Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Kushal Kumaran]

On Tue, Jan 11 2022 at 01:37:22 PM, Greg Wooledge  wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 12:42:11PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
>> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:24:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
>> > But if I let it start itself automatically on demand, then it works
>> > straight out of the gate with no issues.  So far, anyway!
>> 
>> How does that "on demand" thing work?
>
> I have no idea, really.  I can describe what it looks like, though.
>
> I've commented out everything having to do with pulseaudio from my
> .xsession file, so nothing that I do when I login or when I start X
> touches audio.
>
> When I open an application that uses audio, I get one of these guys:
>
> unicorn:~$ ps auxw | grep pulse
> greg 846  6.5  0.2 1682936 28676 ?   S /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
>
> unicorn:~$ systemctl --user status pulseaudio
> ● pulseaudio.service - Sound Service
>  Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudio.service; enabled; 
> vendor >
>  Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-01-05 08:48:08 EST; 6 days ago
> TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket

 ^

It uses the socket-activation support provided by systemd.  The
pulseaudio.socket unit configures systemd to listen on
/run/user//pulse/native for incoming pulseaudio client.  When one
comes along, systemd will start the corresponding pulseaudio.service.


>Main PID: 846 (pulseaudio)
>   Tasks: 3 (limit: 14199)
>  Memory: 25.9M
> CPU: 9h 45min 13.290s
>  CGroup: 
> /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/pulseaudio>
>  └─846 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
>
> Jan 05 08:48:05 unicorn systemd[825]: Starting Sound Service...
> Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn pulseaudio[846]: Failed to open cookie file 
> '/home/greg>
> Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn pulseaudio[846]: Failed to load authentication key 
> '/ho>
> Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn systemd[825]: Started Sound Service.
>
> It just chews up the CPU, doesn't it?  I guess the Pulse guys can afford
> to be lazy about keeping the thing reined in, given how powerful current
> PCs are.  Hell, even between those two commands, it used up 3 seconds of
> CPU, and I'm not even playing any audio right now!

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 02:52:10 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > > What version of Debian?
> > 
> > According to /etc/debian_version 9.3...
> > 
> 
> I hope that's 9.13 - so updated as at 2020-07-18. 

You're correct.  I have a pair of glasses here that are "for the computer" and 
in general I am avoiding wearing them unless I really feel like I have to...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 12:42:11PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:24:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 11:03:55AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> 
> I don't do anything much under debian that needs to have sound working,  so I 
> hadn't noticed a problem until the virtualboxed Slackware didn't have sound 
> any more,  and there are a few things I do in there where I *do* want sound 
> working.  Firing up another instance of it at somebody's suggestion took care 
> of that problem,  though I did have to reboot the virtualbox in order for it 
> to see it.
>  
> > Sadly, I don't know enough to offer any helpful advice.  All I can give
> > you are some questions that you might ask yourself to try to gather
> > more information about the issue:
> > 
> > What version of Debian?
> 
> According to /etc/debian_version 9.3...
> 

I hope that's 9.13 - so updated as at 2020-07-18. if not - please, before you
do anything else, please apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade (or equivalent)
to bring you to the latest version of 9.

Reboot: then look at apt autoremove to remove old programs.

If you're going to do this, at least do the right thing by bringing yourself
up to the latest correct version of whatever you're moving from.
It is _not_ a good idea to just pick a random point release of Debian and
sue that as the basis for a Debian machine. If you install from old media,
if you are network connected, then the the install process will normally
update you to the latest version of that release.

> > The answers to those might help someone else help you.  We can hope, anyway.
> 
> I'll get a handle on this sooner or later...
> 
> -- 

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 12:42:11PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:24:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > But if I let it start itself automatically on demand, then it works
> > straight out of the gate with no issues.  So far, anyway!
> 
> How does that "on demand" thing work?

I have no idea, really.  I can describe what it looks like, though.

I've commented out everything having to do with pulseaudio from my
.xsession file, so nothing that I do when I login or when I start X
touches audio.

When I open an application that uses audio, I get one of these guys:

unicorn:~$ ps auxw | grep pulse
greg 846  6.5  0.2 1682936 28676 ?   S
 Active: active (running) since Wed 2022-01-05 08:48:08 EST; 6 days ago
TriggeredBy: ● pulseaudio.socket
   Main PID: 846 (pulseaudio)
  Tasks: 3 (limit: 14199)
 Memory: 25.9M
CPU: 9h 45min 13.290s
 CGroup: /user.slice/user-1000.slice/user@1000.service/app.slice/pulseaudio>
 └─846 /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal

Jan 05 08:48:05 unicorn systemd[825]: Starting Sound Service...
Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn pulseaudio[846]: Failed to open cookie file '/home/greg>
Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn pulseaudio[846]: Failed to load authentication key '/ho>
Jan 05 08:48:08 unicorn systemd[825]: Started Sound Service.

It just chews up the CPU, doesn't it?  I guess the Pulse guys can afford
to be lazy about keeping the thing reined in, given how powerful current
PCs are.  Hell, even between those two commands, it used up 3 seconds of
CPU, and I'm not even playing any audio right now!

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 12:27:39 pm Dan Ritter wrote:
> Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> > On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:20:22 am Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > > > I still would like to know why the one instance of pulseaudio works and 
> > > > the other one doesn't.  And why some things seem to be included in what 
> > > > gets started up that I don't see any need for -- things like exim,  
> > > > bluetooth stuff (there is _no_ bluetooth hardware on this machine),  
> > > > and some other stuff.  Any recommendations as to where I might poke at 
> > > > this to clean things up would be appreciated also.
> > > > 
> > > 
> > > Exim: because "something" needs to deliver mail locally for cron jobs 
> > > etc. 
> > > Maybe not the best - others remove exim and install another MTA - but its
> > > a start.
> > 
> > I don't see the need for this.  Deliver mail locally where?  And to who?
> 
> To you.
> 
> The primary method of telling you, the systems administrator,
> that something went wrong when you weren't looking at it, is
> mail. That tells you to go look at the logs.

Right.  I don't see any mail that seems to be pointed at root,  though I do see 
a /var/mail/roy file,  I should probably see if there's some way that I can get 
kmail in the virtualbox to import this stuff.  Suggestions as to how to do that 
would be welcomed.
 
> If you don't want exim, nullmailer or ssmtp will send all email to some
> smarter machine. 

It doesn't seem terribly useful.  The latest ones in there are referring to 
/var/log/exim4/paniclog as having a non-zero length,  and quotes some lines 
from it.  Which refer to something that didn't go right in September of 2017!

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Dan Ritter]

Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:20:22 am Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > > I still would like to know why the one instance of pulseaudio works and 
> > > the other one doesn't.  And why some things seem to be included in what 
> > > gets started up that I don't see any need for -- things like exim,  
> > > bluetooth stuff (there is _no_ bluetooth hardware on this machine),  and 
> > > some other stuff.  Any recommendations as to where I might poke at this 
> > > to clean things up would be appreciated also.
> > > 
> > 
> > Exim: because "something" needs to deliver mail locally for cron jobs etc. 
> > Maybe not the best - others remove exim and install another MTA - but its
> > a start.
> 
> I don't see the need for this.  Deliver mail locally where?  And to who?

