least the `linux-image-686` package seems to describe itself as for use only on those machines where `linux-image-686-pae` doesn't work. Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Re: mail service
> In general, the circumstances which would require one to use a tool like > protonmail are not commonly observed in connection with a list like > debian-user. While protonmail might be used for such situations, in my experience most protonmail users I've seen are just people that are sufficiently technically aware to know that they should stay away from gmail and friends and look for a quality email provider (posteo being another popular provider in that space). So, my own bias would rather tend to expect good behavior (good questions and good answers) from participants posting from protonmail ;-) Stefan
Re: slower Debian 11 after upgrade from 10
> Sometimes an older kernel does better than a newer kernel, in the absence > of proper firmware. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes a blob is moved from `main` to `contrib` or `non-free` because it was in `main` by mistake (tho I can't remember that happening between Debian 10 and Debian 11). Stefan
Re: Slow graphics on Intel Xtreme?
> This would seem to be running on the very edge of hardware: I'm surprised > that anything graphical will run at all in 1GB of total memory and 64M > of video RAM. My old Thinkpad X30 is still quite functional (that's the machine I use to plug into LCD projectors to display slides during talks and classes). So, I can confirm that 1GB of RAM is still enough to run XFCE in Debian testing (the PDFs are displayed via doc-view-mode in Emacs). Firefox is too sluggish on that machine, OTOH. Stefan
Re: write only storage.
>> Write only storage - DVD-R or equivalent Blu-Ray - but make sure to end the >> session. Deletion - feed through a paper shredder. > I already do that but currently that means I have roughly one month of > backups on network accessible storage before I write to disc. Rather than WORM you can just take normal disks and once you don't want to write to them any more, you unplug them ;-) If you still want to have read access to the data, then you make it accessible via another server, ideally in another administrative domain (and another physical location, since fires and other events can be just as likely as ransomware). Stefan
Re: (unable to start a new discussion) Re: Can surf the internet, but not my home network...
> edges of text characters. So if showing a screen full of text to show > the error, smunch the daylights out of it, it will still be readable. Whatever happened to the idea of citing the actual text rather than using an (unreadable) image? Stefan
Re: /usr/sbin/reboot: disabled in systemd-nspawn container
Greg Wooledge [2021-09-04 11:35:25] wrote: > On Sat, Sep 04, 2021 at 04:49:24PM +0200, sp...@caiway.net wrote: >> # file /sbin/reboot >> /sbin/reboot: POSIX shell script, ASCII text executable > > That's not normal for a bullseye system using systemd for init. Indeed. > I'm not sure what you did or how your system got into this state. Maybe dpkg -S /sbin/reboot /usr/sbin/reboot could give us a clue? Stefan
Re: Debian 11 Live USB with persistence?
to...@tuxteam.de [2021-08-19 09:11:00] wrote: > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 10:24:27PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: >> > I wanted to do something exactly like that some months ago. >> > What I ended up doing is using a normal Debian installation >> > with an overlay file system mounted over the root. >> FWIW, you can do simpler and just use a normal Debian install on >> a USB key. That saves the trouble of the overlay filesystem. >> And if you want to be able to revert easily to the initial state, then >> you can probably get a similar result using an LVM snapshot. > There's still some charm to Santiago's approach: the device is (nearly?) > read-only after install. I'm not sure I see the difference: the LVM snapshot can also be tagged as read-only. In both cases (LVM snapshot or overlayfs) the overall system is not read-only. That's of course indispensable for the "persistence" property, but it's also a disadvantage compared to a Debian Live system in that the /var subtree will sometimes be modified "gratuitously". [ I usually try to reduce this aspect by using a tmpfs for /var/cache and also by moving /var/lib/apt/lists to /var/cache (with a symlink), but there are various files that can get written depending on the packages you have installed. ] Stefan
Re: Debian 11 Live USB with persistence?
> I wanted to do something exactly like that some months ago. > What I ended up doing is using a normal Debian installation > with an overlay file system mounted over the root. FWIW, you can do simpler and just use a normal Debian install on a USB key. That saves the trouble of the overlay filesystem. And if you want to be able to revert easily to the initial state, then you can probably get a similar result using an LVM snapshot. Stefan
Re: nvme SSD and poor performance
> P-S: If triming it is needed for ssd, why debian do not trim by default? AFAIK trimming is not needed. It can be beneficial in some cases, but as a general rule, the SSDs should be able to provide great performance without it. Stefan
Re: Debian 11 bullseye Gdm3 nvidia 7200go nouveau glitches and more
> From https://www.cnet.com/reviews/hp-pavilion-dv6300-preview/ I gather it > has a rather old processor (Celeron M 440 to Core 2DuoT7200) -- which one do > you have exactly? Also, it seems there would be at most 2 GiB of RAM. FWIW, I'm surprised it would only allow 2GB, since the previous generation chipsets (for Core[non-2]Duo laptops) had a limit of 3GB. So, I suspect it can actually take 4GB (or even 8GB). Stefan
Re: how to to start X Window in debian-live-11.0.0-i386-standard.iso
Greg Wooledge [2021-08-15 10:30:27] wrote: > On Sun, Aug 15, 2021 at 04:13:37PM +0200, sp...@caiway.net wrote: >> lou what about >> # apt install xorg fluxbox >> >> $ startx > > In theory that might work (you may also need firmware), but the amount > of bandwidth you'd burn through downloading *all* those packages each > and every time you boot the live image would be an appalling waste. I expect the vast majority of Debian Live images nowadays are written to USB flash storage rather than to read-only media, so I think it would make a lot of sense for those live images to offer the ability to change the image with things like `apt install`. Personally, I've used (minimal) "normal Debian installs" instead of Debian Live for that reason. Stefan
Re: password set at installation of debian-10.10.0-amd64 not recognized
> You don't really get that far if your root FS is unmountable. Hmm... if it truly can't be mounted, then the system can't read `/etc/passwd` and then whether there is a root account or not makes no difference. In the "usual" case where the root FS is readable but fsck found errors, then indeed the normal boot steps will require a root password, but you can normally circumvent this with `init=/bin/sh`. If this fails because `/bin/sh` is affected by the filesystem's inconsistency, then you need to resort to the initrd's debug shell, e.g. with something `break=local` IIRC. Of course, the existence of a root password can occasionally be handy for things like `rsync` (strictly speaking, you can probably arrange for rsync to first log in as a normal user and then use `sudo`, but it requires a fair bit of fiddling, IIRC). Stefan
Re: password set at installation of debian-10.10.0-amd64 not recognized
> Nevertheless there are rare cases only root can make changes. You mean cases where `sudo zsh -l` is not an option? Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Plonk (wss: Meta: behavior on list)
to...@tuxteam.de [2021-08-13 19:11:43] wrote: > On Fri, Aug 13, 2021 at 12:49:34PM -0400, Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside > wrote: > [...] >> Plonk ? > Greg and The Wanderer already provided a definition. Just adding > one standard reference, the Jargon File [1] in such things. Old > Usenet lore. > Cheers > > [1] http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/P/plonk.html How odd. I always assumed that it was the comic-strip style representation of the sound of hanging up the phone abruptly. Stefan
Re: Disk for a small server
David Christensen [2021-08-11 14:48:05] wrote: > That is why there is the scientific method. Please cite relevant article(s) > with reproducible laboratory results and/or analysis of long-term real-world > data regarding failure modes, effects, and hazards of non-ECC memory vs. ECC > memory when paired with operating systems with vs. without storage stack > integrity checking and correction. And until such empirical data shows up, I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the scientists/academics. Stefan
Re: can't login via gdm
>> I was attempting to modify >> # for i in `find / -user 1001`; do chown 3001 $i; done > Dear gods. That violates at least two *major* rules of the shell. It looks exactly like the kind of code I would write if I were trying to "innocently" introduce a backdoor. Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Editing a file (was: percent char '%' in sudoers file)
Roger Price [2021-08-10 11:11:24] wrote: > On Tue, 10 Aug 2021, Bob Bernstein wrote: >> Full disclosure: In a typical Bob fit of impulsivity I, yes, edited this >> file using 'sudo nsno /etc/sudoers'. > My impulse would be to use VISUAL=/usr/bin/emacs visudo -f /etc/sudoers You guys have amazing impulse control. My fingers would have typed `e /etc/suders` before I would have had a chance to do anything about it. Stefan PS: Of course the `e` above stands for Emacs, tho my root user has it redirected to Zile.