To you.

The primary method of telling you, the systems administrator,
that something went wrong when you weren't looking at it, is
mail. That tells you to go look at the logs.

If you don't want exim, nullmailer or ssmtp will send all email to some
smarter machine. 

-dsr-

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:24:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 11:03:55AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > What I'm not clear on at this point is why the instance of it that's 
> > started by the system doesn't seem to work, while the one that I start 
> > manually at some point later on does.
> 
> Pulse Audio is still quite mysterious to me as well.  In fact, I have
> the exact opposite experience: if I start Pulse Audio from my .xsession
> file (the way I expected it should be done), that one always fails to
> work.  Consistently.  100%, every time.  Killing it and restarting it
> always gave a working instance.  Again, 100%, every time.

What's puzzling to me is why it worked okay before my most recent upgrade,  and 
doesn't work now,  until I fire up another instance of it.
 
> But if I let it start itself automatically on demand, then it works
> straight out of the gate with no issues.  So far, anyway!

How does that "on demand" thing work?
 
> This is with Debian 11 (and, I think, 'twas the same on version 10
> as well), starting X with "startx" from a console, with fvwm and no
> desktop environment.

This was 8,  moved to 9,  and I will (eventually) progress all the way to 11.  
But not just yet.
 
> The symptom of the non-working Pulse Audio was a complete lack of
> response to everything.  Running "pavucontrol" would give me some
> message about not being able to contact the daemon, but I could see it
> running in "ps".  Kill, restart, pavucontrol again, and it was all
> happy.

I don't do anything much under debian that needs to have sound working,  so I 
hadn't noticed a problem until the virtualboxed Slackware didn't have sound any 
more,  and there are a few things I do in there where I *do* want sound 
working.  Firing up another instance of it at somebody's suggestion took care 
of that problem,  though I did have to reboot the virtualbox in order for it to 
see it.
 
> Sadly, I don't know enough to offer any helpful advice.  All I can give
> you are some questions that you might ask yourself to try to gather
> more information about the issue:
> 
> What version of Debian?

According to /etc/debian_version 9.3...

> How do you log in?

I often log in as root.

> How do you start your graphical session, if you use one?

The initial login screen is graphical,  from which I can select different 
desktop environments.  At the moment (and for quite a long time) I'm running 
Xfce.

> Which graphical session, if any, are you using?

I'm not sure I understand the question here.

> How does Pulse Audio get started (if you know)?  What do you see in "ps"?

Looking at it in System Monitor,  I see two instances of it.  One has the user 
name "Debian-gdm" and when I mouse over it shows "parent = systemd".  This is 
the one that the system starts up.  The other one is the one that I started 
from a command line,  which is otherwise the same.  Right-clicking on either of 
these and selecting "show detailed memory information" shows very different 
results for the two of them,  more memory being used for the second instance.

> What are the exact symptoms?

I'm not seeing any symptoms on the debian side of things,  but haven't tried to 
do much with sound there.  The sound _does_ work when,  ferinstance,  I view a 
video on youtube or similar.  When booting the virtualbox,  I'd get an error 
message from Slackware that it wasn't able to connect to the pulseaudio daemon 
and was going to use the "null" audio device instead,  meaning that sound 
didn't work in there at all.  After invoking pulseaudio in a terminal on the 
debian side of things and rebooting the virtual box sound in there works fine.

> Are there any error messages?  If so, what do they say, and how do you
> see them?

See the above paragraph about during the boot process of the virtualbox.

> What steps do you perform when you restart Pulse Audio?

I haven't tried restarting it,  just firing it up as someone suggested,  using 
pulseaudio --start in a terminal window.

> What does "ps" show after that?

Not using ps here,  for the most part.  I'm looking at stuff in System Monitor.
 
> The answers to those might help someone else help you.  We can hope, anyway.

I'll get a handle on this sooner or later...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 11:20:22 am Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > I've run nothing but linux since 1999,  starting with Slackware 4.0,  and 
> > upgrading to newer versions from time to time.  Early on I had no sound 
> > card in the machine that I was using,  and did not implement a GUI to start 
> > with either.  Adding those manually was a real interesting exercise,  one 
> > that I'm happy to not have to repeat with newer hardware and software.  
> > Debian came a little later,  only in the past few years,  and in many 
> > respects I'm still getting to know it.
> > 
> > I still would like to know why the one instance of pulseaudio works and the 
> > other one doesn't.  And why some things seem to be included in what gets 
> > started up that I don't see any need for -- things like exim,  bluetooth 
> > stuff (there is _no_ bluetooth hardware on this machine),  and some other 
> > stuff.  Any recommendations as to where I might poke at this to clean 
> > things up would be appreciated also.
> > 
> 
> Exim: because "something" needs to deliver mail locally for cron jobs etc. 
> Maybe not the best - others remove exim and install another MTA - but its
> a start.

I don't see the need for this.  Deliver mail locally where?  And to who?

> "Remove stuff" - start with a bare install of Debian text mode - standard
> packages only - then remove the stuff you want to. Don't be surprised if
> there may be a metapackage or two which appears to remove more than you
> think.

I've been surprised at that more than once already.  I suggest to synaptic that 
I might want to remove something,  and it comes back with a *huge* list of 
stuff that's going to be removed,  if I do.  I can't quite make sense out of 
that.
 
> The idea of a distribution is to make it relatively easy to install a 
> subset of common packages that people want: that doesn't mean that everybody
> gets exactly what they want first time, but Debian's fairly flexible to 
> allow you to change elements.

Still working on that...
 
> If you think that the distribution is entirely wrong - that's a different
> matter, I think. 

Not necessarily wrong,  but definitely different.  I like the management of 
dependencies,  one of the reasons I chose it.  Some of the other stuff I'm not 
so sure about,  though.

> If you started with Slackware 4.0 and that was your first 
> Linux, then you may well find Debian different enough that it's bothersome
> because it "isn't Slackware" - but there's any amount of individual 
> customisation you can do.

Oh,  it's different all right.  Bothersome?  Sometimes.  I've been dealing with 
it for some years now,  and haven't given up on it yet.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 11:03:55AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> What I'm not clear on at this point is why the instance of it that's started 
> by the system doesn't seem to work, while the one that I start manually at 
> some point later on does.

Pulse Audio is still quite mysterious to me as well.  In fact, I have
the exact opposite experience: if I start Pulse Audio from my .xsession
file (the way I expected it should be done), that one always fails to
work.  Consistently.  100%, every time.  Killing it and restarting it
always gave a working instance.  Again, 100%, every time.

But if I let it start itself automatically on demand, then it works
straight out of the gate with no issues.  So far, anyway!

This is with Debian 11 (and, I think, 'twas the same on version 10
as well), starting X with "startx" from a console, with fvwm and no
desktop environment.

The symptom of the non-working Pulse Audio was a complete lack of
response to everything.  Running "pavucontrol" would give me some
message about not being able to contact the daemon, but I could see it
running in "ps".  Kill, restart, pavucontrol again, and it was all
happy.

Sadly, I don't know enough to offer any helpful advice.  All I can give
you are some questions that you might ask yourself to try to gather
more information about the issue:

What version of Debian?
How do you log in?
How do you start your graphical session, if you use one?
Which graphical session, if any, are you using?
How does Pulse Audio get started (if you know)?  What do you see in "ps"?
What are the exact symptoms?
Are there any error messages?  If so, what do they say, and how do you
see them?
What steps do you perform when you restart Pulse Audio?
What does "ps" show after that?

The answers to those might help someone else help you.  We can hope, anyway.

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 11:03:55AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 January 2022 08:18:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:15:05PM +0100, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > > On Lu, 03 ian 22, 14:02:05, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> 
> What I'm not clear on at this point is why the instance of it that's started 
> by the system doesn't seem to work, while the one that I start manually at 
> some point later on does.
>  
> (snip)
>  
> > Welcome to Unix.
> 
> I've run nothing but linux since 1999,  starting with Slackware 4.0,  and 
> upgrading to newer versions from time to time.  Early on I had no sound card 
> in the machine that I was using,  and did not implement a GUI to start with 
> either.  Adding those manually was a real interesting exercise,  one that I'm 
> happy to not have to repeat with newer hardware and software.  Debian came a 
> little later,  only in the past few years,  and in many respects I'm still 
> getting to know it.
> 
> I still would like to know why the one instance of pulseaudio works and the 
> other one doesn't.  And why some things seem to be included in what gets 
> started up that I don't see any need for -- things like exim,  bluetooth 
> stuff (there is _no_ bluetooth hardware on this machine),  and some other 
> stuff.  Any recommendations as to where I might poke at this to clean things 
> up would be appreciated also.
> 

Exim: because "something" needs to deliver mail locally for cron jobs etc. 
Maybe not the best - others remove exim and install another MTA - but its
a start.

"Remove stuff" - start with a bare install of Debian text mode - standard
packages only - then remove the stuff you want to. Don't be surprised if
there may be a metapackage or two which appears to remove more than you
think.

The idea of a distribution is to make it relatively easy to install a 
subset of common packages that people want: that doesn't mean that everybody
gets exactly what they want first time, but Debian's fairly flexible to 
allow you to change elements.

If you think that the distribution is entirely wrong - that's a different
matter, I think. If you started with Slackware 4.0 and that was your first
Linux, then you may well find Debian different enough that it's bothersome
because it "isn't Slackware" - but there's any amount of individual 
customisation you can do.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

> -- 
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Tuesday 11 January 2022 08:18:27 am Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:15:05PM +0100, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > On Lu, 03 ian 22, 14:02:05, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > In the one that was running to start with,  the command line shown to 
> > > me in system monitor includes "daemonize=no".  I would guess that to 
> > > be the problem,  but why is that in there?
> 
> You need to rewind quite a few years of history for a full answer to
> this.

(Much interesting reading snipped for brevity...)

> If you'd like more details on this, I recommend JDEBP's web site.  You
> can start at .

Much interesting reading there,  too...
 
(snip)

> In some cases, you simply stop using the -bd option, or its equivalent.
> In other cases, maybe you have to patch the daemon to offer a new
> option which says *don't* create a child process -- just run normally.
> 
> That's what you're seeing here with Pulse Audio.

What I'm not clear on at this point is why the instance of it that's started by 
the system doesn't seem to work, while the one that I start manually at some 
point later on does.
 
(snip)
 
> Welcome to Unix.

I've run nothing but linux since 1999,  starting with Slackware 4.0,  and 
upgrading to newer versions from time to time.  Early on I had no sound card in 
the machine that I was using,  and did not implement a GUI to start with 
either.  Adding those manually was a real interesting exercise,  one that I'm 
happy to not have to repeat with newer hardware and software.  Debian came a 
little later,  only in the past few years,  and in many respects I'm still 
getting to know it.

I still would like to know why the one instance of pulseaudio works and the 
other one doesn't.  And why some things seem to be included in what gets 
started up that I don't see any need for -- things like exim,  bluetooth stuff 
(there is _no_ bluetooth hardware on this machine),  and some other stuff.  Any 
recommendations as to where I might poke at this to clean things up would be 
appreciated also.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Greg Wooledge]

On Tue, Jan 11, 2022 at 01:15:05PM +0100, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Lu, 03 ian 22, 14:02:05, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > In the one that was running to start with,  the command line shown to 
> > me in system monitor includes "daemonize=no".  I would guess that to 
> > be the problem,  but why is that in there?

You need to rewind quite a few years of history for a full answer to
this.

> In general it's recommended programs rely on systemd for running in 
> background instead of implementing their own code for that (re-inventing 
> the wheel and all that).
> 
> Of course, some programs (including PulseAudio) predate systemd and/or 
> need to run on systems / platforms where systemd (or something 
> compatible) is not even available, so they will continue to support both 
> methods.

Imagine that you're sitting down at a Unix workstation back in the 1980s
or 1990s.  There's no systemd, no dbus, no CORBA, nothing at all like
that.  You probably login via xdm, and you get an X11 session with a
single xterm and twm as your window manager.  That's it.  That's your
whole session.  Nothing else is running -- just the X server, the window
manager, and a single terminal.

Now, you'd like to run a few more things.  So you focus on the terminal
and you start running some commands:

xclock &
xbiff &
xterm -e top &
xterm &
xterm &

Now you've got some additional terminals with interactive shells in them,
and some programs that give you information.

If you'd like all of these programs to start next time you login, there
will be some kind of dot-file that you can edit, probably ~/.xsession.
You just put those commands in there, and then... whoops, you forgot to
put your window manager!  So, you login remotely, fix the ~/.xsession
file so that it ends with "exec twm" or whatever, and you're good to go.

Do you see how all of the commands that you wanted to run end with "&"
so that they will be placed in the background by the shell?  There's
nothing wrong with that at all, but it will become relevant in a moment.

Next, imagine that you're the system administrator of a Unix workstation
back in the 1980s or 1990s.  You'd like to run some programs at boot
time -- maybe one of those fancy Internet mail transport programs like
sendmail!

After reading manuals for a few hours, you manage to get sendmail installed
and configured, and now that it's time to run it, you put some command
like this into /etc/rc.local:

/usr/lib/sendmail &

And... it works, maybe.  You've applied your knowledge of the shell to
a system administration problem.  Only, maybe it doesn't work.  Maybe
your particular flavor of Unix runs /etc/rc.local with a shell where
background jobs are terminated after the shell exits.