[OFFTOPIC] Fun with pv and broken drive (was: `pv` rates)
Stefan Monnier [2021-08-02 15:09:38] wrote: > E.g. the average has moved up to ~80kB/s since my last message). For your entertainment: I managed to bring the average rate up to about 1MB/s by running `lvs` in a loop at the same time (and that let me see occasionally a transfer rate around 10MB/s). I have no idea what it is that makes `lvs`s interference so beneficial. I tried a few other operations (like `du`, and `dd`) but to no avail. Without any interference from `lvs` I get a long term average slightly below 100kB/s. Stefan
Re: [OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor
> One cloud storage provider, Backblaze, regularly publishes reports on > harddisk reliability (they obviously have a lot of data on that :-) All of them seem to be 3½" as well. Interesting. It actually looks like the 2½" HDD market has been abandoned: 5 years ago, the largest HDD were 5TB for 2½" and 10TB for 3½". Since then, it seems like nothing new happened in the 2½" space, whereas the 3½" drives kept growing (tho only about 15% per year). Based on what I've heard, I suspect that to be competitive in the datacenter, 2½" drives would need to offer about half the capacity of 3½" drives (of course, that also presumes manufacturers going through the trouble of producing CMR drives in 2½" form factor). OTOH for an end user who doesn't need more than 8TB of disk space, 2½" drives can often be a better option (assuming you have enough SATA ports). Stefan
Re: ISO to external SSD
> Second, the price of spinning disks is such that it makes no > sense to buy anything smaller than 4TB, which will fit all this, > and 6-8 TB are often a reasonable idea even for single users. You seem to assume a 3½" form factor which either requires a "large" desktop or an external enclosure. Personally I consider this form factor dead every since I bought my first 2TB 2½" disk. [ For reference, the last 3½" disk I bought was a 1TB WD Green, which I fitted into my ASUS WL-700gE. ] Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Mass storage prices and form factor (was: ISO to external SSD)
Peter Ehlert [2021-08-03 08:27:26] wrote: > On August 3, 2021 8:17:58 AM Stefan Monnier wrote: >>> Second, the price of spinning disks is such that it makes no >>> sense to buy anything smaller than 4TB, which will fit all this, >>> and 6-8 TB are often a reasonable idea even for single users. >> You seem to assume a 3½" form factor which either requires a "large" >> desktop or an external enclosure. > Not really. My HP z620 work station ain't huge. Clearly "large" is smaller than "huge", so we don't disagree. FWIW of my three desktops only one can accommodate 3½" disks (a Streacom F8 case) [ the other two are a 2006 Mac mini and a Librem mini. ] >> Personally I consider this form factor dead every since I bought my >> first 2TB 2½" disk. > If you use Lots of drives (4tb), and are on a limited budget, like me... The > 3.5 form factor is more cost effective. That's why I wrote "personally". AFAIK the proportion of computer users which "use lots of drives" is quite small. Maybe it's higher among Debian users, admittedly, but still your original statement above lacks a qualification like "AFAIC" or "IMO" ;-) OK, to add actual info to this message, here's a quick look at today's lowest prices in my "usual" store: 2TB $ 64 3½ HDD 32 $/TB 3TB $ 65 3½" HDD 22 $/TB 4TB $104 3½" HDD 26 $/TB 6TB $139 3½" HDD (external) 23 $/TB 8TB $199 3½" HDD 25 $/TB 10TB $323 3½" HDD (external) 32 $/TB 12TB $339 3½" HDD (external) 28 $/TB I'm surprised at how stable the price per TB is over the 2-12 range. It used to be the case that HDD price's curve was not nearly as linear (which reflected the fact that production costs aren't (weren't?) proportional to the drive's capacity). I suspect that the profit margin varies widely over this spectrum. 2TB $ 60 2½" HDD (external) 30 $/TB 3TB $125 2½" HDD (external) 42 $/TB (only "recertified" available) 4TB $114 2½" HDD (external) 29 $/TB 5TB $139 2½" HDD (external) 28 $/TB It's also interesting to see that the price per TB is about the same for 2½" HDD as for 3½" HDD, whereas it used to be significantly higher. [ And also that in the 2½" space, your best bet in $/GB is to buy a drive+enclosure, which implies you don't really know what you're getting other than the capacity of the drive. :-( ] That makes 3½" form factor even more dead than I thought (two 4TB 2½" drives should offer better performance than one 8GB 3½" drive and use less space, not sure about power consumption). I wonder what kind of drives are used nowadays in big datacenters (and whether the prices they pay for them looks anything like the ones above). For completeness, here's the list for SSDs: ½TB $ 60 2½" SSD120 $/TB 1TB $100 2½" SSD100 $/TB 2TB $244 2½" SSD122 $/TB 4TB $540 2½" SSD135 $/TB so about 4x the price per TB (and here the linear price curve makes a lot more sense). Stefan
Re: `pv` rates
>> If it weren't for the first sometimes changing to >> 44.xKiB/s it'd be hard to know which is which (IIUC the average is >> higher because occasionally the drive gives a more reasonable transfer >> rate than that measly 45kB/s). > > So now we're left wondering how you came by this situation. Perhaps > you slumped onto the Return key, then woke up after a few minutes, > having missed the initial burst that gave rise to the average being > more than 50% faster than the current rate. I don't know either. Reading the whole drive would take a few years, so I'm only fetching the few parts which have changed since the last backup, and when I look the rate seems to be always ~45kB/s, but obviously there have to be bursts at higher speeds (presumably because the drive's defect doesn't affect every cylinder in the same way or something like that. E.g. the average has moved up to ~80kB/s since my last message). Stefan
`pv` rates (was: burn iso to usb)