So, if you're on one of those systems, you cobble together a workaround:

csh -cf '/usr/lib/sendmail &'

And this works!  But it's so ugly.

But hey, this idea of programs running automatically when the system boots
is starting to gain some traction.  People are doing it everywhere.
Literally hundreds of Unix sites around the country!

So, at some point, the people who write system software like sendmail
all decided to make the system administrator's life "easier", and they
added options to "daemonize" themselves.  Now the system administrator
wouldn't have to do all that crazy shell stuff.  They can simply write:

/usr/lib/sendmail -bd

And voila.  The sendmail daemon will fork a child process, and then the
parent will terminate.  The abandoned child will be re-parented by the
init daemon (process ID 1).  The abandoned child is the real daemon, and
it will continue running in the background, forever.  Or until it crashes.
But that's a next year problem!

For a decade or two, this became the norm across BSD-like systems.  Newly
written daemons all decided that they should either fork and abandon a
child process by default, or offer an option to do this.  It became the
new fad.  All the cool kids were doing it.

And then the problems started.

Maybe you didn't *want* the same instance of sendmail to run forever.  What
if you edited the configuration file, and wanted to reload the daemon with
the new configs?  How do you do that?

Well, obviously, you sit down at the console, login as root, and use commands
like "ps auxw | grep sendmail" to find the daemon.  Then when you've
found it, you can use a command like "kill -1 2345" to send a signal to
the daemon, telling it to reread the configs.

Of course, finding a running process this way is an art, not a science.
A human system administrator can do it.  It's not all that hard, right?
If Susan is sendiing mail right now, her sendmail process is going to
look different from the daemon that you're trying to locate in the haystack.
You'll be able to tell the difference and identify the correct process.
It just takes a few moments of careful attention and effort.

A computer program can't do that.

So, what happens when your operating system introduces this brand new
shiny "init system" 

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Lu, 03 ian 22, 14:02:05, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> 
> Running pulseaudio --start fixed that problem,  but now I show two instances 
> of it runninng.
> 
> In the one that was running to start with,  the command line shown to 
> me in system monitor includes "daemonize=no".  I would guess that to 
> be the problem,  but why is that in there?  And where do I fix it?  I 
> also see "parent systemd" and after a bit of poking around in there 
> I'm rather thoroughly confused,  not at all sure where I'd have to fix 
> this.  Although /usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudioi.service seems 
> pertinent.  Why would that have "daemonize=no" in there?

In general it's recommended programs rely on systemd for running in 
background instead of implementing their own code for that (re-inventing 
the wheel and all that).

Of course, some programs (including PulseAudio) predate systemd and/or 
need to run on systems / platforms where systemd (or something 
compatible) is not even available, so they will continue to support both 
methods.

Hope this explains,
Andrei
-- 
http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser


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Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Sunday 02 January 2022 09:56:14 pm David Wright wrote:
> On Sat 18 Dec 2021 at 11:24:34 (-0500), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > On Friday 17 December 2021 11:53:20 am David Wright wrote:
> > Yeah,  except that I don't run KDE.  I do have it installed,  to be able to 
> > access certain programs that come with it,  but my desktop environment of 
> > choice is currently Xfce.
> 
> My understanding is that when you install a package like KDE,
> there's an assumption that you'll probably want to run it, and
> so it configures the system on that basis.

When I first installed I selected multiple different desktop environments,  so 
I could try them out.  I did not expect that ones that I was not running would 
have any effect in the one that I was running...
 
(snip)
> > There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that Debian 
> > isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would account for the 
> > guest OS not being able to talk to it...
> 
> No idea; you'd have to check this for yourself. ISTR there may be
> issues with pulseaudio if it's running as a system daemon rather
> than for the logged-in user, but I don't know the details.

Running pulseaudio --start fixed that problem,  but now I show two instances of 
it runninng.

In the one that was running to start with,  the command line shown to me in 
system monitor includes "daemonize=no".  I would guess that to be the problem,  
but why is that in there?  And where do I fix it?  I also see "parent systemd" 
and after a bit of poking around in there I'm rather thoroughly confused,  not 
at all sure where I'd have to fix this.  Although 
/usr/lib/systemd/user/pulseaudioi.service seems pertinent.  Why would that have 
"daemonize=no" in there?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[David Wright]

On Sat 18 Dec 2021 at 11:24:34 (-0500), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Friday 17 December 2021 11:53:20 am David Wright wrote:
> > > > > Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  
> > > > > Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit",  which I would 
> > > > > do,  
> > > > > and then within a few seconds it would come right back again!  I 
> > > > > finally 
> > > > > tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing 
> > > > > to 
> > > > > invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there.  I solved 
> > > > > the 
> > > > > problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package,  since I have no 
> > > > > use 
> > > > > for it.
> > > > 
> > > > This one is solved for the moment, then.
> > > 
> > > Yeah,  but why the heck did this get turned on in the first place?  Or 
> > > even installed?
> > 
> > One might hypothesise that
> > . you run KDE, and KDE makes cvhanges that aren't always popular with
> >   every user.
> > . KDE recommends kdeaccessibility depends on kaccessible.
> > . KDE make changes to kaccessible for people who require and use it.
> >   Seems reasonable.
> 
> Yeah,  except that I don't run KDE.  I do have it installed,  to be able to 
> access certain programs that come with it,  but my desktop environment of 
> choice is currently Xfce.

My understanding is that when you install a package like KDE,
there's an assumption that you'll probably want to run it, and
so it configures the system on that basis.

I should point out that kdeaccessibility is only recommended by
kde-full and task-kde-desktop. I see nothing that even recommends
kde-full. The full live-task-kde obviously depends on
task-kde-desktop, but I assume you didn't install that; only
education-desktop-kde recommends task-kde-desktop. So I can't
see why you would need to install anything that pulled in
kdeaccessibility if you're just running KDE programs.

> > > > > 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few 
> > > > > issues.
> > 
> > > Under Slackware it's a very old version of KDE,  which I much prefer to 
> > > the newer stuff.
> > 
> > Yes, that's what I meant above. I think there's a cohort who use TDE 
> > instead.
> 
> I have looked into that,  but haven't gone there (yet).  Not sure if I'm 
> going to.
> 
> (snip)
> 
> There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that Debian 
> isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would account for the 
> guest OS not being able to talk to it...

No idea; you'd have to check this for yourself. ISTR there may be
issues with pulseaudio if it's running as a system daemon rather
than for the logged-in user, but I don't know the details.

Cheers,
David.

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Wednesday 22 December 2021 11:21:47 am Dan Ritter wrote:
> Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> > On Monday 20 December 2021 10:09:56 am Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > > > Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?
> > > > 
> > > > In general, that message means that even if there is a copy of
> > > > the pulseaudio daemon running, it is not running with the right
> > > > userid and the X11 session you are running in doesn't know about
> > > > it.
> > > > 
> > > > Run "pulseaudio --start" and try again.
> > > 
> > > That did get the volume control as invoked from the Xfce applications 
> > > menu working,  all right.  Looking in the process table that I see under 
> > > KDE System Monitor (what I usually use to keep track of system loading) I 
> > > now see pulseaudio in there twice.  One shows the command you mention 
> > > here,  and the other one doesn't,  and says "daemonize=no".  I'm guessing 
> > > that's the problem,  where to fix it is another question.  Mousing over 
> > > it I also see "parent=systemd" for both of them...
> > > 
> > > Looking at "man systemd",  nothing jumps out at me with regard to where I 
> > > want to go from here.

?

> > With this having been done,  after restarting the virtualbox instance,  
> > sound is now working there also.  What I might need to fiddle with in terms 
> > of systemd is not at all clear to me,  though.  I don't know why this would 
> > have changed with the upgrade.

Yes,  it's things changing when I upgrade that bother me about all of this...

> > Any further thoughts on this? 
> 
> Since it just happened... I'll say that pulseaudio is easily on
> the same level of reliability as Windows 95. I decided to test
> out the advertised capability of a music player as a USB DAC. As
> soon as I got things plugged in, the pulseaudio daemon crashed.
> After I restarted it, the pulseeffects equalizer service froze. 
> After I restarted that, pulseeffects decided that it would be a
> good idea to use the USB microphone as both default input and
> output...

I don't know enough about what you're dealing with there to comment on this.
 
> It's currently working. But I'd so much rather have systems that
> didn't think that they should switch configurations
> automatically, since PA is so terrible at reading my mind.
> 
> Anyway, upgrade to bullseye.

I'll get there.  But before I continue with upgrades,  I intend to fix what's 
broken,  and maybe trim some of the fat out of the system as it stands,  so I 
don't end up having to download and upgrade stuff I don't use or don't want.

In my initial install,  I selected multiple desktop environments,  so I could 
try them out.  While I was fine with real early versions of KDE,  I don't like 
where they've gone with it so I don't use it as a desktop,  though I do use a 
few of the utilities.  I seem to be seeing bits of stuff running,  though,  
that shouldn't be.  And also from some of the other choices.  I need to clean 
that up a bit,  I think,  in addition to the above...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Dan Ritter]

Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> On Monday 20 December 2021 10:09:56 am Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > > Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?
> > > 
> > > In general, that message means that even if there is a copy of
> > > the pulseaudio daemon running, it is not running with the right
> > > userid and the X11 session you are running in doesn't know about
> > > it.
> > > 
> > > Run "pulseaudio --start" and try again.
> > 
> > That did get the volume control as invoked from the Xfce applications menu 
> > working,  all right.  Looking in the process table that I see under KDE 
> > System Monitor (what I usually use to keep track of system loading) I now 
> > see pulseaudio in there twice.  One shows the command you mention here,  
> > and the other one doesn't,  and says "daemonize=no".  I'm guessing that's 
> > the problem,  where to fix it is another question.  Mousing over it I also 
> > see "parent=systemd" for both of them...
> > 
> > Looking at "man systemd",  nothing jumps out at me with regard to where I 
> > want to go from here.
>  
> With this having been done,  after restarting the virtualbox instance,  sound 
> is now working there also.  What I might need to fiddle with in terms of 
> systemd is not at all clear to me,  though.  I don't know why this would have 
> changed with the upgrade.
> 
> Any further thoughts on this? 

Since it just happened... I'll say that pulseaudio is easily on
the same level of reliability as Windows 95. I decided to test
out the advertised capability of a music player as a USB DAC. As
soon as I got things plugged in, the pulseaudio daemon crashed.
After I restarted it, the pulseeffects equalizer service froze. 
After I restarted that, pulseeffects decided that it would be a
good idea to use the USB microphone as both default input and
output...

It's currently working. But I'd so much rather have systems that
didn't think that they should switch configurations
automatically, since PA is so terrible at reading my mind.

Anyway, upgrade to bullseye.

-dsr-

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Monday 20 December 2021 10:09:56 am Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > Well,  sound on the Debian side of things works,  as in playing youtube 
> > > videos and such.  It doesn't work in the Slackware virtualbox,  which is 
> > > apparently trying to connect to Pulseaudio.  Going through the Xfce 
> > > application menus just now I see very little that would tell me what it 
> > > is that's actually running here,  so I figure I probably need to typs 
> > > something on the command line in a terminal,  but I don't know what.
> > > 
> > > One thing that shows up in the Xfce application menu under multimedia is 
> > > "Pulseaudio Volume Control".  When I invoke this  a small window pops up, 
> > >  with the text "Establishing connection to Pulseaudio.  Please wait" and 
> > > then nothing happens,  even if I let it sit there for quite a while.
> > > 
> > > Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?
> > 
> > In general, that message means that even if there is a copy of
> > the pulseaudio daemon running, it is not running with the right
> > userid and the X11 session you are running in doesn't know about
> > it.
> > 
> > Run "pulseaudio --start" and try again.
> 
> That did get the volume control as invoked from the Xfce applications menu 
> working,  all right.  Looking in the process table that I see under KDE 
> System Monitor (what I usually use to keep track of system loading) I now see 
> pulseaudio in there twice.  One shows the command you mention here,  and the 
> other one doesn't,  and says "daemonize=no".  I'm guessing that's the 
> problem,  where to fix it is another question.  Mousing over it I also see 
> "parent=systemd" for both of them...
> 
> Looking at "man systemd",  nothing jumps out at me with regard to where I 
> want to go from here.
 
With this having been done,  after restarting the virtualbox instance,  sound 
is now working there also.  What I might need to fiddle with in terms of 
systemd is not at all clear to me,  though.  I don't know why this would have 
changed with the upgrade.

Any further thoughts on this? 



-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Sunday 19 December 2021 05:48:12 pm Dan Ritter wrote:
> Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> > On Sunday 19 December 2021 03:18:46 am Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > > On Sb, 18 dec 21, 11:24:34, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that 
> > > > Debian isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would 
> > > > account for the guest OS not being able to talk to it...
> > > 
> > > As far as I'm aware there is no default sound server in Debian, it's 
> > > whatever the corresponding Desktop Environment depends on. Usually this 
> > > is PulseAudio, but it seems PipeWire is becoming more popular.
> > 
> > Well,  sound on the Debian side of things works,  as in playing youtube 
> > videos and such.  It doesn't work in the Slackware virtualbox,  which is 
> > apparently trying to connect to Pulseaudio.  Going through the Xfce 
> > application menus just now I see very little that would tell me what it is 
> > that's actually running here,  so I figure I probably need to typs 
> > something on the command line in a terminal,  but I don't know what.
> > 
> > One thing that shows up in the Xfce application menu under multimedia is 
> > "Pulseaudio Volume Control".  When I invoke this  a small window pops up,  
> > with the text "Establishing connection to Pulseaudio.  Please wait" and 
> > then nothing happens,  even if I let it sit there for quite a while.
> > 
> > Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?
> 
> In general, that message means that even if there is a copy of
> the pulseaudio daemon running, it is not running with the right
> userid and the X11 session you are running in doesn't know about
> it.
> 
> Run "pulseaudio --start" and try again.