Anssi Saari [2021-08-02 19:04:59] wrote: > David Wright writes: >> On Mon 02 Aug 2021 at 16:14:15 (+0300), Anssi Saari wrote: >>> Stefan Monnier writes: >>> >>> > cp /path/to/file.iso /dev/sdX >>> >>> dd if=whatever.iso of=/dev/sdX >>> >> It's up to taste. >>> > >>> > Not at all. The only right answer is: >>> > >>> > pv -parIe /dev/sdX >>> >>> Actually I'm not sure how good it is to have both -a and -r, pv doesn't >>> really show which rate counter is which... >> >> No need: the rate is far more variable than its average, as time passes. > > I guess it depends. Before that comment I tried it on an old USB > stick. Read speed was pretty much constant if low. So I think it was the > left rate counter that showed current rate but wouldn't bet on it. [ I'm glad my silly intervention brings up a more constructive discussion ;-) ] If they're both pretty much constant, they're presumably both pretty much equal, so it doesn't matter which is which ;-) But indeed, it's not always the case. I'm right now using `pv` to read data off of a broken drive (a 2TB 2½" drive which apparently has problems seeking, resulting in a transfer rate of about 45kB/s), and it's currently showing me 45.0KiB/s and 70.6KiB/s both of which are quite stable. If it weren't for the first sometimes changing to 44.xKiB/s it'd be hard to know which is which (IIUC the average is higher because occasionally the drive gives a more reasonable transfer rate than that measly 45kB/s). Stefan
Re: Updating kernels impossible when /boot is getting full
> So really think hard before splitting off a filesystem outside of > volume management. I believe it is more likely to cause problems > than it is to avoid problems. All my machines have a separate /boot partition (and everything else in LVM). These are all "historical accidents", because at the time I set them up, the respective boot loader (LILO, Grub, U-Boot) didn't know how to read LVM volumes, and I just never bothered to change. But I fully agree with you: if your bootloader can read from LVM (as is the case with Grub2), then you're better off without a separate /boot partition. Stefan "not sure if U-Boot can read from LVM yet"
Re: Updating kernels impossible when /boot is getting full
Ilkka Huotari [2021-08-01 07:20:20] wrote: > I'm using Ubuntu 21. My /boot partition size is 500M and it's getting full: Notice that this is a Debian mailing-list, so questions about Ubuntu are not really "on topic". AFAIK Ubuntu handles the initrd files and kernels slightly differently from what Debian does, so you'll probably be better served asking this on an Ubuntu mailing-list or forum, otherwise you risk getting confusing advice. Stefan
Re: burn iso to usb
>> > cp /path/to/file.iso /dev/sdX >> dd if=whatever.iso of=/dev/sdX > It's up to taste. Not at all. The only right answer is: pv -parIe /dev/sdX Anyone who says otherwise is trying to trick you, Stefan
Hardware life expectancy (was: Please help to test latest Debian 11 release candidate on real hardware)
> Should I participate if my laptop is 10 years old? I fondly remember showing my 2003 Thinkpad X30 to my students when it turned 10 years old. Given that I grew up in the glory days of Dennard scaling, the standard rule of thumb was that you wanted a new machine every 3 years or so and a machine older than 5 years was just utter crap. So being able to still make good use of a 10 year old machine seemed surreal. Nowadays, I'm still planning to use that same Thinkpad X30 to display PDFs in the classroom (when I get to meet students physically again), and more than half of my machine are older than 10 years old. Better yet, they don't seem significantly slower than my newer machines. So, yes, 10 year old machines and still very much relevant. Stefan
Re: where can i find a list of wireless adapter that debian support
> the tricky part of my search for ideal adapter(needn't non-free firmware) > isthat many vendors claim they support linux, but i'm afraid they require > non-free firmware > is there some easy way to find out if it requires non-free firmware? Buy it from a place that did this job for you. E.g. my Librem mini came with a wifi adapter that doesn't require non-free firmware, because the vendor went through the trouble (it includes a bluetooth feature as well but that feature does require a non-free blob, sadly). I think you want to look for wifi adapters that work with the ath9k driver (I don't know if that is sufficient to guarantee that they work with a free firmware, tho). Stefan
Re: MDs & Dentists
Thomas Schmitt [2021-07-21 20:11:15] wrote: > Stefan Monnier wrote: >> Plain old HDDs and SSDs also work for "immutable" backups: just don't >> keep them connected to the host after you've done the backup. > But how do you keep the system from messing them up during the first > backup after the malware took over ? That's what keep a handful of external SSDs to which you backup "in rotation" is about. Of course, if the time between the moment the malware takes control and the moment when you notice it is longer than your rotation you might be in trouble, indeed (tho that depends on the details of how the malware operates w.r.t removable media). Then again, this implies that all the work you've done between those two moments would likely have been lost just as well if you backed up to a BD-R. Stefan
Re: MDs & Dentists
Thomas Schmitt [2021-07-21 19:00:48] wrote: > James H. H. Lampert wrote: >> "Immutable backups." Interesting concept. But how? Optical media? > Yes. BD-R single layer are affordable and can take 25 GB each. With some > compression you can put the whole operating system and the most important > user data onto a single medium. Plain old HDDs and SSDs also work for "immutable" backups: just don't keep them connected to the host after you've done the backup. E.g. keep a handful of external SSDs to which you backup "in rotation". Stefan
Re: where can i find a list of wireless adapter that debian support
loushanguan2...@sina.com [2021-07-19 20:32:39] wrote: > i've found some adapter with search enginehopefully it can be installed in > debian without firmware from non-free AFAIK there is currently no wifi card that supports 11ac and for which there exists a non-proprietary firmware. Stefan
Re: Buster+Gnome on Pi4
pcr [2021-07-16 20:28:01] wrote: > Yesterday I had good luck with LibreCAD, did a nice drawing without any > trouble; today, however, I failed to install REDUCE-algebra, because there > is no version for ARM. I tried to get the source and compile it myself, but > that meant installing Subversion, and they don't have an ARM version > either. That's weird. I'd expect `subversion` to be in Debian and to compile for ARM without any particular problem. > Today I was unable to get Zoom for ARM; > I'm beginning to see a pattern :-) As a general rule, Free Software should work just fine, but proprietary software will be problematic because they only provide binaries for the most common platforms. Stefan
Re: How do I mount the USB stick containing the installer in Rescue Mode?
Greg Wooledge [2021-07-15 07:00:40] wrote: > On Thu, Jul 15, 2021 at 12:55:11PM +0300, Reco wrote: >> "nofail" is really needed for removable devices, because whoever >> designed systemd made an "interesting" decision to halt the boot process >> (i.e. host is inaccessible by network, console access only) even if a >> single filesystem mentioned in fstab fails to mount. > This was the traditional behavior before systemd, so one can't really > fault systemd for continuing the practice. That's not my recollection. AFAIK before systemd, you'd just get an error message and the boot would just (try to) continue. I don't think systemd's decision is bad. But I think it's implementation is not good enough: it should offer some kind of simple "continue y/n?" prompt. [ "Simple" for the user: the implementation might be not so simple. ] To be honest, I've added the `nofail` pretty much everywhere and hence haven't faced this problem recently, so for all I know, the implementation has already been improved. But the behavior I saw back when moving to systemd was definitely not pleasant. Stefan
Re: MDs & Dentists
jeremy ardley [2021-07-15 07:03:18] wrote: > On 15/07/2021 6:26 am, Polyna-Maude Racicot-Summerside wrote: >> Also can you find me one Linux distribution that is certified as medical >> equipment for reliability ? > You can't be seriously suggesting Windows is certified for any risk of life > application!? He's talking about official certification by some government entity or some professional association or something like that. In many situation, such a certification is required by law or by the insurance companies. It doesn't really matter what that certification means technically. Stefan
Re: Bref rapport d'investissement pour mai 2021
I can't reproduce this on Debian testing. A problem in your config, maybe? Stefan steve [2021-07-14 09:14:48] wrote: > Bonjour Xavier, > > Oui bien reçu. Mais c'est celui de mai, je pensais qu'on parlait de > celui de juin (mais c'est probablement trop tôt). > > Par ailleurs, j'ai posté ce matin les documents pour le mandat de > gestion. > > Excellente journée > > Meilleures salutations > Steve > > > Le 14-07-2021, à 07:03:31 +, xavier.crit...@ubs.com a écrit : > >>Bonjour Steve, >> >>Encore merci à vous pour la visite et votre confiance! >> >>Je viens de renvoyer le mail. Merci de me confirmer que vous l'avez bien reçu. >> >>Nous restons à votre disposition. >> >>Très bonne journée et courage pour cette dernière ligne droite avant les >>vacances! >> >>Xavier
Re: Working for free [was: Offensive variable names]
Jeremy Ardley [2021-07-14 12:52:10] wrote: > On 14/7/21 12:09 pm, Andrei POPESCU wrote: >> On Ma, 13 iul 21, 20:54:22, Brian wrote: >>> On Tue 13 Jul 2021 at 15:38:26 -0400, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: >>>> On Tuesday, July 13, 2021 11:27:03 AM Stefan Monnier wrote: >>>>> BTW, for those who don't want to run their own server, there are still >>>>> other reasons to avoid Github: my rule is to try and opt for the >>>>> underdog so as to foster competition. >>>> +1 >>> You are apparently well up in this field. Is there a particular >>> udderdog you would recommend? >> As far as I understand Gitlab is the only comparable alternative, >> preferably self-hosted (like Debian's Salsa). > AWS has a permanently free GIT repository for small projects (under > 5 developers) and limited storage requirements > https://aws.amazon.com/codecommit/ Then again, I'm not sure that Amazon qualifies as an "underdog". Stefan PS: Your reply's text was oddly "hidden" inside your signature (as defined by the old convention that "\n-- \n" separates the main body from the signature).
Re: Working for free [was: Offensive variable names]
> We are in basic agreement. I'm not really a "developer" - I just host > some relatively simple projects on Github. I agree that a deeper use of > something like Github is something I'd have to carefully consider. BTW, for those who don't want to run their own server, there are still other reasons to avoid Github: my rule is to try and opt for the underdog so as to foster competition. Stefan
Re: Offensive variable names [was: Cool down ...]
> It's only offensive to the people who are offended. Theoretically all > words are offensive since any word can be offensive to anyone just because > they deem it so. Censoring (i.e. changing the language) of everything to > appease everyone 1) isn't possible, 2) is foolish at best, 3) is a > waste of everyone's time, and 4) creates a power hungry mob of zealots > looking to dismantle any word they deem offensive (e.g. paper machete). It's neither black nor white. Reduction to the absurd doesn't help make good decisions. After all, a breath of fresh air is just a bunch of protons/neutrons/electrons moving, so it's no different from a bullet. Or is it? Stefan
Re: Buster no release file
> Revert the change or communicate with the edior. Maybe he has a > persuasive argument? In my experience, "communicate with the editor" is the second step, the first step being "try to figure out how to communicate with the editor". Stefan
Re: ASTM Lab equipment protocol
> Now that is easy. I did not know about the archives. Or the search. > No results though. So this might be a bit of a dead end. > It doesn't mean that software doesn't exist. Just that ASTM was never > discussed on a Debian list. So you get to be the first! Still it seems that debian-science or debian-med is more likely to include people who know about ASTM than debian-user ;-) Stefan
Re: Need help with ffmpeg installation - strange behaviour of my system - am I correct here?
> 2. repair my situation - I cannot go to Debian 10 right now (I posted the > reason somewhere here - mouse ist awfully slow and jumpy)) You might want to try `aptitude` instead of `apt`: it will try to offer ways to fix the problem (by removing package). The solutions it offers can sometimes take a long time to come up (because it performs a search through a large search tree), and it may have effects you won't like, so carefully review the solutions proposed. Stefan
Re: badblocks
> I got a cheap SATA to USB external adaptor and used it to look at a 500Gb [...] > Might I think that there is something amiss with the USB/SATA adapter > thing ? In my experience, USB<->SATA adapters are not super-reliable (cheap or not), the main problem stemming from power delivery, so you might like to retry it on other USB ports, the more power it can deliver the better. [ Obviously, I presume that your adapter does not have its own power source. ] Stefan
Re: Bullseye installation problem (with Matrox GPU)
> I did a little more experimenting and learned my G550 doesn't need > nomodeset for the MGA X driver to work, but it only produces 1920x1080 > on my 2560x1440 screen, and xrandr still can't identify output names. You can trying playing with "modelines" where you reduce the screen refresh rate to 30Hz to keep the "dot frequency" below the card's limit. Contrary to CRT, current displays tend not to need as high a refresh rate to avoid flicker. Of course a lower refresh rate may encounter other problems (e.g. your display may simply refuse to display it). Stefan
Re: Suggested way to ssh into obsolete devices (with old ssh crypto)?
> I'm aware of that. My critique was specific to the "we take it out > because it's dangerous to the user" part. That's often an explanation but not the main motivation. For the `none` cipher, I think it was, tho. IIRC the problem was that using the `none` cipher causes the authentication to be exposed in a way that is worse than using Telnet: with Telnet you only expose the data you send to the wire, whereas with SSH's `none` cipher you ended up exposing the data plus your (valued) credentials. > I'm torn on this one... Sometimes I've the impression that this leads to > asocial software (i.e. nobody goes to any effort to make their software > compatible to reasonable ranges of library (and other dependencies's) > versions). > Akin to the Flatpaks and Snaps of this world, perhaps with a less horrible > dependencies management story). Indeed, it has its downsides. Stefan
Re: Suggested way to ssh into obsolete devices (with old ssh crypto)?
>> It's entirely too common for obsolete encryption options that are >> kept for "compatibility" end up being a vector for compromise, and >> entirely reasonable to remove such options in order to provide the >> most secure and maintainable tool for the vast majority of users. > That's the attitude of authoritarian software: "my software is smarter > than you". I think the reality is a bit more subtle ;-) In most cases, the real driver is a desire to keep the code simple and to ease maintenance. Removal of old, little used, and largely untested functionality is part of what can be done for that. >> If you want ancient crypto options, just run an ancient binary. >> They're very easy to find in archive.debian.org. > They're not as easy to run as soon as they start being outrun by > their dependencie's versions, and you perfectly know that. My experience running old Debian packages of Emacs under Debian testing is not that bad. Also, I think that if it's hard to do, it can be blamed on Debian's package management (which should move towards something more like NixOS to solve those problems). Stefan
Re: Suggested way to ssh into obsolete devices (with old ssh crypto)?