That did get the volume control as invoked from the Xfce applications menu 
working,  all right.  Looking in the process table that I see under KDE System 
Monitor (what I usually use to keep track of system loading) I now see 
pulseaudio in there twice.  One shows the command you mention here,  and the 
other one doesn't,  and says "daemonize=no".  I'm guessing that's the problem,  
where to fix it is another question.  Mousing over it I also see 
"parent=systemd" for both of them...

Looking at "man systemd",  nothing jumps out at me with regard to where I want 
to go from here.


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Dan Ritter]

Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> On Sunday 19 December 2021 03:18:46 am Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> > On Sb, 18 dec 21, 11:24:34, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > 
> > > There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that 
> > > Debian isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would 
> > > account for the guest OS not being able to talk to it...
> > 
> > As far as I'm aware there is no default sound server in Debian, it's 
> > whatever the corresponding Desktop Environment depends on. Usually this 
> > is PulseAudio, but it seems PipeWire is becoming more popular.
> 
> Well,  sound on the Debian side of things works,  as in playing youtube 
> videos and such.  It doesn't work in the Slackware virtualbox,  which is 
> apparently trying to connect to Pulseaudio.  Going through the Xfce 
> application menus just now I see very little that would tell me what it is 
> that's actually running here,  so I figure I probably need to typs something 
> on the command line in a terminal,  but I don't know what.
> 
> One thing that shows up in the Xfce application menu under multimedia is 
> "Pulseaudio Volume Control".  When I invoke this  a small window pops up,  
> with the text "Establishing connection to Pulseaudio.  Please wait" and then 
> nothing happens,  even if I let it sit there for quite a while.
> 
> Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?

In general, that message means that even if there is a copy of
the pulseaudio daemon running, it is not running with the right
userid and the X11 session you are running in doesn't know about
it.

Run "pulseaudio --start" and try again.

-dsr-

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Sunday 19 December 2021 03:18:46 am Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Sb, 18 dec 21, 11:24:34, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > 
> > There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that 
> > Debian isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would 
> > account for the guest OS not being able to talk to it...
> 
> As far as I'm aware there is no default sound server in Debian, it's 
> whatever the corresponding Desktop Environment depends on. Usually this 
> is PulseAudio, but it seems PipeWire is becoming more popular.

Well,  sound on the Debian side of things works,  as in playing youtube videos 
and such.  It doesn't work in the Slackware virtualbox,  which is apparently 
trying to connect to Pulseaudio.  Going through the Xfce application menus just 
now I see very little that would tell me what it is that's actually running 
here,  so I figure I probably need to typs something on the command line in a 
terminal,  but I don't know what.

One thing that shows up in the Xfce application menu under multimedia is 
"Pulseaudio Volume Control".  When I invoke this  a small window pops up,  with 
the text "Establishing connection to Pulseaudio.  Please wait" and then nothing 
happens,  even if I let it sit there for quite a while.

Suggestions as to where I might look for the problem?



-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Andrei POPESCU]

On Sb, 18 dec 21, 11:24:34, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> 
> There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that 
> Debian isn't running PulseAudio but something else?  That would 
> account for the guest OS not being able to talk to it...

As far as I'm aware there is no default sound server in Debian, it's 
whatever the corresponding Desktop Environment depends on. Usually this 
is PulseAudio, but it seems PipeWire is becoming more popular.

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


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Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Friday 17 December 2021 11:53:20 am David Wright wrote:
> > > > Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
> > > > 
> > > > 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  
> > > > Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit",  which I would do,  
> > > > and then within a few seconds it would come right back again!  I 
> > > > finally 
> > > > tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing to 
> > > > invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there.  I solved the 
> > > > problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package,  since I have no 
> > > > use 
> > > > for it.
> > > 
> > > This one is solved for the moment, then.
> > 
> > Yeah,  but why the heck did this get turned on in the first place?  Or even 
> > installed?
> 
> One might hypothesise that
> . you run KDE, and KDE makes cvhanges that aren't always popular with
>   every user.
> . KDE recommends kdeaccessibility depends on kaccessible.
> . KDE make changes to kaccessible for people who require and use it.
>   Seems reasonable.

Yeah,  except that I don't run KDE.  I do have it installed,  to be able to 
access certain programs that come with it,  but my desktop environment of 
choice is currently Xfce.
 
> > > > 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few 
> > > > issues.
> 
> > Under Slackware it's a very old version of KDE,  which I much prefer to the 
> > newer stuff.
> 
> Yes, that's what I meant above. I think there's a cohort who use TDE instead.

I have looked into that,  but haven't gone there (yet).  Not sure if I'm going 
to.

(snip)

There remains the sound issue in the virtualbox.  Could it be that Debian isn't 
running PulseAudio but something else?  That would account for the guest OS not 
being able to talk to it...



-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Dan Ritter]

rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: 
> Chiming in from the peanut gallery:  My preference is to obtain a new (to me) 
> system, install the version of the OS I want on it, get it working, get 
> comfortable with it, then migrate my data to the new machine.

...
 
> I have very little tolerance for not having a working system of some sort at 
> all times.

You could solve this entirely by buying another disk, and
swapping boot between them as necessary.

Honestly, stable=>stable in place upgrades is one of the
crowning achievements of Debian.

(Others include the package management tools, and the sheer
number of available packages, and the security team.)

-dsr-

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[rhkramer]

On Friday, December 17, 2021 11:53:20 AM David Wright wrote:
> On Thu 16 Dec 2021 at 16:56:22 (-0500), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> But I can't help thinking of someone laying a carpet before they've
> painted the ceiling, or vacuuming the floor before dusting the furniture.
> Better to create just one big mess and then clear it all up in one go?
> 
> >  But upgrading involves me copying a whole pile of stuff over to my
> >  server,  including some really large files that are involved in
> >  Virtualbox and the one snapshot I have,  and then figuring out a
> >  whole mess of detailed stuff that I need to do to make the upgrade
> >  happen.
> 
> Each time you upgrade?!
> 
> > Last time it was something like 3 or 4 days before I was back to anything
> > remotely resembling normal,  and I'm not looking forward to the next
> > time (or two).

Chiming in from the peanut gallery:  My preference is to obtain a new (to me) 
system, install the version of the OS I want on it, get it working, get 
comfortable with it, then migrate my data to the new machine.

(I'm fairly good at scrounging new (to me hardware) considering the use of 
sales, rebates, and finding used stuff, often one or a few pieces at a time.)

As an alternate, if the new to me hardware was a step down from my current 
system I might (I've never done this) take an image of the existing system, 
move it to the "step down" hardware, then install the new OS on my original 
system.