>> If they have buffer overflow-style holes, those should be fixed. >> Other than that I can't see how they can be less secure than the "none" >> cipher. > I guess since the "none" cipher isn't supported in debian's ssh Good point. > you will just drop this questionable line of argument? It just moves it to first arguing in favor of supporting `none`. Stefan
Re: Suggested way to ssh into obsolete devices (with old ssh crypto)?
>> I think the first reaction should be to report it as a bug, so that the >> old cipher is re-added. I think the same argument in favor of including >> the "none" cipher should apply to including old deprecated ciphers. > The old ciphers are generally removed for a reason: because they are hugely > insecure. If they have buffer overflow-style holes, those should be fixed. Other than that I can't see how they can be less secure than the "none" cipher. I fully agree with removing them from the list of cipher that will be automatically chosen for you. But keeping them available upon explicit request for those cases where it's the only cipher that works with a particular other device makes a lot of sense. Stefan
Re: Suggested way to ssh into obsolete devices (with old ssh crypto)?
> Like you, I have been using CLI options to the ssh command to adjust the > necessary algorithms if I need something "insecure". You should be able to set that option for a specific (set of) hosts in .ssh/config so you don't have to repeat it on the CLI every time. > My thought is that once that no longer serves the purpose, I would > setup a VM, container, I think the first reaction should be to report it as a bug, so that the old cipher is re-added. I think the same argument in favor of including the "none" cipher should apply to including old deprecated ciphers. Stefan
Re: Memory allocation failed during fsck of large EXT4 filesystem
Reiner Buehl [2021-07-05 10:21:13] wrote: > Hi all, > I have a corrupt EXT4 filesystem where fsck.ext4 fails with the error > message: > > Error storing directory block information (inode=366740508, block=0, > num=406081): Memory allocation failed [...] > The system has 4GB of memory and a 8GB swap partition. The filesystem has > 7TB. Is there a quick way to enlarge the swap space to help fsck.ext4 to > finish the repair? I do not have any unused partitions but have space for > swap on other filesystems if that is possible. I think you should report this as a bug in e2fsck. While 7TB is significantly larger than the partitions I have, 8GB of swap should still be plenty for that (my first 1TB disk was connected to a machine with 64MB of RAM (an asus wl-700ge) and fsck was slow but it worked), so I suspect the error is not in the lack of memory space. Stefan
Re: removing modules
> The only thing with `MODULES=dep` is that it runs a slightly higher risk > of ending up with an unbootable system after a hardware or > filesystem/LVM/MD/partition change. Just make sure you have some way to > do a "rescue boot" in those cases (typically via a USB flash key with some > minimal GNU/Linux system on it), but this comes in handy in many other > circumstances so I recommend you have that at hand in any case. BTW, you can try: lsinitramfs -l /boot/initrd.img- | sort -n +4 to see the parts of the initrd that are likely to take most of the space. Stefan
Re: removing modules
Greg Wooledge [2021-07-03 14:03:44] wrote: > On Sat, Jul 03, 2021 at 06:49:35PM +0100, mick crane wrote: >> root@pumpkin:/boot# df -h /boot >> Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on >> /dev/sdb1 236M 159M 65M 71% /boot > This is the real issue. This file system is simply too small if you > plan to keep more than 2 kernels at a time. Not at all. Just adjust the /etc/initramfs-tools/initramfs.conf with MODULES=dep COMPRESS=lzma and you'll have room for many more kernels. > One thing I'll note is that your initrd* files are twice as big as mine. > > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 30924690 Jan 29 17:34 initrd.img-4.19.0-13-amd64 > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33151811 May 13 07:19 initrd.img-5.10.0-6-amd64 > -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 33165977 Jun 28 07:08 initrd.img-5.10.0-7-amd64 Indeed, his initrd.imgs are unusually large. Not sure what's going on with them, but the above two changes should shave off at the very least 20MB from each one of his initrd.img. The only thing with `MODULES=dep` is that it runs a slightly higher risk of ending up with an unbootable system after a hardware or filesystem/LVM/MD/partition change. Just make sure you have some way to do a "rescue boot" in those cases (typically via a USB flash key with some minimal GNU/Linux system on it), but this comes in handy in many other circumstances so I recommend you have that at hand in any case. Stefan
Re: How to verify newly burned disc
> The first hit at ebay.de when searching for "m-disc dvd" shows an offer > for 10 4.7 GB discs at 85.11 € + 7.31 € for shipping from Japan :-) [...] > There is also an offer from Australia, 5 discs for "~" 21.74 € + ~ 42.97 Hmm... so that's in the order of about 1 €/GB >From a quick look at SSD and uSD prices, it seems flash memory is about an order of magnitude cheaper (and also a lot more convenient to write :-) ). I wonder if "archival quality" really serves its purpose here. I mean, I understand that flash is not reliable in the long term, but there's also the problem of making sure you'll still have a working DVD reader in the future. I thought the only reliable way to archive digital data would be to treat preservation as a *process*, where you "refresh" your archive every N years by copying it over to a newer media (with enough redundancy to detect and correct errors that may have crept in during those N years). Stefan
Re: Whole Disk Encryption + SSD
>> > Along with SED, I suggest that you also implement Secure Boot. >> Can someone give me pointers to actually known attacks (not >> hypothetical ones, which I can invent myself without much difficulty) >> that would have been prevented by Secure Boot? > [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack Thanks. Stefan
Re: Whole Disk Encryption + SSD
> Along with SED, I suggest that you also implement Secure Boot. Can someone give me pointers to actually known attacks (not hypothetical ones, which I can invent myself without much difficulty) that would have been prevented by Secure Boot? I can see that subverting the early boot might be a good way for rootkits to install themselves in a way that's hard to detect and/or remove, but it's not like there aren't plenty of other ways to get pretty much the same result. IOW it sounds to me a bit like putting a reinforced steel frame around a cardboard door. Stefan
Re: add disk to LVM
[...] > `vgchange -an` usually does the trick), but AFAIK there is standard ^ no Damn! > support for doing those things for you currently (and if you forget to [...] Stefan
Re: add disk to LVM
> What would be the way to do that using LVM ? I think you already had the answers you need, but I'll just point out that it is possible to use LVM on a "removable" disk (a disk which you sometimes take out of a machine to put into another), and as a matter of fact, it would make a fair bit of sense in several situations. Sadly, currently the LVM tools don't support doing this very well if you intend to do it without rebooting the machine: it's pretty easy to connect a disk with an LVM VG on it and start using it (you just need to do an "LVM scan" beforehand, but that's cheap and can be automated without too much trouble) and it's not too hard to "unregister" the LVM structures before disconnecting the disk either (basically `vgchange -an` usually does the trick), but AFAIK there is standard support for doing those things for you currently (and if you forget to `vgchange -an` before you disconnect the disk then you end up with stale LVM structures which can become quite annoying and can prevent you from accessing that drive from that machine until you reboot it). Maybe it's time people start reporting these hurdles as bugs and provide patches to `pmount`, `systemd.mount`, etc... So we can start using LVM as the "standard" partitioning mechanism for GNU/Linux. Stefan
Re: A feasible method to add examples to man pages?
> That's what I get for blindly copying and pasting the "directions" from > Github. I should've have just told Monnier that the whole shebang > can be installed locally, which renders inoperative his nitpick about > not having the Net when he needs to cheat the most (or most often). The difference is that the manpages get installed automatically along with the software, so they're always there, always uptodate, without me having to think about it beforehand, without having to choose where to install them, nor remember where I installed them. Don't get me wrong: all it means is that I think we want to keep *some* examples in the manpages. IOW, I was just pointing out that the main benefit of manpages is that they're local and work in almost all situations. They don't need to contain all the info you'll ever want to know, but I usually welcome a few examples in there ;-) Stefan
Re: A feasible method to add examples to man pages?
> Many see the need for examples to be associated with man pages. [...] > Would it be proper/reasonable/practical/??? to add an entry of the form > https://cht.sh/XXX ? I think it can make sense for manpages to include a link to some further doc in the form of a wiki or some other webpage, but I often enough find myself using `man` while trying to fix a system's network or X11/Wayland config, which makes it either impossible to access the Internet at that moment, or painful to browse a webpage. Stefan
Re: Wiping an unencrypted SSD in preparation for encryption
> But in any case, I'm not sure about booting Grub on an SSD from the > BIOS, because AIUI Grub uses sector addresses to find its core.img, > and AIUI sectors get shuffled around by the SSD controller. That shuffling is purely internal and hence completely invisible (barring bugs and the need to sometimes make sure data is *really* erased), so that's a non-issue. Stefan
Re: thunderbird
>> The most used client is probably Element, formerly called Riot >> (https://element.io/). The link to its Linux version is not placed >> nicely visble, it is below the Desktop Clients for Win and Mac >> behind the comment "Also available on Linux", which points to a >> repository which can be used for installation and updates. This >> Element client works flawlessly. > Source code? That page is a maze of twisty little marketing-heavy > passages, all alike :-D Element is not in Debian, AFAICT, but it is in F-Droid. FWIW, I use Nheko on the desktop, which *is* in Debian. The matrix server also is in Debian (and supported by FreedomBox). Stefan
Re: thunderbird
> Thanks, but I'll prefer a decentralised, end-to-end encryptable, > well established messaging infrastructure with a rich choice of > user and transfer agents. It's called e-mail. Actually, matrix.org aims to be that as well. It probably doesn't yet qualify for "rich choice" (e.g. there is a matrix-client.el but it doesn't support encryption yet), but other than that, it's pretty much there. Stefan "using Matrix as a replacement for WhatsApp"
Re: which command can show if usb 3.0 is used
> If output shows ehci, then you are using usb 2, and if output shows xhci, > then you can use usb 3. ^^^ Can, indeed, but that still depends on other things, such as the actual setup of the physical port. IIUC most modern Intel chipsets don't come with EHCI any more and their xHCI handles all the ports, not all of which are necessarily USB3. Furthermore, "USB3" is an umbrella term which can refer to various things. Stefan
Re: which command can show if usb 3.0 is used
> hwinfo --usb-ctrl > > And after doing > > lsusb -t Thanks. I wasn't familiar with the `-t` arg to `lsusb`, it's very informative (e.g. it gives you the actual speed negotiated, so I can see that my USB C phone still uses 480Mb/s) Stefan
Re: xv (was Re: Changing background automatically, Mint 20.)
> printing images is so *20th* century. ^ 2D -- Stefan
Re: Debian-friendly laptop
> While building the latest linuxcnc for my pi, I came across this mentio > of coreboot, so I checked their site for asus mainboard support, to find > asus unmentioned. > > So, will it work for an Asus Z370-A II mainboard? I have no idea, but you can check the doc and or code to find out. The statistically most likely answer is "no" because most chipsets and motherboards are woefully underdocumented so it's very hard to port Coreboot to it. That's why I find Purism and System76 to be important: being manufacturers they have a bit more leverage to get some of that documentation (presumably under NDA) such that they can port Coreboot to the particular chipset they're using, and that can then be helpful for other machines using the same (or similar) chipset. Stefan
Re: Debian-friendly laptop
> Or perhaps more than a bit more ;) I see that the Librem 14 version 1 > starts at $1470, for an i7 10710U, 8GB RAM, 250GB SSD, 14" 1920x1080 > screen, no WLAN. I'm pretty sure you can do a whole lot better than > that from the standard brands. Indeed, you pay more, but it funds development of coreboot, saves you from having to wonder if the wifi's chipset will work out of the box, as well as brings to Intel's attention the existence of real customers willing to pay to have *less* code running in the ME. Stefan "typing this on his Purism mini"
Re: OT: minimum bs for dd?
>> On Sun, May 16, 2021 at 01:31:49PM -0500, Richard Owlett wrote: >> > I'll bite ;} >> > When is it the right tool? >> >> When you're using it to convert ebcdic to ascii, while swapping bytes and >> reblocking an ancient file from a barely readable archival tape. >> >> > When is it not? >> >> When copying a file. >> > When copying a file and writing it to another medium, perhaps eg when writing > a DVD .iso file directly to a USB stick, it's ideal. Not sure about ideal: cat /dev/sdb is one char longer than dd /dev/sdb but it's often faster (you can speed up `dd` by providing a larger `bs=` argument, but then you've lost the length advantage ;-) Stefan
Re: AppleWEBkit
to...@tuxteam.de [2021-05-12 09:42:33] wrote: > On Wed, May 12, 2021 at 03:28:18AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > [...] > >> The recent thread involving the mac G5's intrigues me though, so its war >> story time: >> >> We bought a pair of them in a quite graphically capable editing kit for >> commercial production, paid $25G's for the pair [...] > > This G is for "grand", not "giga", right? And here I was, thinking we were talking about the acceleration you experience when the price finally hits you, Stefan
Re: Suspend on old MacBook with fresh Bullseye installation
Andreas Tille [2021-05-11 20:18:55] wrote: > Hi Stefan, >> > I also used hibernate as well as the LXDE controls or closing the lid - >> > the result is always the same: >> > >> > 1. Black screen >> > 2. Network disabled (ssh session freezes, no ping from other host) >> > 3. Fan keeps on moving silently >> > 4. Can't wake up to normal operation neither by >> > - opening the lid >> > - pressing any key >> > - pressing power button >> >> Hmm... hibernate "should" work reasonably well, regardless of the >> underlying firmware. Are you booting via EFI or via the "legacy BIOS" >> (which at some point was referred to as BootCamp)? You may want to try >> the other one, just to see if it helps. > > I used the installer default which is EFI. I admit I have no idea how > to convince that MacBook to use something else. Its the first time I've > got my hand on any Apple hardware - so no idea how I can switch to > something else from hardware side (nor whether I need to change > something on the Debian installation. To use the "legacy BIOS" style boot, you need: - setup an MBR (ideally you have less than 4 partitions, so you can have a simple MBR with one pseudo-partition which is the "EFI protective" thingy and then the other partitions as before). You can set such an MBR without having to fully reinstall or repartition. rEFIt used to come with a tool that did that, IIRC. - install the non-EFI grub on your disk. - potentially tell your Mac explicitly to use this boot method. A tool like rEFIt can be used (rEFIt is old, it's been superseded at least by rEFInd and probably others by now but I haven't kept up, sorry). Stefan
Re: Suspend on old MacBook with fresh Bullseye installation