I do use a KVM to switch between systems.

I have very little tolerance for not having a working system of some sort at 
all times.

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[David Wright]

On Thu 16 Dec 2021 at 16:56:22 (-0500), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Thursday 16 December 2021 02:49:17 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 02:35:43PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > I'd posted about my update a while back,  and while some folks were 
> > > encouraging me to go all the way to 11 since it's the current version,  
> > > my thinking has been to see how things are working,  what's changed,  
> > > what broke,  etc. and deal with all of that before I continue on in the 
> > > update process.
> > > 
> > > Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
> > > 
> > > 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  
> > > Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit",  which I would do,  
> > > and then within a few seconds it would come right back again!  I finally 
> > > tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing to 
> > > invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there.  I solved the 
> > > problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package,  since I have no use 
> > > for it.
> > > 
> > 
> > This one is solved for the moment, then.
> 
> Yeah,  but why the heck did this get turned on in the first place?  Or even 
> installed?

One might hypothesise that
. you run KDE, and KDE makes cvhanges that aren't always popular with
  every user.
. KDE recommends kdeaccessibility depends on kaccessible.
. KDE make changes to kaccessible for people who require and use it.
  Seems reasonable.

> > > 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few issues.

> Under Slackware it's a very old version of KDE,  which I much prefer to the 
> newer stuff.

Yes, that's what I meant above. I think there's a cohort who use TDE instead.

> It bugs me that things get changed,  for no apparent reason,  and that stuff 
> gets added,  likewise.

The reasons are often made apparent in the packages' changelogs.

> > > There's probably more,  but I would like to get these things ironed out 
> > > before I go chasing any more stuff,  and before I continue on the upgrade
> > >  path...

This list, from four years ago, might be a good place to look for
threads talking about these problems the first time around.

But I can't help thinking of someone laying a carpet before they've
painted the ceiling, or vacuuming the floor before dusting the furniture.
Better to create just one big mess and then clear it all up in one go?

>  But upgrading involves me copying a whole pile of stuff over to my 
> server,  including some really large files that are involved in Virtualbox 
> and the one snapshot I have,  and then figuring out a whole mess of detailed 
> stuff that I need to do to make the upgrade happen.

Each time you upgrade?!

> Last time it was something like 3 or 4 days before I was back to anything 
> remotely resembling normal,  and I'm not looking forward to the next time (or 
> two).

Cheers,
David.

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Charles Curley]

On Thu, 16 Dec 2021 19:49:36 -0500
"Roy J. Tellason, Sr."  wrote:

> > You don't do regular backups?
> > 
> > I recommend them.  
> 
> Configuring Amanda is on my list,  here.

Good. Perhaps more to think about than you want. ...
https://charlescurley.com/blog/posts/2019/Nov/02/backups-on-linux/

-- 
Does anybody read signatures any more?

https://charlescurley.com
https://charlescurley.com/blog/

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Thursday 16 December 2021 06:00:19 pm Dan Ritter wrote:
> Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> > On Thursday 16 December 2021 02:49:17 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > > 
> > > I would seriously suggest upgrading from 9 to at least 10. You might sort 
> > > out some of the issues but, more
> > > importantly, will be moving up to a better supported system
> > 
> 
> > I'll get there.  But upgrading involves me copying a whole pile of
> > stuff over to my server, including some really large files that are
> > involved in Virtualbox and the one snapshot I have, and then figuring
> > out a whole mess of detailed stuff that I need to do to make the
> > upgrade happen.  Last time it was something like 3 or 4 days before I
> > was back to anything remotely resembling normal, and I'm not looking
> > forward to the next time (or two).
> 
> You don't do regular backups?
> 
> I recommend them.

Configuring Amanda is on my list,  here.
 
> I can also vouch for a couple of facts:
> 
> - every version of Debian stable has been easier to upgrade to than the last.
> 
> - you do about half the amount of work by upgrading from 9 to 10 and then 
> immediately to 11, and then figuring out what
>   needs to change, as you would if you tried to figure out changes for each 
> upgrade.

Yeah,  but I'm really getting to know a lot about the details of this setup in 
the process.  :-)

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Dan Ritter]

Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: 
> On Thursday 16 December 2021 02:49:17 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> > 
> > I would seriously suggest upgrading from 9 to at least 10. You might sort 
> > out some of the issues but, more
> > importantly, will be moving up to a better supported system
> 

> I'll get there.  But upgrading involves me copying a whole pile of
> stuff over to my server, including some really large files that are
> involved in Virtualbox and the one snapshot I have, and then figuring
> out a whole mess of detailed stuff that I need to do to make the
> upgrade happen.  Last time it was something like 3 or 4 days before I
> was back to anything remotely resembling normal, and I'm not looking
> forward to the next time (or two).

You don't do regular backups?

I recommend them.

I can also vouch for a couple of facts:

- every version of Debian stable has been easier to upgrade to
  than the last.

- you do about half the amount of work by upgrading from 9 to
  10 and then immediately to 11, and then figuring out what
  needs to change, as you would if you tried to figure out
  changes for each upgrade.

-dsr-

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

On Thursday 16 December 2021 02:49:17 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 02:35:43PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > I'd posted about my update a while back,  and while some folks were 
> > encouraging me to go all the way to 11 since it's the current version,  
> > my thinking has been to see how things are working,  what's changed,  
> > what broke,  etc. and deal with all of that before I continue on in the 
> > update process.
> > 
> > Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
> > 
> > 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  
> > Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit",  which I would do,  
> > and then within a few seconds it would come right back again!  I finally 
> > tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing to 
> > invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there.  I solved the 
> > problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package,  since I have no use 
> > for it.
> > 
> 
> This one is solved for the moment, then.

Yeah,  but why the heck did this get turned on in the first place?  Or even 
installed?
 
> > 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few issues.
> > One of them is that there is apparently a screensaver kicking in after 
> > some extended period of time.  I can't find any place where this is 
> > enabled,  to turn it off.  I wasn't using one before and don't want one 
> > now.  Suggestions?
> 
> XFCE desktop: if this is blanking the screen, try checking for power settings.
> If it's an _actual_ screensaver with patterns - check to see what screen
> saving/locking programs come by default.

Under Slackware it's a very old version of KDE,  which I much prefer to the 
newer stuff.  When I select screen saver from the k menu,  it acts like it's 
loading for a bit and then stops,  with nothing loaded.  When I open the 
control center I can select screen saver in there,  under appearance and 
themes,  and blank screen is one of the choices besides all of the graphic 
ones,  but "start automatically" is NOT checked.  Under power control the only 
option seems to be "laptop battery" and selecting a number of different tabs 
tells me that there seems to be "a partial ACPI installation",  but nothing 
seems to be activated in there either.  I can't see anything else in there that 
seems applicable,  even after poking all through the k-menu.