> I also used hibernate as well as the LXDE controls or closing the lid - > the result is always the same: > > 1. Black screen > 2. Network disabled (ssh session freezes, no ping from other host) > 3. Fan keeps on moving silently > 4. Can't wake up to normal operation neither by > - opening the lid > - pressing any key > - pressing power button Hmm... hibernate "should" work reasonably well, regardless of the underlying firmware. Are you booting via EFI or via the "legacy BIOS" (which at some point was referred to as BootCamp)? You may want to try the other one, just to see if it helps. How did you initiate the hibernate? What does `cat /sys/power/disk` say? Try changing it, e.g. via `echo shutdown >/sys/power/disk` (that won't help for suspend but it might help for hibernation since step 3 above suggests that the machine didn't *really* turn itself off). > I was wondering about the black screen and suspected that the video > driver might be responsible for the problem. Despite I'm perfectly fine > with the nuoveau driver I simply tried nvidia-legacy-340xx-driver (only > in unstable) hoping that this might solve the suspend problem. FWIW, I'd expect `nouveau` to behave a bit better w.r.t suspend/hibernate. Stefan
Re: PC fan getting very loud because of CPU load
deloptes [2021-05-08 21:33:47] wrote: > Dan Ritter wrote: >> It is also the case that fans are cheap. Replacing one for >> $10-20 is generally good for another 5-10 years. > But the question is why it runs > 100% - the fan is not that important in > the case. It could be replaced with not so loud one, but the CPU will still > run at 100+ % when firefox is running. Actually, it could be related: on some of my laptops, when the fan wasn't working well, I often saw both 100% CPU and a loud fan at the same time, and both were due to the CPU's temperature (the system reacts to too-high a temperature by increasing the fan speed, of course, but also reducing significantly the CPU's frequency which in turn can cause it to hit 100% usage even if there isn't a terribly high load). Stefan
Re: What is the best (and free) Linux softphone?
I think Linphone used to have a CLI interface, so you might want to look into it. I haven't used it in a long time, so I don't know what is its current status. I basically gave up on SIP (partly because of very spotty support for encrypted communications and for async messages like SMS) and recommend Mumble, Matrix, or Jitsi for discussions over IP instead; tho none of those support the "call" feature, so they require some previous arrangement about when the communication will take place :-( (Matrix trie(s|d) to provide that, but it doesn't really work for me). Stefan
Re: [OFFTOPIC] Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
> I'm also interested to know how good a service you actually get within > buildings, where most of us are most of the time. I see that wireless > repeaters are recommended according to a home's floor area. Are they > repeating 30GHz round the house, or conventional 2/5GHz? If the > latter, there's no need for replacing any of your normal Wifi devices > at all. You just get a cell-modem instead of a cable- or ADSL-modem. I just hope you're right ;-) Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
> It doesn't seem sensible to put a cell-connection into each TV > when they're all immobile. OTOH cars and pets go places. > > And is 20GB of data per day a "reasonable usage" on a mobile data plan? > Whereas 1TB per month on a fixed line is quite normal. These arguments seem stuck in the present. After all we already have "stationary cell phone" services to replace land-line phone services and I think most "phone" companies would be looking forward to a future where there's no "last mile" any more, there are only cell towers instead. Stefan
Re: Ghost cronjob
Mart van de Wege [2021-05-03 20:11:25] wrote: > Stefan Monnier writes: >>> root@galahad:~# grep btrbk /etc/ -rl >> >> Have you `grep`d in `/var/` as well? >> [ E.g. `/var/spool/crontabs` ] >> > Yep, nothing there, aside from the usual suspects (apt & dpkg files). > >>> And yet I find this in /var/log/btrbk.log: >>> >>> 2017-03-12T20:16:28+0100 startup v0.24.0 - - - - # btrbk command line >>> client, version 0.24.0 >> >> Any other mention of activity around that time in some other log file? >> >> > Not that I can see. I am going to see what patching btrbk to log PPID > shows up tonight. My usual "trick" is to log a full `ps --forest -ef`. [ Instead of patching, you can rename it and replace it with a script that runs the "real" btrbk. ] Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
>> > There: now your smart-ass TV is a monitor again. >> At least until they start using a cell-connection for Internet access >> (which would seem only natural in the world of TVs, which historically >> got their programs over the air) :-( > Cars do that already. Why shouldn't TVs? Or pet collars? Don't know about pet collars, but for TVs I'm pretty sure it's only a question of time. Stefan
Re: Ghost cronjob
> root@galahad:~# grep btrbk /etc/ -rl Have you `grep`d in `/var/` as well? [ E.g. `/var/spool/crontabs` ] > And yet I find this in /var/log/btrbk.log: > > 2017-03-12T20:16:28+0100 startup v0.24.0 - - - - # btrbk command line client, > version 0.24.0 Any other mention of activity around that time in some other log file? Stefan
Re: HTML syntax.
> Is there an editor which checks that HTML opening and closing tags are > paired and nested properly. An opening tag without matching close, a > closing tag without matching open and crossed tags should be flagged > by line number or color. Since Emacs's built-in `nxml-mode` does that, and Emacs is far from being the most popular HTML editor, I'd tend to assume that any editor worth its name provides that feature. Stefan
Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
> There: now your smart-ass TV is a monitor again. At least until they start using a cell-connection for Internet access (which would seem only natural in the world of TVs, which historically got their programs over the air) :-( Stefan
Re: When to reboot after dist-upgrade?
> I'm trying to distinguish when a system reboot is an absolute need > and when it is absolutely safe to keep the system running/working > after a `sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade`, once > I have already performed a complete restart of all needed services > through `sudo needrestart' options in Debian testing. I think the only reason you might "absolute"ly need to reboot is if a newer kernel fixes a security hole to which your current system is vulnerable. Since your kernel might include security holes to which you happen not to be vulnerable (e.g. because you just happen not to use that part of the kernel, or for some other reason), it's in generally extremely difficult to determine with a 100% certainty whether or not a reboot is "absolute"ly needed. Me, I basically only reboot in 2 cases: - the power went out Stefan
Re: Google vs. DDG
deloptes [2021-05-02 17:44:42] wrote: > Stefan Monnier wrote: >> For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first. >> One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is >> much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone. >> Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation >> when it comes to treating me as a product. > What confidence? Anonymous people correcting each other posts. You can't > trust scientists anymore not to speak of Wikipedia Please re-read what I wrote. I did not talk about confidence in the contents. Stefan
Re: Google vs. DDG
>> when I just try to search for "language:en stieglitz" (without the >> quotes) > YES! That's what I was looking for. I wasn't sure DDG had this > feature (although I hoped for it). Sadly, it doesn't work when combined with `!w`. [ and I think it'd make sense to allow the shorter `lang:de`. ] And of course, the term `language` is an obvious English bias. Stefan
Re: Google vs. DDG
> For example I wanted to know what is Stieglitz in German - it is kind > of bird, but I wanted to know how it looks like. DDG results did not > even come close to a bird. For these kinds of searches, I tend to go to Wikipedia first. One of the reasons is that I can do that via the Wikipedia app which is much more snappy than my browser on my smartphone. Another is that I have much more confidence in the Wikimedia foundation when it comes to treating me as a product. Stefan
[OFFTOPIC] Re: pci 0000:00:01:0: MSI quirk detected; subordinated MSI disabled ...
> Now I wonder how this might enable random access to the nth > character. I will keep looking around. Another part of the question is: why would someone give you the position information in terms of characters rather than in terms of (say) bytes, or words, or ... Stefan
Re: how to use fetchmail with MS Office 365 / davmail?
> viewing material because it's about ten years old. But when we > inevitably replace it and have no choice about accepting a 'smart' TV, There are still normal TVs around. Stefan
Re: Google vs. DDG
>> FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance >> because you can also come up with examples where the situation >> is reversed. > Can you? I meant "you" in a very general sense: I'm pretty sure it's possible, but no, I haven't done the necessary work (and I'm not very interested in doing it either). > I'm interested in examples of such cases. I suspect that a good way to find such an example might start by trying to think of websites which Google would specifically want to avoid (e.g. for legal or political reasons) while Microsoft wouldn't. This might be because it's related to a country which kicked out one of the two while the other managed to sign some kind of agreement or something like that. > Incorrect (or at least outdated): > > DuckDuckGo gets its results from over four hundred sources. These > include hundreds of vertical sources delivering niche Instant Answers, > DuckDuckBot (our crawler) and crowd-sourced sites (like Wikipedia, > stored in our answer indexes). We also of course have more traditional > links in the search results, which we also source from multiple > partners, though most commonly from Bing (and none from Google). > > https://help.duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/results/sources/ Thanks for the precisions. Stefan
Re: Google vs. DDG
> Here's a sort of example I just ran into. When trying to find > information about Thetis hardware security keys, DDG simply couldn't > find the company's website: searching DDG for "thetis key" turns up (in > the first page of hits) a bunch of Amazon listings, and a bunch of > reviews of, and articles about, security keys that mention Thetis. > Searching for the same thing on Google, OTOH, returns the company's > website (https://thetis.io) as the first hit (along with a convenient > list of pages on the site). FWIW, I'm pretty sure that such anectodal evidence is of no importance because you can also come up with examples where the situation is reversed. This is simply because the subset of the internet that is indexed by the two search engines is not simply in a subset relation. So the question is not whether such things happen, but how often they happen for your use-case one way compared to how it happens for your use-case the other way. And of course this question is only relevant as one of the properties distinguishing the two search engines. Obviously, the purpose of DDG is not to give better search results. BTW, as far as I know, DDB doesn't do its own indexing but it relies internally on Bing, so in the above is explained by the difference between Bing and Google. Technically they could probably just as well rely on Google (or on both). Stefan
Re: OT: Freestanding spreadsheet program?
> I think he also wanted something that doesn't require a desktop environment. AFAIK Gnumeric works fine in "naked X11". Stefan
Re: OT: Freestanding spreadsheet program?
> Back in the good (bad?) old days of TRS-80, all we had was VisiCalc. Simple. > Today, is there a useful spreadsheet program that does not rely on all the > baggage associated with either an "office suite," or > a "desktop environment?" I can mention `gnumeric` and if you're into Emacs I can also also suggest SES. Stefan
Re: installing two versions of a user application
> You probably want to look inside the control archives rather than the > data archives: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deb_%28file_format%29 > > If both control archive files are using a package name of > "master-pdf-editor", you can try Stefan's suggestion of renaming one > and seeing if they'll then coinstall. Exactly: the immediate problem you're encountering is that the package names themselves (regardless of the files they contain) collide. This info is the `control` part of the .deb archive. The way I do it is to use Emacs to open the `foo.deb` file. This should show you something like: MMode Size Date Filename - -- -- -rw-r--r-- 4 2021-03-01 12:23 debian-binary -rw-r--r--1128 2021-03-01 12:23 control.tar.xz -rw-r--r-- 615380 2021-03-01 12:23 data.tar.xz - -- -- 616512 3 files where the `data.tar.xz` part contains the actual files and `control.tar.xz` is the part you want to modify. So you select the `control.tar.xz` which itself will look somewhat similar and will contain a `control` which you can open and in which you'll find presumably something like: Package: master-pdf-editor [...] followed by other kinds of metainfo about the package. Just edit that first line (e.g. by adding a `4` or `5`), then do `C-x C-s` to save this `control` back into `control.tar.xz`, then kill this buffer with `C-x k RET`, then save the new `control.tar.xz` back into the actual foo.deb file with `C-x C-s`. Then retry to install those debs with: dpkg --install foo.deb I recommend you do those modifications on a copy of the file, just so its easier to recover from mistakes. Stefan
Re: installing two versions of a user application
> $ sudo apt install ./master-pdf-editor-4.3.89_qt5.x86_64.deb > ./master-pdf-editor-5.7.08-qt5_included.x86_64.deb > Reading package lists... Done > Building dependency tree > Reading state information... Done > Note, selecting 'master-pdf-editor' instead of > './master-pdf-editor-4.3.89_qt5.x86_64.deb' > Note, selecting 'master-pdf-editor' instead of > './master-pdf-editor-5.7.08-qt5_included.x86_64.deb' > master-pdf-editor is already the newest version (4.3.89-2). > The following packages will be upgraded: > master-pdf-editor I suggest you look inside those .deb files: they seem to both name the package they install `master-pdf-editor` but dpkg does not allow installing different versions of a given package at the same time. So you'll need to edit those `.deb` to change the package name from `master-pdf-editor` to (say) `master-pdf-editor4` and `master-pdf-editor5`, for example. Stefan "who does that kind of thing in order to install emacs25, emacs26, and emacs27 at the same time"
Re: Strange emacs behavior after upgrade to bullseye
>> Emacs implements its locking protocol using symlinks with names >> that look like `.#` and whose content looks like >> `u...@host.pid:BOOT_TIME`. > > Ah, good old dot-locking. Well, perhaps the OP can test whether it's > possible to create a symlink in that directory. That's probably part of the problem, yet the error doesn't seem to come from the code which would *create* the symlink but rather the one that would delete it :-( Stefan
Re: Strange emacs behavior after upgrade to bullseye
> Because the error says it cannot use LOCKS. > Because you can't do Unix file locking on a non-Unix file system. > The error does NOT say "Permission denied". FWIW, the error comes from Emacs's own locking code which doesn't seem to use unix file locking, so the problem comes from elsewhere. Emacs implements its locking protocol using symlinks with names that look like `.#` and whose content looks like `u...@host.pid:BOOT_TIME`. Stefan "still not sure exactly where it goes wrong"
Re: Smart TV on WiFi as Extra Display
> not support stretching your desktop to it) and it has a Java viewer > applet that can be used to connect to it from a web browser. There's a good chance the browser hardcoded in the TV doesn't support Java applets. Stefan