The other thing that's changed is that this is a different (and newer) version 
of Virtualbox,  which in fact has been recently upgraded even further.  I've 
poked around in all of the options for that,  too,  and don't see anything 
applicable to this.  And regarding ACPI,  I have used the ACPI shutdown and it 
does work.  Nothing else in there about that.

> > 3. Also under the Slackware virtualbox sound has quit working.  
> > When I boot it,  I get a message that says "Host audio backend (PulseAudio) 
> > initialization has failed. Selecting the NULL audio backend with the 
> > consequence that no sound is audible."  I'm not sure what changed here 
> > either.  On the host (Debian) side,  audio works fine for,  ferinstance,  
> > playing a youtube video.  But for some things I want to be able to play 
> > audio under Slackware as well.  I found an item in the Xfce applications 
> > menu under Multimedia that says "Pulseaudio Volume Control" and when I 
> > hit that I get a smallish popup window with no apparent content other 
> > than "Establishing connection to PulseAudio, please wait..." and then 
> > nothing happens for a good long while now.  Suggestions?
> > 
> 
> How old id the virtualbox version - is there an option for audio passthrough 
> or similar?

The version is pretty recent,  and in fact has been recently updated.  Clicking 
on the about option under help, I see "Version 6.1.3-r148432 (Qt5.7.1).  But 
both this and the above issue were happening before and after the virtualbox 
upgrade,  and only since the Debian upgrade,  which got me to a different 
version of Virtualbox than what I'd been running before.  As far as Virtualbox 
audio settings,  under Devices there are two options under Audio,  one for in 
and one for out,  and when selecting them there's a minor change in the icon 
displayed,  but other than that it's not clear to me what these are supposed to 
do.  I suppose digging into the help might be enlightening.  Except that it's 
not finding the file that it wants to open to display help.  :-(  Their online 
help pointed me at settings,  where I see that audio out and in are enabled but 
it also says "invalid settings detected" on that page,  and I've not a clue yet 
where I might find those...
 
> > 4. There is *something* kicking off around midnight local time that 
> > produces a whole lot of disk activity for a few minutes,  slowing down 
> > whatever else I might be doing at the time.  I've looked at various things 
> > like cron, at,  etc. to see if I can find something in there but no luck
> >  so far.  Suggestions?
> 

Re: 8 -> 9 update changing things

[Andrew M.A. Cater]

On Thu, Dec 16, 2021 at 02:35:43PM -0500, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> I'd posted about my update a while back,  and while some folks were 
> encouraging me to go all the way to 11 since it's the current version,  
> my thinking has been to see how things are working,  what's changed,  
> what broke,  etc. and deal with all of that before I continue on in the 
> update process.
> 
> Some of the things I'm dealing with are:
> 
> 1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  
> Right-clicking on this gave me an option to "quit",  which I would do,  
> and then within a few seconds it would come right back again!  I finally 
> tracked this down to being "KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing to 
> invoke and don't know why the upgrade put that in there.  I solved the 
> problem by using synaptic to uninstall the package,  since I have no use 
> for it.
> 

This one is solved for the moment, then.

> 2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few issues.
> One of them is that there is apparently a screensaver kicking in after 
> some extended period of time.  I can't find any place where this is 
> enabled,  to turn it off.  I wasn't using one before and don't want one 
> now.  Suggestions?
> 

XFCE desktop: if this is blanking the screen, try checking for power settings.
If it's an _actual_ screensaver with patterns - check to see what screen
saving/locking programs come by default.

> 3. Also under the Slackware virtualbox sound has quit working.  
> When I boot it,  I get a message that says "Host audio backend (PulseAudio) 
> initialization has failed. Selecting the NULL audio backend with the 
> consequence that no sound is audible."  I'm not sure what changed here 
> either.  On the host (Debian) side,  audio works fine for,  ferinstance,  
> playing a youtube video.  But for some things I want to be able to play 
> audio under Slackware as well.  I found an item in the Xfce applications 
> menu under Multimedia that says "Pulseaudio Volume Control" and when I 
> hit that I get a smallish popup window with no apparent content other 
> than "Establishing connection to PulseAudio, please wait..." and then 
> nothing happens for a good long while now.  Suggestions?
> 

How old id the virtualbox version - is there an option for audio passthrough
or similar?

> 4. There is *something* kicking off around midnight local time that 
> produces a whole lot of disk activity for a few minutes,  slowing down 
> whatever else I might be doing at the time.  I've looked at various things 
> like cron, at,  etc. to see if I can find something in there but no luck
>  so far.  Suggestions?
> 

Run top / ps -elf | less to see what processes are running and check 
what seems to be eating memory or disk?

> There's probably more,  but I would like to get these things ironed out 
> before I go chasing any more stuff,  and before I continue on the upgrade
>  path...
> 

Hi Roy,

I would seriously suggest upgrading from 9 to at least 10. You might sort 
out some of the issues but, more importantly, will be moving up to a
better supported system

With every good wish, as ever,

Andy Cater

> 
> -- 
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

8 -> 9 update changing things

[Roy J. Tellason, Sr.]

I'd posted about my update a while back,  and while some folks were encouraging 
me to go all the way to 11 since it's the current version,  my thinking has 
been to see how things are working,  what's changed,  what broke,  etc. and 
deal with all of that before I continue on in the update process.

Some of the things I'm dealing with are:

1. An annoying blue dot showed up in my taskbar.  Right-clicking on this gave 
me an option to "quit",  which I would do,  and then within a few seconds it 
would come right back again!  I finally tracked this down to being 
"KDEaccessible",  which I've done nothing to invoke and don't know why the 
upgrade put that in there.  I solved the problem by using synaptic to uninstall 
the package,  since I have no use for it.

2. My virtual (older) Slackware virtualbox install is seeing a few issues.  One 
of them is that there is apparently a screensaver kicking in after some 
extended period of time.  I can't find any place where this is enabled,  to 
turn it off.  I wasn't using one before and don't want one now.  Suggestions?

3. Also under the Slackware virtualbox sound has quit working.  When I boot it, 
 I get a message that says "Host audio backend (PulseAudio) initialization has 
failed. Selecting the NULL audio backend with the consequence that no sound is 
audible."  I'm not sure what changed here either.  On the host (Debian) side,  
audio works fine for,  ferinstance,  playing a youtube video.  But for some 
things I want to be able to play audio under Slackware as well.  I found an 
item in the Xfce applications menu under Multimedia that says "Pulseaudio 
Volume Control" and when I hit that I get a smallish popup window with no 
apparent content other than "Establishing connection to PulseAudio, please 
wait..." and then nothing happens for a good long while now.  Suggestions?

4. There is *something* kicking off around midnight local time that produces a 
whole lot of disk activity for a few minutes,  slowing down whatever else I 
might be doing at the time.  I've looked at various things like cron, at,  etc. 
to see if I can find something in there but no luck so far.  Suggestions?

There's probably more,  but I would like to get these things ironed out before 
I go chasing any more stuff,  and before I continue on the upgrade path...


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin