Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
In days of yore (Tue, 16 Apr 2024), Jamie thus quoth: > Look this is a kernel bug and Debian needs to > fix this! Don't give me any of this crap about upstream > this is a bug with the Debian Kernel! Pay attention, because I am now in Support Mode as a former Principal Technical Account Manager for Red Hat. No, this is not necessarily a kernel bug. It can be a hardware bug and it is plausible it can not be solved with a driver work-around. You are hitting a problem and you want someone else to fix it for you. The answer may simply be that you need to replace the NIC with something else. FWIW, I have these Intel NICs in my two NUCs and they are functioning fine. With Debian 12.5 and the latest updates. $ lspci -v -s 00:1f.6 00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I219-V (rev 21) DeviceName: LAN Subsystem: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I219-V Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 123, IOMMU group 7 Memory at df10 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K] Capabilities: Kernel driver in use: e1000e Kernel modules: e1000e The revision of the NIC may determine whether you have *hardware* problems or not. > This needs to be fixed! Quick answer: replace the NIC. And do some groundwork to determine if the NIC you replace it with has issues you should be aware of or not. > I have already tried disabling the offloads and it does > not work. The specific offloads seemed to be the CRC related ones. # ethtool -k eno1 Features for eno1: rx-checksumming: on tx-checksumming: on tx-checksum-ipv4: off [fixed] tx-checksum-ip-generic: on tx-checksum-ipv6: off [fixed] tx-checksum-fcoe-crc: off [fixed] tx-checksum-sctp: off [fixed] Note: when you disable these, throughput can drop sharply. The other setting suggested was to hike the TX ringbuffer. # ethtool -g eno1 Ring parameters for eno1: Pre-set maximums: RX: 4096 RX Mini:n/a RX Jumbo: n/a TX: 4096 Current hardware settings: RX: 256 RX Mini:n/a RX Jumbo: n/a TX: 256 RX Buf Len: n/a CQE Size: n/a TX Push:off TCP data split: n/a # ethtool -G eno1 tx 2048 rx 2048 # ethtool -g eno1 Ring parameters for eno1: Pre-set maximums: RX: 4096 RX Mini:n/a RX Jumbo: n/a TX: 4096 Current hardware settings: RX: 2048 RX Mini:n/a RX Jumbo: n/a TX: 2048 RX Buf Len: n/a CQE Size: n/a TX Push:off TCP data split: n/a The reason the ringbuffers are important is that the kernel and the OS can construct packets faster in bursts than the NIC can handle, so the OS can queue up packets in the ringbuffer and the NIC can asynchronously pick the packets from the buffer and send them across the wire. If the ringbuffers are set too small, they will overflow and you will get overflow errors. # ethtool -S eno1 NIC statistics: rx_packets: 24463 tx_packets: 6358 rx_bytes: 3093199 tx_bytes: 669733 rx_broadcast: 8044 tx_broadcast: 9 rx_multicast: 10434 tx_multicast: 2510 rx_errors: 0 tx_errors: 0 tx_dropped: 0 <<<< If buffers are set too small, this increases multicast: 10434 collisions: 0 rx_length_errors: 0 rx_over_errors: 0 rx_crc_errors: 0 rx_frame_errors: 0 rx_no_buffer_count: 0 rx_missed_errors: 0 tx_aborted_errors: 0 tx_carrier_errors: 0 tx_fifo_errors: 0 tx_heartbeat_errors: 0 tx_window_errors: 0 tx_abort_late_coll: 0 tx_deferred_ok: 0 tx_single_coll_ok: 0 tx_multi_coll_ok: 0 tx_timeout_count: 0 tx_restart_queue: 0 rx_long_length_errors: 0 rx_short_length_errors: 0 rx_align_errors: 0 tx_tcp_seg_good: 0 tx_tcp_seg_failed: 0 rx_flow_control_xon: 9 rx_flow_control_xoff: 9 tx_flow_control_xon: 0 tx_flow_control_xoff: 0 rx_csum_offload_good: 8539<<<< If you have issues with checksum rx_csum_offload_errors: 0 <<<< offload, check these rx_header_split: 0 alloc_rx_buff_failed: 0 tx_smbus: 0 rx_smbus: 0 dropped_smbus: 0 rx_dma_failed: 0 tx_dma_failed: 0 rx_hwtstamp_cleared: 0 uncorr_ecc_errors: 0 corr_ecc_errors: 0 tx_hwtstamp_timeouts: 0 tx_hwtstamp_skipped: 0 > It isn't the cable either I have tried different cables it > still happens! This is an issue with the Kernel module for > the e1000e NIC card. Excellent data-point, you have ruled out whether the cable is faulty or not. But your assumption that this is the kernel module that is broken is still faulty. Provably, I am running the same type of NIC (albeit a different revision) with the same driver and I do not observe any issues. Thus, leveraging
Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
On Tue, Apr 16, 2024 at 09:05:29AM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > It has been known to happen that drivers implement workarounds for issues > > in the hardware itself, so that hardware bugs do not get tripped (or are > > tripped less often). > > > > You make it sound like it's a rare occurrence, but it's actually > quite common. Most of it is discrete so you'll rarely be exposed to it, > but `grep bugs /proc/cpuinfo` is one of the places where you can see it > being somewhat documented. One might argue that a driver's whole raison d'être /is/ to work around hardware bugs. But then, perhaps I'm a cynic ;-) Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
> It has been known to happen that drivers implement workarounds for issues > in the hardware itself, so that hardware bugs do not get tripped (or are > tripped less often). You make it sound like it's a rare occurrence, but it's actually quite common. Most of it is discrete so you'll rarely be exposed to it, but `grep bugs /proc/cpuinfo` is one of the places where you can see it being somewhat documented. Stefan
Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
In days of yore (Tue, 16 Apr 2024), Sirius thus quoth: > In days of yore (Mon, 15 Apr 2024), Jamie thus quoth: > > So there is a very nasty bug in the e1000e network card > > driver. Doing some reading turned up a Proxmox thread about the issues with these Intel NICs. https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/e1000-driver-hang.58284/page-10 May be worth scanning that thread and applying some of their solutions to this problem. -- Kind regards, /S
Re: e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
In days of yore (Mon, 15 Apr 2024), Jamie thus quoth: > So there is a very nasty bug in the e1000e network card > driver. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/05480/ethernet-products.html notes that MSI interrupts may be problematic on some systems. Worth digging into whether that is an issue on this system of yours. I am not sure Debian can resolve this problem with the driver, but upstream kernel folks might. Unsure whether Intel still helps maintain this driver as it is quite old (I dealt with support issues on this driver some 15-16 years ago). The Intel page states this is upstream kernel only at this point, so going to SourceForge for their out-of-tree driver is no longer an option. > I am running Debian 12 Bookworm. > > You will get the message "Detected Hardware Unit Hang" and then > the network card just stops working. [snip] > This is a gigabit network card as I said it is a built in NIC I believe it > is an Intel NIC. It is an Intel NIC. Most of the NIC drivers beginning with an 'e' followed by numbers are Intel as far as I know. These NICs were very common as on-board NICs in OEM systems as Intel provided them in large volumes. They are not the best, but they usually do their job. [snip] > This seems to happen when you are actually pushing a bit of traffic > though it not a lot but just even a little bit. It isn't network overload > or anything I am barely doing anything really but it will do this. If it is a hardware hang, it may be the NIC firmware getting its knickers in a twist, and that is not something the kernel or the driver can do much about. > I have already tried the following > > ethtool -K eth1 tx off rx off > ethtool -K eth1 tso off gso off > ethtool -K eth1 gso off gro off tso off tx off rx off rxvlan off txvlan > off sg off All worthwhile things to try. You can also try reducing the RX buffers from the default 4096 to 2048 if you are not running a lot of traffic. It might not help, but worth trying. > I have disabled all power management in the bios as well including the one > for ASPM > > I added the following to grub > > pcie_aspm=off e1000e.SmartPowerDownEnable=0 > > > This is in /etc/default/grub > GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet pcie_aspm=off > e1000e.SmartPowerDownEnable=0" Good thinking about power management. :) > Then I did an update-grub as well. > > None of this has worked in fixing this problem. I am still getting the > same issue. Best bet at this point would be to scout the Linux Kernel Mailing List archives to see if anyone else have run into the same problems, and then reviewing the kernel maintainers list to find someone that works on the e1000e driver to strike up a direct dialogue with them. > Can you please fix this issue this is a really nasty problem with Debian > 12 (Bookworm) > > I am seeing this being reported back in Kernel 5.3.x but i am not seeing any > reports for 6.1.x about this issue. > > Debian Bug report logs - #945912 > Kernel 5.3 e100e Detected Hardware Unit Hang > https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=945912 If it has been reported before and is still present now, one of two things is likely true. 1) the problem was intermittent and could not be reliably reproduced in order to debug and resolve 2) the problem was related to the hardware itself, and there was no way to fix it in either driver or firmware It has been known to happen that drivers implement workarounds for issues in the hardware itself, so that hardware bugs do not get tripped (or are tripped less often). > Please reply back and confirm that you got this email and that you are > looking into this problem please. To state the obvious, I am not a kernel maintainer for Debian and do not speak on behalf of the Debian project. I work for a Linux company you may have heard of and have done so for almost eighteen years, a decade of which was in support. 15 years ago, I know exactly who I would have gone to to look into this problem, but he now works for Broadcom and probably has forgotten all about the e1000/e1000e drivers. Upstream driver maintainer would be the best bet IMHO. If this driver is community support only (i.e. if Intel no longer participates in driver maintenance), I would say that all bets are off. With only one datapoint - your system and your NIC, it is not possible to rule out that the NIC itself is bad. :-/ > -- This email message, including any attachments, is for the intended > recipient(s) only and may contain information that is privileged, > confidential and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you > have received this message in error, or are obviously not one of the > intended recipients, please immediately notify the sender by reply email > and delete this email message, including any attach
e1000e driver Network Card Detected Hardware Unit Hang
So there is a very nasty bug in the e1000e network card driver. I am running Debian 12 Bookworm. You will get the message "Detected Hardware Unit Hang" and then the network card just stops working. This is a built in NIC on the computer The computer is a is a HP Prodesk 600 G4 MT This is the mini tower version as denoted by the MT. This log comes from my /var/log/syslog. Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] e1000e :00:1f.6 eth1: Detected Hardware Unit Hang: Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] TDH Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] TDT Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] next_to_use Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] next_to_clean Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] buffer_info[next_to_clean]: Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] time_stamp <1001c6345> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] next_to_watch Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] jiffies <1001c6550> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] next_to_watch.status <0> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] MAC Status <80083> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] PHY Status <796d> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] PHY 1000BASE-T Status <3800> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] PHY Extended Status <3000> Apr 15 01:57:12 gateway vmunix: [ 7743.893557] PCI Status <10> Apr 15 01:57:13 gateway vmunix: [ 7744.123237] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:13 gateway vmunix: [ 7744.417235] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.412183] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.659234] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] e1000e :00:1f.6 eth1: Detected Hardware Unit Hang: Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] TDH Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] TDT Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] next_to_use Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] next_to_clean Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] buffer_info[next_to_clean]: Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] time_stamp <1001c6345> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] next_to_watch Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] jiffies <1001c6740> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] next_to_watch.status <0> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] MAC Status <80083> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] PHY Status <796d> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] PHY 1000BASE-T Status <3800> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] PHY Extended Status <3000> Apr 15 01:57:14 gateway vmunix: [ 7745.877564] PCI Status <10> Apr 15 01:57:15 gateway vmunix: [ 7746.220253] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:15 gateway vmunix: [ 7746.485268] net-fw DROP IN=eth0 OUT= MAC=00:13:3b:e3:8f:b0:0c:a4:02:35:6d:87:08:00 SRC=75.159.223.219 DST=199.126.41.116 LE> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] e1000e :00:1f.6 eth1: Detected Hardware Unit Hang: Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] TDH Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] TDT Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] next_to_use Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] next_to_clean Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] buffer_info[next_to_clean]: Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] time_stamp <1001c6345> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] next_to_watch Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] jiffies <1001c6938> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] next_to_watch.status <0> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] MAC Status <80083> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] PHY Status <796d> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] PHY 1000BASE-T Status <3800> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] PHY Extended Status <3000> Apr 15 01:57:16 gateway vmunix: [ 7747.893578] PCI Status <10> It does this multiple tim
Re: OT: Lista de correo sobre HARDWARE
El 2024-03-26 a las 16:23 +, Eduardo Jorge Gil Michelena escribió: > Estimada gente: > Disculpen el OT... > ¿Conocen alguna lista de correos o foro web sobre Hardware? ¿De hardware en general o buscas algo más concreto? > Antes había muchos pero ahora... parece que han desaparecido o por lo menos > los que yo conocía. > Y en la WEB... la información que suelo buscar seguramente debe estar pero... > con tanta página y sitio con información pobre y claramente comercial, es > difícil encontrar algo técnico que seguramente debe estar... como lo puede > estar una aguja en un pajar. ** El viernes, 29 de marzo de 2024, 05:25:25 ART, Camaleón escribió: Cómo echo de menos NNTP ;-( En fin, no sólo han ido desapareciendo servicios como Usenet y/o servicios vinculados (Gmane), también existen cada vez menos listas de correo y foros especializados abiertos y accesibles y más páginas cerradas de infumables redes sociales como TikTok-Instagram-catapom. Echa un vistazo a servicios clásicos como The Mail Archive y busca por algún grupo o lista de correo de hardware que te guste (especializado o genérico). De momento localizo el clásico: https://www.mail-archive.com/hardware@hardwaregroup.com/info.html Y parece que sigue vivo: https://www.mail-archive.com/hardware@hardwaregroup.com/maillist.html En cuanto a foros de hardware tienes más opciones (en inglés y español): https://www.google.com/search?q=hardware+forum https://www.google.com/search?q=foro+hardware+espa%C3%B1ol Saludos, -- Camaleón - Ah, OK. GRACIAS por responder. Tal parece que las buenas listas de correo y foros han ido desapareciendo. Ya me parecía a mi eso... Ahora hay mucho "Youtuber" "TiTokero" de los que se rescata poca cosa. Y para colmo las páginas "técnicas" ya casi están sepultadas por el motón de páginas inservibles (copias de copias de copias) que aportan casi nada. A fines de la década de 1990 comienzo de la del 2000 había menos sitios pero... tenían información de buena calidad técnica. Ahora prácticamente son páginas "comerciales" que dicen poco y nada. Bueno... es así... GRACIAS.
Re: OT: Lista de correo sobre HARDWARE
El 2024-03-26 a las 16:23 +, Eduardo Jorge Gil Michelena escribió: > Estimada gente: > > Disculpen el OT... > ¿Conocen alguna lista de correos o foro web sobre Hardware? ¿De hardware en general o buscas algo más concreto? > Antes había muchos pero ahora... parece que han desaparecido o por lo menos > los que yo conocía. > Y en la WEB... la información que suelo buscar seguramente debe estar pero... > con tanta página y sitio con información pobre y claramente comercial, es > difícil encontrar algo técnico que seguramente debe estar... como lo puede > estar una aguja en un pajar. Cómo echo de menos NNTP ;-( En fin, no sólo han ido desapareciendo servicios como Usenet y/o servicios vinculados (Gmane), también existen cada vez menos listas de correo y foros especializados abiertos y accesibles y más páginas cerradas de infumables redes sociales como TikTok-Instagram-catapom. Echa un vistazo a servicios clásicos como The Mail Archive y busca por algún grupo o lista de correo de hardware que te guste (especializado o genérico). De momento localizo el clásico: https://www.mail-archive.com/hardware@hardwaregroup.com/info.html Y parece que sigue vivo: https://www.mail-archive.com/hardware@hardwaregroup.com/maillist.html En cuanto a foros de hardware tienes más opciones (en inglés y español): https://www.google.com/search?q=hardware+forum https://www.google.com/search?q=foro+hardware+espa%C3%B1ol Saludos, -- Camaleón
OT: Lista de correo sobre HARDWARE
Estimada gente: Disculpen el OT... ¿Conocen alguna lista de correos o foro web sobre Hardware? Antes había muchos pero ahora... parece que han desaparecido o por lo menos los que yo conocía. Y en la WEB... la información que suelo buscar seguramente debe estar pero... con tanta página y sitio con información pobre y claramente comercial, es difícil encontrar algo técnico que seguramente debe estar... como lo puede estar una aguja en un pajar. Saludos.
Re: Data and hardware protection measures
Michael Kjörling composed on 2024-01-28 19:23 (UTC): > On 28 Jan 2024 19:19 +0100, from h...@adminart.net (hw): >> On Fri, 2024-01-26 at 15:56 +, Michael Kjörling wrote: >>> It's also worth talking to your local electrician about installing an >>> incoming-mains overvoltage protection for lightning protection. >> Hm I thought it's expensive. > So did I until I actually asked someone who could give me a quote for > actually installing it. Old construction used meter "boxes" that don't support accessories like those. My utility won't touch mine unless I pay an electrician for an expensive full service upgrade. -- Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion, based on faith, not based on science. Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks! Felix Miata
Re: Data and hardware protection measures; was: rsync --delete vs rsync --delete-after
On Sun, 28 Jan 2024 19:19:55 +0100
hw wrote:
Hello hw,
>How do you know in advance when the battery will have failed?
Even my very basic UPS (APC Backup 1400) has a light on the front
labelled "Replace Battery". That, combined with a very annoying high
pitch scream, are pretty good motivators to do the job.
I know the Backup 1400 was mentioned in this thread as "probably avoid"
(or something similar), but it's served me well thus far. Had to replace
the battery pack only once. That was after ten years, not the three to
five that people have been talking about. APC no longer sell that
model, but battery packs are still available. Just as an FYI, the
battery packs are sealed Lead-Acid.
Where I live (UK), it's possible to sell lead-acid batteries to scrap
merchants. Amount paid is variable and subject to massive market forces
that are best described as 'volatile'.
Like others have mentioned with some of the more basic APC devices, this
particular model isn't designed with user replaceable batteries in mind,
but it's not an overly difficult task. It can't easily (if at all) be
done leaving connected devices powered up, though.
--
Regards _ "Valid sig separator is {dash}{dash}{space}"
/ ) "The blindingly obvious is never immediately apparent"
/ _)rad "Is it only me that has a working delete key?"
They take away our freedom in the name of liberty
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Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Data and hardware protection measures
On 28 Jan 2024 19:19 +0100, from h...@adminart.net (hw): > On Fri, 2024-01-26 at 15:56 +, Michael Kjörling wrote: >> On 26 Jan 2024 16:11 +0100, from h...@adminart.net (hw): >>> I rather spend the money on new batteries (EUR 40 last time after 5 >>> years) every couple years [...] > > To comment myself, I think was 3 years, not 5, sorry. > >>> The hardware is usually extremely difficult --- and may be impossible >>> --- to replace. >> >> And let's not forget that you can _plan_ to perform the battery >> replacement for whenever that is convenient. > > How do you know in advance when the battery will have failed? You replace the battery before it fails completely. Most batteries don't go from perfectly fine to completely dead within one charge cycle. If the battery drains completely during a power outage before the UPS has a chance to respond to the battery's loss of capacity, that becomes a (hopefully clean) power cut, which _still_ is _a lot_ better than equipment which isn't designed to deal with a significant overvoltage condition taking the brunt of a lightning strike. I'm assuming, of course, that you replace the battery with one of the same chemistry. The UPS will probably assume some discharge characteristic depending on what battery type the OEM uses (lead acid, NiCd, NiMH, LiIon, ...); of course if you give the UPS a battery using some other chemistry, that'll immediately wreak havoc with lots of things. >> Which is quite the contrast to a lightning strike blowing out even >> _just_ the PSU and it needing replacement before you can even use >> the computer again (and you _hope_ that nothing more took a hit, >> which it probably did even if the computer _seems_ to be working >> fine). > > It would also hit the display(s), the switches and through that > everything that's connected to the network, the server(s) ... That > adds up to a lot of money. Which is why I said "even _just_ the PSU", emphasis original. >> It's also worth talking to your local electrician about installing an >> incoming-mains overvoltage protection for lightning protection. > > Hm I thought it's expensive. So did I until I actually asked someone who could give me a quote for actually installing it. > That doesn't exactly help when the failed disk has disappeared > altogether, as if it had been removed ;) If that happens, I'd get output along the lines of: # zpool status pool: tank state: DEGRADED scan: scrub repaired B in with errors on config: NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM tank ONLINE 0 0 0 raidz2-0ONLINE 0 0 0 wwn-0x0001-crypt ONLINE 0 0 0 8446744073709551616 UNAVAIL 0 0 0 was /dev/mapper/wwn-0x1113-crypt wwn-0x2225-crypt ONLINE 0 0 0 wwn-0x3337-crypt ONLINE 0 0 0 wwn-0x4449-crypt ONLINE 0 0 0 wwn-0x555b-crypt ONLINE 0 0 0 clearly identifying the problem. And also most likely a lot of event notifications telling me that wwn-0x1113-crypt is having issues within the "tank" pool, plus any applicable kernel logs for the device disconnection and perhaps lower-level I/O errors. Similarly, if a storage device suddenly starts returning garbage, that will show up likely as CKSUM errors and the device will eventually get kicked out of the pool, showing as state FAILED with large error counter values. (zpool status would also provide some more explanatory details, in the example above including that "applications are unaffected" because sufficient redundancy would still exist; but I'm eliding those here because I don't have them handy and don't feel like creating such a situation just to get example output. The important part is that the disk that dropped off the bus will show as likely UNAVAIL with its internal identifier and a reference to its WWN because of my naming scheme, instead of as completely missing. Solution is to get a replacement disk, plug it in, execute "sudo zpool replace tank $numeric_id $new_device_path", and wait a while, all the while I can still use the system normally.) No matter what kind of storage solution you're using - hardware RAID, software RAID, no redundancy, whichever - or how you're doing backups (assuming that you are, for some value of "you"), you can't just ignore issues with it. That way lies data loss. -- Michael Kjörling https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
Re: Data and hardware protection measures; was: rsync --delete vs rsync --delete-after
On Fri, 2024-01-26 at 15:56 +, Michael Kjörling wrote: > On 26 Jan 2024 16:11 +0100, from h...@adminart.net (hw): > > I rather spend the money on new batteries (EUR 40 last time after 5 > > years) every couple years [...] To comment myself, I think was 3 years, not 5, sorry. > > The hardware is usually extremely difficult --- and may be impossible > > --- to replace. > > And let's not forget that you can _plan_ to perform the battery > replacement for whenever that is convenient. How do you know in advance when the battery will have failed? > Which is quite the contrast to a lightning strike blowing out even > _just_ the PSU and it needing replacement before you can even use > the computer again (and you _hope_ that nothing more took a hit, > which it probably did even if the computer _seems_ to be working > fine). It would also hit the display(s), the switches and through that everything that's connected to the network, the server(s) ... That adds up to a lot of money. > [...] > It's also worth talking to your local electrician about installing an > incoming-mains overvoltage protection for lightning protection. I > won't quote prices because I had mine installed a good while ago and > also did it together with some other electrical work, but I was > surprised at how low the cost for that was, and I _know_ that it has > saved me on at least one occasion. Hm I thought it's expensive. I'll ask when I get a chance. > [...] > > You can always tell with a good hardware RAID because it > > will indicate on the trays which disk has failed and the controller > > tells you. > > Or you can label the physical disks. Whenever I replace a disk, I > print a label with the WWN of the new disk and place it so that it is > readable without removing any disks or cabling; That doesn't exactly help when the failed disk has disappeared altogether, as if it had been removed ;) But then, you can go by the numbers of the disks you can still see. And beware of SSDs; when they fail, they're usually entirely inaccessible whereas you may be still able to resuce (some) data from a spinning disk after it failed. It's probably really bad with mainbaords that use M2 storage since apparently, they seem to support only one (of the some type at least) rather than two. So you can't use those at all. What's the point of that? ZFS cache maybe?
Re: Data and hardware protection measures; was: rsync --delete vs rsync --delete-after
On 26 Jan 2024 16:11 +0100, from h...@adminart.net (hw): > I rather spend the money on new batteries (EUR 40 last time after 5 > years) every couple years [...] > > The hardware is usually extremely difficult --- and may be impossible > --- to replace. And let's not forget that you can _plan_ to perform the battery replacement for whenever that is convenient. Which is quite the contrast to a lightning strike blowing out even _just_ the PSU and it needing replacement before you can even use the computer again (and you _hope_ that nothing more took a hit, which it probably did even if the computer _seems_ to be working fine). >> I've had no external power outage in the last 5 or 10 years, but a UPS >> often needs at least one battery replacement during that time. > > Outages are (still) rare here, but it suffices to trigger a fuse or > the main switch when some device shorts out, or someone working on the > solar power systems some of the neighbours have, causing crazy voltage > fluctuations, or a lightning strike somewhere in the vinicity or > whatever reason for an UPS to be required. It's also worth talking to your local electrician about installing an incoming-mains overvoltage protection for lightning protection. I won't quote prices because I had mine installed a good while ago and also did it together with some other electrical work, but I was surprised at how low the cost for that was, and I _know_ that it has saved me on at least one occasion. It won't do power conditioning or power loss protection of course, but it _does_ greatly increase the odds that your home wiring survives a lightning-related voltage surge. (Nothing will realistically protect you against a _direct_ lightning strike; in that case the very best you can hope for is damage containment.) > More importantly, the hassle involved in trying to recover from a > failed disk is ridiculously enormous without RAID and can get > expensive when hours of work were lost. With RAID, you don't even > notice unless you keep an eye on it, and when a disk has failed, you > simply order a replacement and plug it in. Indeed; the point of RAID is uptime. > You can always tell with a good hardware RAID because it > will indicate on the trays which disk has failed and the controller > tells you. Or you can label the physical disks. Whenever I replace a disk, I print a label with the WWN of the new disk and place it so that it is readable without removing any disks or cabling; then I use the WWN to identify the disk in software; in both cases because the WWN is a stable identifier that I can fully expect will never change throughout the disk's lifetime. So when the system tells me that wwn-0x123456789abcdef0 is having issues, I can quickly and accurately identify the exact physical device that needs replacement once I have a replacement on hand. And if the kernel logs are telling me that, say, sdg is having issues, I can map that back to whatever WWN happens to map to that identifier at that particular time. (In practice, I'm more likely to get useful error details through ZFS status monitoring tools, where I already use the WWN, so I likely won't need to go that somewhat circuitous route.) > Yes, my setup is far from ideal when it comes to backups in that I > should make backups more frequently. That doesn't mean I shouldn't > have good backups and that UPSs and RAID were not required. Or that, again, they solve different problems. -- Michael Kjörling https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On Fri, 2023-12-08 at 19:11 -0500, Jeffrey Walton wrote: > On Wed, Dec 6, 2023 at 7:36 AM Andre Rodier wrote: > > > > First, if this post is off-topic, feel free to give me other > > mailing lists. > > The eevblog may be another place to ask. But be warned, the folks on > the eevblog can get really deep into the weeds on subjects like this. > If you are not careful, they might provide you with circuit designs > and have you build your own hardware. > > Also see <https://www.eevblog.com/> and > <https://www.google.com/search?q=totp+hardware+site:eevblog.com>. > > Jeff Thanks, Jeff. If circuit design is the solution, why not ? It would be fun. Thanks again, André
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On Wed, Dec 6, 2023 at 7:36 AM Andre Rodier wrote: > > First, if this post is off-topic, feel free to give me other mailing lists. The eevblog may be another place to ask. But be warned, the folks on the eevblog can get really deep into the weeds on subjects like this. If you are not careful, they might provide you with circuit designs and have you build your own hardware. Also see <https://www.eevblog.com/> and <https://www.google.com/search?q=totp+hardware+site:eevblog.com>. Jeff
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
Piotr writes: > You could have contacted them to get a replacement, 100% faulty phone > calls means Qualcomm modem was faulty. But I assume you contacted them > and were unhappy with the result, hence your negative opinion on > provided customer support, or lack thereof. They were willing to sell me a replacement circuit board for most of the price of the phone. -- John Hasler j...@sugarbit.com Elmwood, WI USA
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
piorunz wrote: > On 06/12/2023 07:45, Andre Rodier wrote: > > If you also know a small phone supporting Debian, it could be fine > > as well. **I don't need phone functions like, bluetooth, wifi, > > etc.** > > Pinephone tick this box. It works quite well, for early development > Linux phone. Operating system you want is Mobian, which is Debian > (original Debian repos) + Linux kernel which works on this device and > phone GUI stuff. Maybe even a Pine Time Dev Kit ticks the box? Apart from the Debian requirement :P
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On 08/12/2023 18:13, John Hasler wrote: I wrote: No support when it doesn't, though. Okay. I was never able to get it to complete a phone call. Attempts produced inconsistent results. Some results of searches indicated that the card might need to be activated on another phone (I didn't have one) but a hardware problem seems more likely. Inquiries on the forums produced no results. I successfully installed Mobian but that did not help. Too bad: it does everything I want except make phone calls. Sad to hear. My copy worked, phone calls were great. You could have contacted them to get a replacement, 100% faulty phone calls means Qualcomm modem was faulty. But I assume you contacted them and were unhappy with the result, hence your negative opinion on provided customer support, or lack thereof. From my experience, I felt that the only thing it needed was more polished software and GUI experience, like in Android phones. Mobian apps were slow and clunky, crashed sometimes and were misaligned, but hardware itself, in my sample, worked as intended. Maybe except for rare random GSM modem hangs, which required reboot to work again. Overall, I was happy with it because my expectations were adequate. -- With kindest regards, Piotr. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/ ⠈⠳⣄
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On 12/8/23 13:13, John Hasler wrote: Too bad: it does everything I want except make phone calls. Phones now a days are not expected nor intended to make phone calls -- It's not easy to be me
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
Piotr writes: > Pinephone tick this box. It works quite well, for early development > Linux phone. I wrote: > No support when it doesn't, though. piorunz: > Why you say so? What doesn't? I was never able to get it to complete a phone call. Attempts produced inconsistent results. Some results of searches indicated that the card might need to be activated on another phone (I didn't have one) but a hardware problem seems more likely. Inquiries on the forums produced no results. I successfully installed Mobian but that did not help. Too bad: it does everything I want except make phone calls. > Their website [1] states: "Beta Edition PinePhones are aimed solely at > early adopters. More specifically, only intend for these units to find > their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience." I have extensive Linux experience. -- John Hasler j...@sugarbit.com Elmwood, WI USA
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On 08/12/2023 15:20, John Hasler wrote: Piotr writes: Pinephone tick this box. It works quite well, for early development Linux phone. No support when it doesn't, though. Why you say so? What doesn't? It worked for me quite well, as a device in early development. I really liked it. I passed it to my even more enthusiastic friend who like to tinker. Their website [1] states: "Beta Edition PinePhones are aimed solely at early adopters. More specifically, only intend for these units to find their way into the hands of users with extensive Linux experience." [1] https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-beta-edition-with-convergence-package/ -- With kindest regards, Piotr. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/ ⠈⠳⣄
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
Piotr writes: > Pinephone tick this box. It works quite well, for early development > Linux phone. No support when it doesn't, though. -- John Hasler j...@sugarbit.com Elmwood, WI USA
Re: Hardware TOTP on Linux
On 06/12/2023 07:45, Andre Rodier wrote: If you also know a small phone supporting Debian, it could be fine as well. **I don't need phone functions like, bluetooth, wifi, etc.** Pinephone tick this box. It works quite well, for early development Linux phone. Operating system you want is Mobian, which is Debian (original Debian repos) + Linux kernel which works on this device and phone GUI stuff. -- With kindest regards, Piotr. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/ ⠈⠳⣄
Hardware TOTP on Linux
Hello, First, if this post is off-topic, feel free to give me other mailing lists. I am looking for a device, like a small phone, supporting Debian. I just need the following features: - A small LCD screen, 4 inches max, to display letters and numbers, i.e. can be black and white. Touch screen is not needed. - A num pad, with about two or three more keys. - A small camera, to scan QR codes. - An internal clock, with a DCF77 or similar device a nice plus. I basically want to implement a hardware TOTP device, as none of them are satisfactory to me. Some looks nice, like ReinerSCTs, but the software is not open source, and the time sync and updates are depending of the manufacturer site. If you also know a small phone supporting Debian, it could be fine as well. **I don't need phone functions like, bluetooth, wifi, etc.** If you know any ready to use kit, like raspberry pi or similar, with keypad or touchscreen and camera, it would be fine as well. I could accommodate with a wifi connection and implement an NTP client as well. Thanks for your insights. Kind regards, André Rodier
memtest86+ on UEFI (was: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router)
> Interesting. I have memtest86+ 6.10-4, for amd64, on the machine. Then AFAIK it is not a known problem (IOW, it should work). > Maybe I'll try a USB stick version. IIRC the memtest86+ Debian package comes with .iso files which you can (manually) put into /boot/images/ and which boot in a slightly different way than the image files installed there by default, so you could try that as ell. Also upstream has a slightly more recent release. Stefan
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Sat, 02 Dec 2023 11:58:11 -0500 Stefan Monnier wrote: > > Note: Memtest86 does not appear to work. I believe that is a known > > problem with UEFI machines. > > AFAIK the current memtest86+ (not to be confused with memtest86, which > is proprietary) claims to work fine on UEFI. > IIUC the one in oldstable doesn't OTOH. > > > Stefan > Interesting. I have memtest86+ 6.10-4, for amd64, on the machine. Maybe I'll try a USB stick version. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Getting UEFI to boot Debian (was: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router)
> For the curious, I occasionally need to run Microchip MPLAB, the old > pre-Java version which doesn't do Linux. It only just about does > Windows... I used to think Serif software was buggy until I tried > Microchip stuff. Setting it up might take some work (especially if you need it to have direct access to some of your hardware) but running it inside a VM might save you a fair bit of trouble in the long run. Stefan
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
> Note: Memtest86 does not appear to work. I believe that is a known > problem with UEFI machines. AFAIK the current memtest86+ (not to be confused with memtest86, which is proprietary) claims to work fine on UEFI. IIUC the one in oldstable doesn't OTOH. Stefan
Re: Set UEFI boot target with Windows (was: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router)
On Thu, 30 Nov 2023 13:27:59 +0100 Arno Lehmann wrote: > > ... have you ever tried > > bcdedit /bootsequence > > In general, the built-in help of bcdedit is not bad, needs a bit of > patience, though. > > And of course we lack the flexibility of tools such as awk or sed on > Windows, to automate setting things and still remain flexible :-) > > On a particular system, with rather static setup, hard-coding a > single bcdedit call and automatically execute that should be > feasible, though. > > Give it a try if you haven't done yet! > I have used it in the past, when Windows moved away from boot.ini. That was probably XP, so about twenty years ago. I believe using it to write currently requires booting to Safe Mode, and if I've got to reboot, it might as well be to the Debian install disc/USB. Having got to chroot, I just use the up-arrow and it remembers the efibootmgr command I used last time. I haven't looked for a while, if it's possible to set NextBoot from normal Windows it would be worth doing. -- Joe
Set UEFI boot target with Windows (was: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router)
Bit of a digression here, probably better not to pursue *this* on the mailing list, but... Am 30.11.2023 um 12:52 schrieb Joe: On Wed, 29 Nov 2023 18:34:30 -0500 Jeffrey Walton wrote: As I understand things, a well functioning UEFI system does not need to use GRUB. The entries for Linux and Windows will be in the UEFI boot menu, and you can boot directly using EFI variables. It's the 'well functioning' that is sometimes a problem. I have a netbook which, left to its own devices, will always boot to Windows, and cannot be made to boot to anything else from the UEFI part of whatever we're supposed to call the BIOS these days. It does not honour DefaultBoot, always resetting it to Windows, but for some reason does honour NextBoot. So once Linux is running, a script sets NextBoot to grub. Unfortunately, there's no simple way to set NextBoot from Windows, ... have you ever tried bcdedit /bootsequence In general, the built-in help of bcdedit is not bad, needs a bit of patience, though. And of course we lack the flexibility of tools such as awk or sed on Windows, to automate setting things and still remain flexible :-) On a particular system, with rather static setup, hard-coding a single bcdedit call and automatically execute that should be feasible, though. Give it a try if you haven't done yet! There seems to be a lot of problems with the EFI commands operating BIOSes properly, so I wonder if good old MS requires compliant manufacturers to get it wrong deliberately. Well... ... probably yes. But that's MS and their hardware partners for you. It's getting better the more MS loses interest in actually selling Windows. Cheers, Arno -- Arno Lehmann IT-Service Lehmann Sandstr. 6, 49080 Osnabrück
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Wed, 29 Nov 2023 18:34:30 -0500 Jeffrey Walton wrote: > > As I understand things, a well functioning UEFI system does not need > to use GRUB. The entries for Linux and Windows will be in the UEFI > boot menu, and you can boot directly using EFI variables. > It's the 'well functioning' that is sometimes a problem. I have a netbook which, left to its own devices, will always boot to Windows, and cannot be made to boot to anything else from the UEFI part of whatever we're supposed to call the BIOS these days. It does not honour DefaultBoot, always resetting it to Windows, but for some reason does honour NextBoot. So once Linux is running, a script sets NextBoot to grub. Unfortunately, there's no simple way to set NextBoot from Windows, so after the odd occasion when I run that, I need a rescue USB to get back to grub. There seems to be a lot of problems with the EFI commands operating BIOSes properly, so I wonder if good old MS requires compliant manufacturers to get it wrong deliberately. For the curious, I occasionally need to run Microchip MPLAB, the old pre-Java version which doesn't do Linux. It only just about does Windows... I used to think Serif software was buggy until I tried Microchip stuff. -- Joe
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Wed, Nov 29, 2023 at 6:17 PM Charles Curley wrote: > > On Mon, 13 Nov 2023 15:57:28 -0700 > Charles Curley wrote: > > > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > > router/gateway computer. > > Thank you all for much useful advice. I ended up with an ACEMAGIC T8 > Plus. https://www.acemagic.com/collections/minipcs/products/t8plus > > Debian 12 installed nicely, with one glitch. I had shrunk the Windows > partition in order to install Debian, but left it otherwise intact. > However the thing insisted on booting to Windows. > > To fix it, do the following: > > To make the grub bootloader active after installing Linux and GRUB, in > the firmware: > > During boot, hit escape or delete to get into the firmware. > > Security -> Secure Boot -> Enabled > > Boot -> UEFI BBS Priorities -> Debian boot option > > Save & Exit -> Save Changes and Exit > > I now get GRUB, which will boot either Debian or Windows. > > Note: Memtest86 does not appear to work. I believe that is a known > problem with UEFI machines. > > I am now busy moving network service over to the new machine. As I understand things, a well functioning UEFI system does not need to use GRUB. The entries for Linux and Windows will be in the UEFI boot menu, and you can boot directly using EFI variables. Jeff
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Mon, 13 Nov 2023 15:57:28 -0700 Charles Curley wrote: > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > router/gateway computer. Thank you all for much useful advice. I ended up with an ACEMAGIC T8 Plus. https://www.acemagic.com/collections/minipcs/products/t8plus Debian 12 installed nicely, with one glitch. I had shrunk the Windows partition in order to install Debian, but left it otherwise intact. However the thing insisted on booting to Windows. To fix it, do the following: To make the grub bootloader active after installing Linux and GRUB, in the firmware: During boot, hit escape or delete to get into the firmware. Security -> Secure Boot -> Enabled Boot -> UEFI BBS Priorities -> Debian boot option Save & Exit -> Save Changes and Exit I now get GRUB, which will boot either Debian or Windows. Note: Memtest86 does not appear to work. I believe that is a known problem with UEFI machines. I am now busy moving network service over to the new machine. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Thu, 2023-11-16 at 15:56 +0800, jeremy ardley wrote: > The FriendlyPC version run a vendor version of Debian with some packages > especially compiled for the device such as ffmpeg and graphics drivers > > Armbian is usually a bit slower in releases and produces a more > canonical Debian version with differences in the SBC specific device > drivers using dynamic overlays. Most packages are pure debian Thanks for replying. I'm just want something to act as a router, NAS using NFS, and SMTP/IMAP sever for my email. I.e. Ethernet, USB and SATA. What I have at the moment works finem its just that when Debian drops support for the armel architecture I'm going to have to fork out for new hardware, so am keeping my eye out for cheap options. Another alternative is to just build armel myself. That might work for the first release after the architecture is dropped, assuming it isn't dropped for some major region, like broken compilers etc. -- Tixy
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Thu, 2023-11-16 at 10:49 -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > > > > I'm currently running a Globalscale SheevaPlug and a DreamPlugs but > > Debian support for the old ARM architecture is likely to end soon. > > (Dropping it seems to come up each release, but so far they're > > still > > releasing for it.) > > If these can run the `armhf` port you should be fine for a few > more years. For `armel` the writing is on the wall, tho. They're armel. ARMv5 Thumb mode only. -- Tixy
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 16.11.23 16:49, Stefan Monnier wrote: My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. Are these the usual SBC setup where you have to run the vendor kernel, plus possibly other custom bits, or would pure Debian including kernel run on them? A good source of info to find out is to check the device tree files in the official kernel source code: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip you'll see lots of rk3588 boards are supported and if you look inside that board's `.dts` file you can see which parts of its hardware are actually supported by the vanilla kernel (tho this is not written in natural language, so if you're not familiar with the technical details of devicetree files it can be somewhat challenging to interpret, YMMV). I'm currently running a Globalscale SheevaPlug and a DreamPlugs but Debian support for the old ARM architecture is likely to end soon. (Dropping it seems to come up each release, but so far they're still releasing for it.) If these can run the `armhf` port you should be fine for a few more years. For `armel` the writing is on the wall, tho. Stefan I wouldn't recommend an ARM CPU. amd64 architecture is also quite energy efficient and you may avoid a lot of trouble. My thinclient needs around 10W (with 1x 2.5" SSD and 1x 2.5" HDD)
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
>> My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an >> exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for >> Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. > > Are these the usual SBC setup where you have to run the vendor kernel, > plus possibly other custom bits, or would pure Debian including kernel > run on them? A good source of info to find out is to check the device tree files in the official kernel source code: https://github.com/torvalds/linux/tree/master/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip you'll see lots of rk3588 boards are supported and if you look inside that board's `.dts` file you can see which parts of its hardware are actually supported by the vanilla kernel (tho this is not written in natural language, so if you're not familiar with the technical details of devicetree files it can be somewhat challenging to interpret, YMMV). > I'm currently running a Globalscale SheevaPlug and a DreamPlugs but > Debian support for the old ARM architecture is likely to end soon. > (Dropping it seems to come up each release, but so far they're still > releasing for it.) If these can run the `armhf` port you should be fine for a few more years. For `armel` the writing is on the wall, tho. Stefan
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 16/11/23 15:40, Tixy wrote: On Thu, 2023-11-16 at 09:04 +0800, jeremy ardley wrote: My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. Are these the usual SBC setup where you have to run the vendor kernel, plus possibly other custom bits, or would pure Debian including kernel run on them? The FriendlyPC version run a vendor version of Debian with some packages especially compiled for the device such as ffmpeg and graphics drivers Armbian is usually a bit slower in releases and produces a more canonical Debian version with differences in the SBC specific device drivers using dynamic overlays. Most packages are pure debian The Armbian kernel is a variation on Debian but you can cross compile it on an X86 debian system if you need specific kernal mods - though generally the Armbian kernel doesn't need any changes. This is from my Armbian Router using my fastest mirror which is in Singapore root@edge:/etc/apt# cat sources.list #deb cdrom:[Debian GNU/Linux 12.0.0 _Bookworm_ - Official amd64 DVD Binary-1 with firmware 20230610-10:23]/ bookworm main non-free-firm> deb http://mirror.djvg.sg/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware deb-src http://mirror.djvg.sg/debian/ bookworm main non-free-firmware deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main non-free-firmware # bookworm-updates, to get updates before a point release is made; # see https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_updates_and_backports deb http://mirror.djvg.sg/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware deb-src http://mirror.djvg.sg/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free-firmware deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free root@edge:/etc/apt/sources.list.d# cat armbian.list deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/armbian.gpg] http://apt.armbian.com bookworm main bookworm-utils bookworm-desktop
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Thu, 2023-11-16 at 09:04 +0800, jeremy ardley wrote: > My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an > exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for > Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. Are these the usual SBC setup where you have to run the vendor kernel, plus possibly other custom bits, or would pure Debian including kernel run on them? I'm currently running a Globalscale SheevaPlug and a DreamPlugs but Debian support for the old ARM architecture is likely to end soon. (Dropping it seems to come up each release, but so far they're still releasing for it.) -- Tixy
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 16/11/23 10:15, Charles Curley wrote: On Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:04:55 +0800 jeremy ardley wrote: My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. They can provide a network storage service as well as a highly capable firewall Ipv4/IPv6 function,with DNS, DHCP, mail gateway, VPN gateway etc. These things cost under $100USD including a nice heatsink case and 8-16GB RAM. Nice. Can you point me at any specific vendors? I found the four US vendors mentioned in https://pcengines.ch/order.htm. You've already mentioned Friendly Elec. https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/category=69 The FriendlyElec boards are the most suitable as they have two or more LAN interfaces. Alternatives are possible if you use a USB3 to LAN adaptor, so OrangePi and Rock Pi are options. The Orange Pi 5 is getting a lot of interest, but spec wise the FriendlyElec NanoPi devices equal or out perform it plus have multiple LAN If I was after just a router I'd look at the NanoPi R6C https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product=69_id=291 or for a DMZ implementation with 3 LAN, NanoPi R6S https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product=69_id=289 - which breaks the $100 barrier You can even go down a notch and look at the R5 and R4 series, but the price difference is not that great If you want a full fledged PC with inbuilt PCIe NVME Drive and two LANS and plugabble wifi the NanoPC-T6 fits the bill. https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/product=69_id=292 (I have a T6 for development work, a M4V2 for a lan server, and an R4 for router)
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Thu, 16 Nov 2023 09:04:55 +0800 jeremy ardley wrote: > My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an > exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options > for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. They can provide a > network storage service as well as a highly capable firewall > Ipv4/IPv6 function,with DNS, DHCP, mail gateway, VPN gateway etc. > > These things cost under $100USD including a nice heatsink case and > 8-16GB RAM. Nice. Can you point me at any specific vendors? I found the four US vendors mentioned in https://pcengines.ch/order.htm. You've already mentioned Friendly Elec. https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/category=69 -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 14/11/23 08:42, Dan Ritter wrote: I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Firewall-Appliance-HUNSN-Barebone-Storage/dp/B0B53MKZBX/ (4 x 2.5Gb NICs, N5105 CPU) -- I paid about $250 including 16GB RAM and a 500GB SSD. Works very nicely. For about $70 less you can get them with 2x 2.5Gb instead of 4; for a little more money you can get up to 5x 2.5Gb NICs. You can add wifi via a miniPCIe slot; I didn't bother. There are The reality is that for a basic router function you don't need very much hardware and certainly don't need fans. All the commercial Chinese routers demonstrate that. I've seen various comments on this thread advocating for NUC devices with and without fans. In my view they are way overkill. I have progressed over a couple of decades with different fanless router technology starting with PCengines (current product is the APU2 https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm ) Since then I have used a variety of Chinese ARM based SBC computers with RAM as low as 512K. I changed them as networking speed increased and the current generations are now capable of running multiple 2.5G LAN interfaces and usually have USB3 interfaces and often HDMI Some of them also provide inbuilt PCIe M.2 drive slots that run at very impressive transfer speeds. My current favourites are RK3588 based CPU SBC devices which have an exceptionally fast set of CPUs, high speed networking, and options for Debian or Ubuntu or OpenWRT or Armbian. They can provide a network storage service as well as a highly capable firewall Ipv4/IPv6 function,with DNS, DHCP, mail gateway, VPN gateway etc. These things cost under $100USD including a nice heatsink case and 8-16GB RAM. Incidentally I live in Australia and don't have airconditioning and it gets up to 35C inside some days. The units I use have never gone into thermal shutdown.
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 11/15/23 18:37, Alexander V. Makartsev wrote: On 16.11.2023 03:46, Charles Curley wrote: On Thu, 16 Nov 2023 01:58:05 +0500 "Alexander V. Makartsev" wrote: 16 years is a good amount of value. :) Is it Pentium 4 on ITX motherboard? Nope. FIT-PC, first iteration. Processor is an AMD Geode SBC. https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=c256a73072 https://www.compulab.com/products/computer-on-modules/cm-iglx/#specs x86 CPU 500Mhz, DDR1, IDE ATA-100, 100Mbit NIC and only 3-5W. Cool stuff. I've never seen them in the wild. And dis-interesting also is that the Pricing etc list has zero prices. Cheers, Gene Heskett. -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 16.11.2023 03:46, Charles Curley wrote: On Thu, 16 Nov 2023 01:58:05 +0500 "Alexander V. Makartsev" wrote: 16 years is a good amount of value. :) Is it Pentium 4 on ITX motherboard? Nope. FIT-PC, first iteration. Processor is an AMD Geode SBC. https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=c256a73072 https://www.compulab.com/products/computer-on-modules/cm-iglx/#specs x86 CPU 500Mhz, DDR1, IDE ATA-100, 100Mbit NIC and only 3-5W. Cool stuff. I've never seen them in the wild. -- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Thu, 16 Nov 2023 01:58:05 +0500 "Alexander V. Makartsev" wrote: > 16 years is a good amount of value. :) > Is it Pentium 4 on ITX motherboard? Nope. FIT-PC, first iteration. Processor is an AMD Geode SBC. https://linux-hardware.org/?probe=c256a73072 I did buy a spare hard drive for each, and I think all four of those are in use. At the time 80 Gig hard drives were cheaper than the 60 Gig ones that came with the computers, so I got a mild upgrade. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 15.11.2023 18:47, Charles Curley wrote: On Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:31:52 +0500 "Alexander V. Makartsev" wrote: On 15.11.2023 07:56, Stefan Monnier wrote: [...] [...] I wrote that email as a word of caution, because Roberto had mentioned he is looking for the device with the same conditions as OP, which is "no fans". And this model will be very noisy at all times. How do you figure that it will be noisy at all times? I saw noting in the specifications or reviews that indicated that. Are you talking about Neosmay based on i7-1260P CPU? Like I said previously there are no reviews that would show temperatures under load and no disassembly videos that will show the thermal solution. IMO the reason for that is simple, to keep it quiet about inconvenient technicalities and to sell sub-optimal product. Specifications for this CPU shows a requirement of a good thermal solution, which should be adequately large\noisy for this form factor. [...] And this is why there is no reason to have high power CPU inside. I expect the CPU temperature to be at 98 degrees Celsius at all times and constant throttling under minimal load. Yikes! None of my machines gets anywhere near that. The fan cooled CPUs on my desktop are in the 26-32° range right now (early morning, no load). The machine I am typing this on, a laptop, is reporting core temps of 44° and 50° right now. All consider high to be ~~86°, with critical near 98°. (Data courtesy of the sensors program.) None of my personal machines either. It all depends on specifications for each individual piece of hardware. My desktop has Skylake CPU rated at 65W Base TDP and cooled by tower-style heatsink with 4 heatpipes rated at 130W TDP. Idle, small load temps are 28-32°C, busy workloads: 4 cores compiling, 7-zip compression, video rendering, maxes out at 70°C in Summer. There is also a netbook, I use it on rare occasion, it has 6.5W Atom CPU and Nvidia ION discrete VGA. It has heatsinks for both Intel SoC and Nvidia chipset with heatpipes and a cooling fan, and it is incapable of overheating even under high load, because of low power CPU. This netbook is painfully slow, it has quite noisy small fan, but temperatures are maxed out at 50°C. The thing is desktops and laptops could have much better thermal solution simply because there is space inside for it. Now let's look at thermal solutions of Intel NUCs [1] [2] for an example. They look similar to what you could see inside a laptop, except in both cases there is only a small heatsink and two heatpipes. VRM zone is cooled by air which is not great. First photo depicts thermal solution for i5-10210U processor [3] which is rated at 15W TDP, or 10-25W base frequency. Second photo depicts thermal solution for i7-1165G7 processor [4] which is rated at 12-28W base frequency. Both thermal solutions show sub-par performance under load, because there are multiple complains about overheating NUCs on the Internet. Most of the solutions for the complaints either a cleanup from dust or set a power limit via BIOS, or both. There is a fan-less case [5] for NUCs is available, which looks reasonable, basically a brick of aluminum, but even then they are rated 25W TDP maximum and it is required from user to set BIOS settings to power limit CPU to 25W. And that's about widely distributed and supported NUCs from Intel. Now lets take a look at Newsmay Neosmay products. Odd naming. We can't find any photos of disassembled products on Newsmay official website [6]. There is one good review of S2-B560TPM mini PC [7] with photos of it disassembled. And there it is, same two heatpipes and a heatsink with a fan. As shown in the review, even with slightly larger case size, they couldn't manage to design adequate cooling solution for i5-11400T desktop CPU [8] which is rated 35W TDP, although there are additional heatsinks covering VRM zone, which is a plus. It looks like a good thermal solution for a 10-15W TDP CPU and that is it. So once again, what is the point to have high power CPU inside (and pay more for it also), if because of inadequate thermal solutions you have to power limit it to base frequency, or suffer from constant throttling under load, noise and other consequences of overheating, such as reduced lifetime of the device? What good will it be if with high probability the device will burn out in 3 months? Indeed. I've gotten 16 years out of my FIT-PCs so far and would like to get a respectable portion of that out of their replacement. 16 years is a good amount of value. :) Is it Pentium 4 on ITX motherboard? Nowadays they don't make them like before, and it is so hard to buy something decent. Everything is power hungry, working at insane frequency speeds; tiny ICs are more fragile and susceptible to overheating; BGA SoCs with hundreds of leads on thin PCBs prone to deformation; lead-free solder and all that other planned obsolescence dance.. [1] https://nucblog.ne
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:31:52 +0500 "Alexander V. Makartsev" wrote: > On 15.11.2023 07:56, Stefan Monnier wrote: > [...] > [...] > I wrote that email as a word of caution, because Roberto had > mentioned he is looking for the device with the same conditions as > OP, which is "no fans". > And this model will be very noisy at all times. How do you figure that it will be noisy at all times? I saw noting in the specifications or reviews that indicated that. > > [...] > And this is why there is no reason to have high power CPU inside. > I expect the CPU temperature to be at 98 degrees Celsius at all times > and constant throttling under minimal load. Yikes! None of my machines gets anywhere near that. The fan cooled CPUs on my desktop are in the 26-32° range right now (early morning, no load). The machine I am typing this on, a laptop, is reporting core temps of 44° and 50° right now. All consider high to be ~~86°, with critical near 98°. (Data courtesy of the sensors program.) > What good will it be if with high probability the device will burn > out in 3 months? Indeed. I've gotten 16 years out of my FIT-PCs so far and would like to get a respectable portion of that out of their replacement. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 15.11.2023 07:56, Stefan Monnier wrote: This looks too good to be true and raises many red flags. According to Intel specs [1] for this processor it's 28W of heat to dissipate and that is Base Power only, Turbo Boost is whooping 64W(!). IMO it is impossible to do with fan-less design at this small size, so there will be at least small fan running at full speed at all time and there has to be quite beefy heatsink also. The marketing material does say fairly clearly that there's a fan inside (it even boasts of it being "efficient" and "low noise", mentioning "45db"). I wrote that email as a word of caution, because Roberto had mentioned he is looking for the device with the same conditions as OP, which is "no fans". And this model will be very noisy at all times. Also my understanding is that this CPU is like the one in many NUCs which means that its 4.7GHz turbo mode can be used only for *very* short bursts, so it may be unnecessary to size the heatsink for the full 64W as long as it can withstand it for a long enough "short burst". And this is why there is no reason to have high power CPU inside. I expect the CPU temperature to be at 98 degrees Celsius at all times and constant throttling under minimal load. There is also VRM zone often neglected, most likely it will be air cooled (without heatsink) with temperatures close to 100C at all times and there is a limit of how much heat a PCB could dissipate until carbonation. Even NVMe SSD and RAM generate substantial amounts of heat and I doubt this device has the same design as NUC that has extra heatsink under the top cover. What good will it be if with high probability the device will burn out in 3 months? Note they also offer a fanless system with somewhat similar specs for $100 more. That sounds a lot more atttractive to my ears. Intel NUC with the same CPU [1] and fan cooling, draws 40-90W from PSU and struggle with throttling, overheating and noise. And NUCs are usually expected to have much better thermal solution design than its clones. If I needed a fan-less PC of this form factor I'd look for 10-15W low power CPUs and refused to buy anything if there is no video review of it, with complete disassembly and temperatures under load, or at least a complete service manual with accurate pictures of components. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZbYSUwvea0 -- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
> This looks too good to be true and raises many red flags. > According to Intel specs [1] for this processor it's 28W of heat to > dissipate and that is Base Power only, Turbo Boost is whooping 64W(!). > IMO it is impossible to do with fan-less design at this small size, so there > will be at least small fan running at full speed at all time and there has > to be quite beefy heatsink also. The marketing material does say fairly clearly that there's a fan inside (it even boasts of it being "efficient" and "low noise", mentioning "45db"). Also my understanding is that this CPU is like the one in many NUCs which means that its 4.7GHz turbo mode can be used only for *very* short bursts, so it may be unnecessary to size the heatsink for the full 64W as long as it can withstand it for a long enough "short burst". Note they also offer a fanless system with somewhat similar specs for $100 more. That sounds a lot more atttractive to my ears. Stefan
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
Roberto C. Sánchez wrote: > On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 03:57:28PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: > > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > > router/gateway computer. > > > > It should run Debian. > > > > It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or > > have suitable expansion capability. > > > > It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small > > physical footprint would be nice. > > > > Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need > > to stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. > > > > It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng > > and firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. > > > > WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. > > > > SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE > > spinning rust. > > > I am in the process of solving almost the exact same problem. At the > moment, this is my leading candidate: > https://www.newegg.com/neosmay-kc12-alder-lake/p/2SW-006Y-00074 > > In my case, I also use my router as a backup server, so I wanted dual > storage. If you can get by without that, then this much cheaper > machine might work for you: > https://www.newegg.com/p/2SW-006Y-00079 > > I haven't purchased either one yet, but I plan to purchase the first > in the coming weeks. The price of the first one goes up in 5 days, so don't leave it weeks! > Regards, > > -Roberto >
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 14.11.23 10:45, Anssi Saari wrote: Charles Curley writes: My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a router/gateway computer. I built a router with an APUD4D board and case from pcengines.ch. They're going out of production but are currently available. I put Debian on mine and love it to bits. It's been quite some fun too setting up failover via LTE and enabling IPv6 using 6rd tunneling but that stuff is extra. To your specs, there's no video, just serial console and ethernet of course. Wifi and LTE are optional, storage is mSATA SSD. From memory, power consumption is about 9W, the case is used as a heat sink to dissipate that. I have a Fujitsu Futro s920 (the model with 2x2.2 GHz) with a 4-port Gbit NIC and a Mini PCIE to SATA adapter for RAID and 16GB RAM. Round about 170€ without HDD/SSD
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
Charles Curley writes: > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > router/gateway computer. I built a router with an APUD4D board and case from pcengines.ch. They're going out of production but are currently available. I put Debian on mine and love it to bits. It's been quite some fun too setting up failover via LTE and enabling IPv6 using 6rd tunneling but that stuff is extra. To your specs, there's no video, just serial console and ethernet of course. Wifi and LTE are optional, storage is mSATA SSD. From memory, power consumption is about 9W, the case is used as a heat sink to dissipate that.
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 14.11.2023 04:08, Roberto C. Sánchez wrote: On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 03:57:28PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a router/gateway computer. It should run Debian. It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or have suitable expansion capability. It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small physical footprint would be nice. Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE spinning rust. I am in the process of solving almost the exact same problem. At the moment, this is my leading candidate: https://www.newegg.com/neosmay-kc12-alder-lake/p/2SW-006Y-00074 This looks too good to be true and raises many red flags. According to Intel specs [1] for this processor it's 28W of heat to dissipate and that is Base Power only, Turbo Boost is whooping 64W(!). IMO it is impossible to do with fan-less design at this small size, so there will be at least small fan running at full speed at all time and there has to be quite beefy heatsink also. There are no photos of this device disassembled and fake 3D rendered pictures doesn't count. A quick search of "NEOSMAY MINI PC Disassembly" on YT gave no results, only fake reviews and useless unboxing videos. I've seen 17" laptops with much larger heatsink solutions (multiple heatpipes and fans), struggle with effective heat dissipation. [1] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/226254/intel-core-i71260p-processor-18m-cache-up-to-4-70-ghz/specifications.html -- With kindest regards, Alexander. ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org ⠈⠳⣄
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
Charles Curley wrote: > It should run Debian. > > It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or > have suitable expansion capability. > > It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small > physical footprint would be nice. > > Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to > stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. > > It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and > firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. > > WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. > > SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE > spinning rust. I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Firewall-Appliance-HUNSN-Barebone-Storage/dp/B0B53MKZBX/ (4 x 2.5Gb NICs, N5105 CPU) -- I paid about $250 including 16GB RAM and a 500GB SSD. Works very nicely. For about $70 less you can get them with 2x 2.5Gb instead of 4; for a little more money you can get up to 5x 2.5Gb NICs. You can add wifi via a miniPCIe slot; I didn't bother. There are antenna holes. -dsr-
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 5:58 PM Charles Curley wrote: > > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > router/gateway computer. > > It should run Debian. > > It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or > have suitable expansion capability. > > It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small > physical footprint would be nice. > > Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to > stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. > > It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and > firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. > > WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. > > SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE > spinning rust. It sounds like you want an all-in-one of sorts. Something with hardware+software. I don't have a recommendation for that. However, if you would like a piece of hardware that checks most of the boxes and can run whatever you like, then I recommend you look at Protectli. They make low power, fanless, mini pc's with multiple ethernet ports. You can choose between 2, 4 and 6 ports. <https://protectli.com/> and <https://www.amazon.com/stores/Protectli/page/532343EA-BBD8-4423-87A6-08A76E28A16F>. Protectli devices are typically used as firewalls. In fact, I use one running pfSense as a firewall behind my ISP's router. I am very pleased with it. On the downside, Protectli does not have open hardware design or use OpenFirmware. Those gadgets are a little harder to find. Jeff
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 03:57:28PM -0700, Charles Curley wrote: > My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 > Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a > router/gateway computer. > > It should run Debian. > > It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or > have suitable expansion capability. > > It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small > physical footprint would be nice. > > Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to > stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. > > It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and > firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. > > WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. > > SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE > spinning rust. > I am in the process of solving almost the exact same problem. At the moment, this is my leading candidate: https://www.newegg.com/neosmay-kc12-alder-lake/p/2SW-006Y-00074 In my case, I also use my router as a backup server, so I wanted dual storage. If you can get by without that, then this much cheaper machine might work for you: https://www.newegg.com/p/2SW-006Y-00079 I haven't purchased either one yet, but I plan to purchase the first in the coming weeks. Regards, -Roberto -- Roberto C. Sánchez
Re: Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
On 14/11/23 06:57, Charles Curley wrote: My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a router/gateway computer. It should run Debian. It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or have suitable expansion capability. It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small physical footprint would be nice. Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE spinning rust. I use FriendlyElec devices that match all your requirements. You just have to load and configure the software yourself. Current examples include NanoPi R6C for a simple router or NanoPi R6S if you want to run a DMZ LAN as well as an internal LAN. They all have 2.5Gbit ethernet out of the box. https://www.friendlyelec.com/index.php?route=product/category=69
Hardware Advice Wanted: Router
My FIT-PCs that provide network services are getting old, and i386 Linux is slowly fading away. So I would like to replace them with a router/gateway computer. It should run Debian. It should either have two gigabit (or better) Ethernet interfaces or have suitable expansion capability. It should be quiet: no fans, and low power requirements. A small physical footprint would be nice. Most of the time it will run headless, but occasionally I will need to stick a monitor and keyboard on it. VGA will do fine. It will be a router. It will have at least DNS, DHCP, apt-cacher-ng and firewalld on it. Modest disk and RAM will be fine. WiFi is handled elsewhere for now, but I won't turn it down. SSD for storage would be nice, although the FIT-PCs do fine with IDE spinning rust. -- Does anybody read signatures any more? https://charlescurley.com https://charlescurley.com/blog/
Re: Linux supprt (was: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?])
On Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 7:48 AM Stefan Monnier wrote: > > >> Indeed, technically-inclined people are often better served with Free > >> Software, and Free Software can also be a great choice for large > >> corporations who can either have on-site techsupport people or can hire > >> external support, but it is a lot more difficult to find commercial > >> support for merely non-techie user. This is mostly the domain of > >> proprietary software :-( > > > > The way out of this is having strong local user groups, which is, > > of course, easier in densely populated areas. > > I think this still only covers a small fraction of the problem. > It just lowers the bar of the "technically-inclined" limit. > I think many more people just want to have someone they can call on > the phone to help them get through their yearly technical problem. In my experience I get much better support from the user community of an open source product then I get from paid support of a commercial product. Frequently I know more about the product than the person I am dealing with.
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
Anssi Saari [2023-11-13 12:34:13] wrote: > Stefan Monnier writes: >> My home NAS is in a completely different category: >> an ARM SBC with on-board SATA. Much smaller, extremely quiet (no fan), >> and between 5W and 10W of power consumption depending on whether it's >> mostly idle (the overwhelmingly common case) or not. > So which ARM SBC and does it run stock Debian? And how many SATA ports? In my case, I'm currently using a BananaPi at one place and at the other I upgraded to an ODroid-M1. In both cases there's only a single SATA port (tho the ODroid has an nvme-M2 port as well which I'm not currently using). The ODroid-M1 is the main "backup server" and the other holds my backup's backup. Both run stock Debian stable (in both cases the installation was manual/tricky rather than via debian-installer :-( ). None of the services they provide are sufficiently important to require something like RAID, which makes things easier. And yes, I've had problems with the BananaPi's power supply (I had to try various power blocks *and* cables until finding ones good enough for reliable operation :-( ). The ODroid's power supply seems significantly better in this respect. Stefan
Linux supprt (was: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?])
>> Indeed, technically-inclined people are often better served with Free >> Software, and Free Software can also be a great choice for large >> corporations who can either have on-site techsupport people or can hire >> external support, but it is a lot more difficult to find commercial >> support for merely non-techie user. This is mostly the domain of >> proprietary software :-( > > The way out of this is having strong local user groups, which is, > of course, easier in densely populated areas. I think this still only covers a small fraction of the problem. It just lowers the bar of the "technically-inclined" limit. I think many more people just want to have someone they can call on the phone to help them get through their yearly technical problem. Stefan
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
Stefan Monnier writes: > My home NAS is in a completely different category: > an ARM SBC with on-board SATA. Much smaller, extremely quiet (no fan), > and between 5W and 10W of power consumption depending on whether it's > mostly idle (the overwhelmingly common case) or not. So which ARM SBC and does it run stock Debian? And how many SATA ports?
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On Sun, Nov 12, 2023 at 03:17:17PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > FOSS is great for learning by doing, but commercial products can be a better > > choice when a family member, a friend, a neighbor, and especially clients > > and employers, want a computer, a server, a network gateway, etc.. It is > > ironically satisfying when those commercial products have FOSS on the > > inside. :-) > > Indeed, technically-inclined people are often better served with Free > Software, and Free Software can also be a great choice for large > corporations who can either have on-site techsupport people or can hire > external support, but it is a lot more difficult to find commercial > support for merely non-techie user. This is mostly the domain of > proprietary software :-( The way out of this is having strong local user groups, which is, of course, easier in densely populated areas. In Berlin, e.g., there were several linux user groups which had "open days" (some even once a week) where people went with their hardware and got it fixed. And got to know nice people. Often at no cost. In the smaller city I live now there is at least one such place. Support your local free software support group :-) Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
> FOSS is great for learning by doing, but commercial products can be a better > choice when a family member, a friend, a neighbor, and especially clients > and employers, want a computer, a server, a network gateway, etc.. It is > ironically satisfying when those commercial products have FOSS on the > inside. :-) Indeed, technically-inclined people are often better served with Free Software, and Free Software can also be a great choice for large corporations who can either have on-site techsupport people or can hire external support, but it is a lot more difficult to find commercial support for merely non-techie user. This is mostly the domain of proprietary software :-( Stefan
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/12/23 09:15, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 04:01:47PM -0800, David Christensen wrote: An obvious difference between internal and external drives is physical protection. Internal drives and cables are protected. Everything gets power from the same source (PSU, PCU fed by dual PSU, etc.). External drives, cables, and power adapters can be moved, yanked, disconnected, dropped, kicked, subjected to electrostatic discharge, etc.. There are more parts to fail and more opportunities for failure with external drives than with internal drives. This is what I meant: this is why the devices from QNAP / Synology that are plug and play NAS are also built this way. The Synology devices can take lots of added modules, seemingly - it all seems expensive but these are designed for plugging in and the whole thing "just working". FOSS is great for learning by doing, but commercial products can be a better choice when a family member, a friend, a neighbor, and especially clients and employers, want a computer, a server, a network gateway, etc.. It is ironically satisfying when those commercial products have FOSS on the inside. :-) David
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/12/23 05:15, Andy Smith wrote: On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 04:01:47PM -0800, David Christensen wrote: SSD RAID10 is very impressive when everything else matches. Backups over a Gigabit LAN onto SATA III SSD RAID10 does not make sense because Gigabit Ethernet is rated for 1 Gbps read/ write and a SATA III SSD RAID10 is rated for 24 Gbps read and 12 Gbps write. I would put HDD's in the backup server and put the SSD's in the workstation. I agree with you when it comes to systems that are used purely for backups in a style that mimics tape backup, i.e. rare need for random access, which from what I understand does cover Gene's situation as Gene is used to using Amanda for backups, which is a (virtual) tape paradigm. However, especially in a home setting, people often ask more of "the server", turning it into something that isn't entirely, or even primarily, a backup server. If those uses involve random access, SSD of some kind will be very beneficial. Also there are quite a few backup technologies that do use random access a lot. A venerable one often mentioned on this list is rsnapshot or its basic implementation using rsync. This walks the entire backup tree at every iteration checking metadata and creating hardlinks. The period of time spent deciding what to back up and how often massively exceeds the time spent transferring and writing the data with these systems. They will also massively benefit from low latency storage on SSD. So just as a word of caution -- and I know you know this, David -- I want to say check how much random access is going on, before deciding rotational media will cut it. I think we agree that HDD's are slower for many (most?) backup/ restore use-cases. But, I think the slowness is acceptable for the off-hours, once a day backup use-case and for the infrequent file restore use-case that I anticipate Gene will perform. PS I stated this before and I have to say it again though: while building a dedicated backup system seems like a great idea for Gene's use case, the practical situation for Gene is that he's been trying for literal years now to make a very simple RAID10 mdadm work on perfectly serviceable hardware. This should be a simple task, but it's not gone well for him and this list is unable to get to the bottom of why (I include myself in that, but I think it reflects more on communications difficulties than a shortcoming of Linux mdadm). There appears to be consensus to set up one storage device with one partition and one ext4 file system, and test the various applications for file access issues. It is up to Gene to decide if, what, where, when, and how. I am at a loss as to why, given those facts, people are still advising Gene to build an entire new system out of parts. It makes sense for the use case but not for the user. I don't think it's supportable. For this user I would have to still stand by my advice of buying an off-the-shelf NAS. I think we agree that everyone needs backups. It is my impression that most of Gene's eggs are in one basket (the computer with the Asus Prime Z370 A II motherboard) and that Amanda has been broken for a while (?). I would celebrate Gene implementing working backups by any means on any device and any media. Again, Gene decides. David
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 04:01:47PM -0800, David Christensen wrote: > On 11/11/23 08:52, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: > > On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 10:22:07PM -0500, gene heskett wrote: > > > On 11/10/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote: > > > > On 11/8/23 02:20, gene heskett wrote: > > > > Are these 2TB SSDs or hard disks? I would counsel very strongly indeed > > against using any ARM-based single board computer as a RAID device on > > USB connections - they're just *not* up to it. > This at least partly because the USB devices on, say, a Raspberry Pi tend to share I/O and resources. On a Pi, USB3 takes away from the Ethernet, for example. > > On 11/11/23 09:05, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > I don't think the issue is whether they're ARM based. > > > > The issue is simply how you connect the disks: in my experience, disks > > connected via USB are simply not quite up to a 24/7 situation, > > especially if the disk is USB-powered. > Right. > > > > > I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a > > powered USB hub. > > SSD significantly different to HDD. > > > On 11/11/23 10:47, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either > > and the real issue is the power? > > > An obvious difference between internal and external drives is physical > protection. Internal drives and cables are protected. Everything gets > power from the same source (PSU, PCU fed by dual PSU, etc.). External > drives, cables, and power adapters can be moved, yanked, disconnected, > dropped, kicked, subjected to electrostatic discharge, etc.. There are more > parts to fail and more opportunities for failure with external drives than > with internal drives. > This is what I meant: this is why the devices from QNAP / Synology that are plug and play NAS are also built this way. The Synology devices can take lots of added modules, seemingly - it all seems expensive but these are designed for plugging in and the whole thing "just working". > > It is not uncommon for communications establishment to fail with external > drives. Similarly, communications re-establishment when the computer and/or > drive resume from a power saving mode. Writing and testing this kind of > software is difficult and you need people with both both CS and EE skills. > There is an astronomical number of combinations to design and test for. The > code runs rarely. For reliable 24x365 operations, the challenge is > eliminating everything that can cause communications establishment/ > re-establishment -- operator steps, computer configuration, drive > configuration, power failures, cooling failures, etc.. If you can find and > eliminate all of them, a USB external drive can stay connected a very long > time. > *If* is very much the word, I think. > > > I have always liked ATX tower cases with lots of drive bays, both internal > and external. Over time, more products have become available with good > cooling and low noise. I have not found a major computer manufacturer who > makes servers with all of those features, so I build my own: > > * Fractal Design Define R5 case > * 3 @ Fractal Design low-speed 140 mm fans > * Fractal Design Ion+ 2 Platinum 660 W power supply > * Intel S1200V3RP motherboard > * Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 series processors > * Dual channel ECC memory > * LSI 9207-8i HBA with "IT mode" non-RAID firmware > * Seagate Barracuda and Constellation ES.2 HDD's > * Intel 520 Series SSD's > * StarTech 2.5" and 3.5" mobile racks > * Cable Matters black SATA 6 Gbps cables with locking connectors > > > They are not cheap, small, or light, but they perform well, are easy to work > on, are reasonably quiet, and everything stays cool. They have plenty of > capacity for future upgrades. > Nice parts list and good suggestions. > > > SSD RAID10 is very impressive when everything else matches. Backups over a > Gigabit LAN onto SATA III SSD RAID10 does not make sense because Gigabit > Ethernet is rated for 1 Gbps read/ write and a SATA III SSD RAID10 is rated > for 24 Gbps read and 12 Gbps write. I would put HDD's in the backup server > and put the SSD's in the workstation. > > > David > there's no doubt that you can do the same with some ARM boards - maybe the RockPro which has PCIe?? but not with the majority. Anyway, let's leave folks to build what works for them: the one thing I've learned from much of this list is that we're all unique in our requirements, even if we have much in common. All the very best, as ever, Andy
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
Hello, On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 04:01:47PM -0800, David Christensen wrote: > SSD RAID10 is very impressive when everything else matches. Backups over a > Gigabit LAN onto SATA III SSD RAID10 does not make sense because Gigabit > Ethernet is rated for 1 Gbps read/ write and a SATA III SSD RAID10 is rated > for 24 Gbps read and 12 Gbps write. I would put HDD's in the backup server > and put the SSD's in the workstation. I agree with you when it comes to systems that are used purely for backups in a style that mimics tape backup, i.e. rare need for random access, which from what I understand does cover Gene's situation as Gene is used to using Amanda for backups, which is a (virtual) tape paradigm. However, especially in a home setting, people often ask more of "the server", turning it into something that isn't entirely, or even primarily, a backup server. If those uses involve random access, SSD of some kind will be very beneficial. Also there are quite a few backup technologies that do use random access a lot. A venerable one often mentioned on this list is rsnapshot or its basic implementation using rsync. This walks the entire backup tree at every iteration checking metadata and creating hardlinks. The period of time spent deciding what to back up and how often massively exceeds the time spent transferring and writing the data with these systems. They will also massively benefit from low latency storage on SSD. So just as a word of caution -- and I know you know this, David -- I want to say check how much random access is going on, before deciding rotational media will cut it. Thanks, Andy PS I stated this before and I have to say it again though: while building a dedicated backup system seems like a great idea for Gene's use case, the practical situation for Gene is that he's been trying for literal years now to make a very simple RAID10 mdadm work on perfectly serviceable hardware. This should be a simple task, but it's not gone well for him and this list is unable to get to the bottom of why (I include myself in that, but I think it reflects more on communications difficulties than a shortcoming of Linux mdadm). I am at a loss as to why, given those facts, people are still advising Gene to build an entire new system out of parts. It makes sense for the use case but not for the user. I don't think it's supportable. For this user I would have to still stand by my advice of buying an off-the-shelf NAS. -- https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
> I have always liked ATX tower cases with lots of drive bays, both internal > and external. Over time, more products have become available with good > cooling and low noise. I have not found a major computer manufacturer who > makes servers with all of those features, so I build my own: > > * Fractal Design Define R5 case > * 3 @ Fractal Design low-speed 140 mm fans > * Fractal Design Ion+ 2 Platinum 660 W power supply > * Intel S1200V3RP motherboard > * Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 series processors > * Dual channel ECC memory > * LSI 9207-8i HBA with "IT mode" non-RAID firmware > * Seagate Barracuda and Constellation ES.2 HDD's > * Intel 520 Series SSD's > * StarTech 2.5" and 3.5" mobile racks > * Cable Matters black SATA 6 Gbps cables with locking connectors My home NAS is in a completely different category: an ARM SBC with on-board SATA. Much smaller, extremely quiet (no fan), and between 5W and 10W of power consumption depending on whether it's mostly idle (the overwhelmingly common case) or not. Stefan
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/11/23 08:52, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote: On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 10:22:07PM -0500, gene heskett wrote: On 11/10/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote: On 11/8/23 02:20, gene heskett wrote: And I just looked at tht pair, and acc gparted they have both been pvcreated, so I'll leave then alone and steal the dvd cable, puttin a new 2T drive if I can rig power to it. As I previously suggested, and as you previously seemed agreeable to, I think you should stop working on the Asus and build a backup server. I'm thinking of making a slow one out of a headless bananapi-5 with a 2T on every usb3 port as a raid, type to be determined, I rather like the idea of parity being striped across all 4 disks. I have the drives but not sure of the usb-sata adapters, need to goto the garage and retrieve that box. That, and there's only one of me ;o)> And me is 89 yo with a worn out body. A pacemaker and some new parts in my heart too. Are these 2TB SSDs or hard disks? I would counsel very strongly indeed against using any ARM-based single board computer as a RAID device on USB connections - they're just *not* up to it. On 11/11/23 09:05, Stefan Monnier wrote: > I don't think the issue is whether they're ARM based. > > The issue is simply how you connect the disks: in my experience, disks > connected via USB are simply not quite up to a 24/7 situation, > especially if the disk is USB-powered. On 11/11/23 09:37, Pocket wrote: > I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, > zero issues. > > The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. > > I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a > powered USB hub. > > One of those drives contains the boot and root filesystems. > > BTW that particular RPI4 runs 24/7 as it is my name server, email > server, web server and backup server for my network. > > It has an uptime of 18 months. On 11/11/23 10:47, Stefan Monnier wrote: > Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either > and the real issue is the power? An obvious difference between internal and external drives is physical protection. Internal drives and cables are protected. Everything gets power from the same source (PSU, PCU fed by dual PSU, etc.). External drives, cables, and power adapters can be moved, yanked, disconnected, dropped, kicked, subjected to electrostatic discharge, etc.. There are more parts to fail and more opportunities for failure with external drives than with internal drives. It is not uncommon for communications establishment to fail with external drives. Similarly, communications re-establishment when the computer and/or drive resume from a power saving mode. Writing and testing this kind of software is difficult and you need people with both both CS and EE skills. There is an astronomical number of combinations to design and test for. The code runs rarely. For reliable 24x365 operations, the challenge is eliminating everything that can cause communications establishment/ re-establishment -- operator steps, computer configuration, drive configuration, power failures, cooling failures, etc.. If you can find and eliminate all of them, a USB external drive can stay connected a very long time. Get a cheap barebones system that you add memory to in a small-ish size case with SATA cables to motherboard ports that's Intel/AMD based that you can then put disks into to format. If you can't get a barebones, at least get a second hand machine in a tower case. I have always liked ATX tower cases with lots of drive bays, both internal and external. Over time, more products have become available with good cooling and low noise. I have not found a major computer manufacturer who makes servers with all of those features, so I build my own: * Fractal Design Define R5 case * 3 @ Fractal Design low-speed 140 mm fans * Fractal Design Ion+ 2 Platinum 660 W power supply * Intel S1200V3RP motherboard * Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 series processors * Dual channel ECC memory * LSI 9207-8i HBA with "IT mode" non-RAID firmware * Seagate Barracuda and Constellation ES.2 HDD's * Intel 520 Series SSD's * StarTech 2.5" and 3.5" mobile racks * Cable Matters black SATA 6 Gbps cables with locking connectors They are not cheap, small, or light, but they perform well, are easy to work on, are reasonably quiet, and everything stays cool. They have plenty of capacity for future upgrades. Build a simple Debian system on one disk there to format other disks :) I put my Debian and FreeBSD instances on a single 2.5" SATA SSD. I keep them small -- 1 GB boot, 1 GB swap, and 12 GB root. I keep my system configuration files and working files in a version control system (CVS). Once you've built a simple Debian system there, you can add mdadm RAID and use it as a backup storage device to copy off your /home and so on. For my file server and backup server, primary storage is a ZFS stripe of HDD mirrors (e.g. RAID10) with
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
Jeffrey Walton wrote: > >From what I've read when comparing OpenMediaVault vs TrueNAS, it > usually comes down to the power consumption of the mini computer/mini > pc. 5W can save you $100 USD per year. Probably more now due to > inflation. 5W * 24h/D * 30 D/M * 12M/Y = 43200 Wh, or 43.2KWh per year If a KWh costs you: then 43.2KWh is: Massachusetts: 32c $13.82 California: 30c $12.96 Florida:15c $ 6.48 Germany:42c $18.14 Denmark:37c $15.98 United Kingdom: 33c $14.26 So you need between 25 and 75W of 24/7 power usage to get to $100 US of savings in a year. A spinning disk draws about 7W. An SSD draws about 0.05W when asleep, 1.5W in "active idle", and up to 8W during writes. -dsr-
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 6:20 PM Dan Ritter wrote: > > Jeffrey Walton wrote: > > >From what I've read when comparing OpenMediaVault vs TrueNAS, it > > usually comes down to the power consumption of the mini computer/mini > > pc. 5W can save you $100 USD per year. Probably more now due to > > inflation. > > > 5W * 24h/D * 30 D/M * 12M/Y = 43200 Wh, or 43.2KWh per year > > If a KWh costs you: then 43.2KWh is: > Massachusetts: 32c $13.82 > California: 30c $12.96 > Florida:15c $ 6.48 > Germany:42c $18.14 > Denmark:37c $15.98 > United Kingdom: 33c $14.26 > > So you need between 25 and 75W of 24/7 power usage to get to > $100 US of savings in a year. Right. Some can get into the 60W range, so you have to be careful about what is being selected. > A spinning disk draws about 7W. An SSD draws about 0.05W when > asleep, 1.5W in "active idle", and up to 8W during writes. Jeff
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/11/23 15:41, Pocket wrote: On 11/11/23 13:47, Stefan Monnier wrote: I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, zero issues. The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a powered USB hub. Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either and the real issue is the power? I'm forced to agree. The wall wart supplied with the pi kits is rather under powered. I don't run them on less than a 5 volt 5 amp supply, and like pocket, they only get rebooted when needsreboot says so after an update. In 7 or so years of running a Sheldon lathe built in the 1940's, first with an rpi3b which was pushed a bit and an rpi4b that doesn't even breath hard, for at last 4, maybe 5 years, I've had one unscheduled reboot. That I think is about 100x better uptime than I'm averaging running the same linuxcnc software on wintel stuff. That 5 volt, 5 amp supply is powering 5 other interfacing boards to get the job done. One of its jobs is running a clone of the linuxcnc.org buildbot. It Just Works... Stefan That would be my best guess also Cheers, Gene Heskett. -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On Sat, Nov 11, 2023 at 1:48 PM Stefan Monnier wrote: > > > I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, > > zero issues. > > The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. > > I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a powered > > USB hub. > > Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either and > the real issue is the power? >From what I've read when comparing OpenMediaVault vs TrueNAS, it usually comes down to the power consumption of the mini computer/mini pc. 5W can save you $100 USD per year. Probably more now due to inflation. But the use cases they discuss often includes transcoding of video streams, which I don't think is needed in the case of backups. See, for example, <https://www.androidauthority.com/cheap-diy-nas-server-3348392/>. Related, I am getting ready to standup a NAS for my home network. (Currently I'm doing some half-ass file sharing). The enclosure hardware on the short list are <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08CN4Z4PC/> and <https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y3WDHLD>. The mini computer the enclosure will be attached to will be USB 3.1 or 3.2 capable for 10 GB/s or 20 GB/s throughput. Eventually my network will need to be upgraded to at least 2.5 GB/s to take advantage of the throughput. I'm waiting for prices to drop a bit. 2.5 GB/s and 5.0 GB/s network cards, switches and Cat 8 cables are still a bit expensive. Jeff
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/11/23 13:47, Stefan Monnier wrote: I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, zero issues. The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a powered USB hub. Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either and the real issue is the power? Stefan That would be my best guess also -- It's not easy to be me
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
> I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, > zero issues. > The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. > I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a powered > USB hub. Hmm... so maybe the USB connection is not directly relevant either and the real issue is the power? Stefan
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On 11/11/23 12:05, Stefan Monnier wrote: Are these 2TB SSDs or hard disks? I would counsel very strongly indeed against using any ARM-based single board computer as a RAID device on USB connections - they're just *not* up to it. I don't think the issue is whether they're ARM based. The issue is simply how you connect the disks: in my experience, disks connected via USB are simply not quite up to a 24/7 situation, especially if the disk is USB-powered. Stefan I have used ssd drives connected to a RPI4 ever since the 4 came out, zero issues. The RPI4's boot from the ssd drives. I have 4 SSD drives connected to a single RPI4 currently, using a powered USB hub. One of those drives contains the boot and root filesystems. BTW that particular RPI4 runs 24/7 as it is my name server, email server, web server and backup server for my network. It has an uptime of 18 months. -- It's not easy to be me
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
just my two sense not advice or promotion i've used this device for about 2.5 years with 6tb harddrives in raid 1 i have partitions on the raid for the os, debian, and the rest for backups no problems so far https://ameridroid.com/products/odroid-hc4
Re: Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
> Are these 2TB SSDs or hard disks? I would counsel very strongly indeed > against using any ARM-based single board computer as a RAID device on > USB connections - they're just *not* up to it. I don't think the issue is whether they're ARM based. The issue is simply how you connect the disks: in my experience, disks connected via USB are simply not quite up to a 24/7 situation, especially if the disk is USB-powered. Stefan
Hardware for a back up server? [WAS Re: How to use dmsetuup?]
On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 10:22:07PM -0500, gene heskett wrote: > On 11/10/23 19:46, David Christensen wrote: > > On 11/8/23 02:20, gene heskett wrote: > > > And I just looked at tht pair, and acc gparted they have both been > > > pvcreated, so I'll leave then alone and steal the dvd cable, puttin > > > a new 2T drive if I can rig power to it. > > > > > > As I previously suggested, and as you previously seemed agreeable to, I > > think you should stop working on the Asus and build a backup server. > > > I'm thinking of making a slow one out of a headless bananapi-5 with a 2T on > every usb3 port as a raid, type to be determined, I rather like the idea of > parity being striped across all 4 disks. I have the drives but not sure of > the usb-sata adapters, need to goto the garage and retrieve that box. That, > and there's only one of me ;o)> And me is 89 yo with a worn out body. A > pacemaker and some new parts in my heart too. > Gene, Are these 2TB SSDs or hard disks? I would counsel very strongly indeed against using any ARM-based single board computer as a RAID device on USB connections - they're just *not* up to it. Get a cheap barebones system that you add memory to in a small-ish size case with SATA cables to motherboard ports that's Intel/AMD based that you can then put disks into to format. If you can't get a barebones, at least get a second hand machine in a tower case. Build a simple Debian system on one disk there to format other disks :) Once you've built a simple Debian system there, you can add mdadm RAID and use it as a backup storage device to copy off your /home and so on. > Startech adapters are working very well to a pair of smaller SSD's on the > rpi4b that runs my old (80+) Sheldon 11"x54" lathe, teaching it new tricks > it never dreamed of doing 80+ years ago. Metric or imperial, it doesn't > care. Even cuts threads I've invented. I have a complete linuxcnc buildbot > on that pi. The latest bpi runs at 2 gigahertz which is about twice as fast > as the pi's. USB adapters will work well until you are _absolutely_ reliant on them, then there will be a problem in my experience :( > > > > This mobo also claims to be able to do the intel version of a raid > > > on its own sata ports. Does anyone here have experience doing that? > > > > > > Yes, but I prefer software RAID -- because I can move the disks to > > another computer with different hardware and the arrays will still work. > > Hardware RAID typically requires compatible hardware. > > Yes, absolutely agreed with David on this. > > > > David > > > > . > Understood before hand. Thanks David, take care & stay well. > All the very best, as ever, Andy [amaca...@debian.org] > Cheers, Gene Heskett. > -- > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author, 1940) > If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. > - Louis D. Brandeis >
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
On Fri, Nov 10, 2023 at 9:16 AM Kent West wrote: > > > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 10:39 PM Timothy M Butterworth < > timothy.m.butterwo...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> >> On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 11:31 PM Kent West wrote: >> >>> I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with >>> Debian 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting better >>> hardware support). It has several hardware ... glitches, and my google-fu >>> is failing me in finding solutions. I'm hoping someone here can help. >>> >>> >>> >> >> Have you considered just running Debian in a Virtual Machine until >> hardware support matures. >> > > > I started to look at that yesterday, but apparently VirtualBox doesn't > support the Mac's M1 chip, and QEMU looked a bit daunting on the Mac, so I > gave up on that pursuit for now. The issues I'm currently having seem less > painful to me than getting a VM up and running on the M1 Mac. > On Mac most people use Parallels for virtual machines. https://www.parallels.com/ > -- > Kent West<")))>< > IT Support / Client Support > Abilene Christian University > Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com > -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/ ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 10:39 PM Timothy M Butterworth < timothy.m.butterwo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 11:31 PM Kent West wrote: > >> I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with >> Debian 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting better >> hardware support). It has several hardware ... glitches, and my google-fu >> is failing me in finding solutions. I'm hoping someone here can help. >> >> >> > > Have you considered just running Debian in a Virtual Machine until > hardware support matures. > I started to look at that yesterday, but apparently VirtualBox doesn't support the Mac's M1 chip, and QEMU looked a bit daunting on the Mac, so I gave up on that pursuit for now. The issues I'm currently having seem less painful to me than getting a VM up and running on the M1 Mac. -- Kent West<")))>< IT Support / Client Support Abilene Christian University Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
[Sorry; sent to Jeremy only the first time; meant to send it to the list.] Sorry, no clue. Don't even know how I'd ascertain that, but if you can give me a simple test, I'd be happy to try it for you. On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 7:22 PM jeremy ardley wrote: > > On 10/11/23 04:44, Kent West wrote: > > I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with > > Debian 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting > > better hardware support). > > > Out of curiosity, does Debian 12 support the M1 NPU (Neural Processing > Unit) ? > > -- Kent West<")))>< IT Support / Client Support Abilene Christian University Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
On Thu, Nov 9, 2023 at 11:31 PM Kent West wrote: > I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with Debian > 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting better hardware > support). It has several hardware ... glitches, and my google-fu is failing > me in finding solutions. I'm hoping someone here can help. > > First, the good news: Basic functionality works fine. Both Gnome and > Plasma work on both X11 and Wayland; graphics are crisp (albeit tiny, until > I use the GUI's size-mag feature to bump it to about 175%), and both wired > and wireless networking work, even with our certificate-based > authentication wireless network, that I could never get to work with a > version of Debian around 9 or 10 or so (but the connection is a little > daunting for the average Joe). I can't really speak for Sleep/Hibernation, > as I haven't had it running that long (UPDATE: It just announced it was > automatically suspending as I was typing this; I suspect it'll wake when I > try it in a few (UPDATE: Yes, it woke up instantly, perhaps too > instantly?)), but screen time-out/wake-up works fine. Audio via my > Bluetooth ear buds works great. > > Now the bad news: > > - keyboard backlight. Ag, how I need this in my usually-dark computing > environs! > > - display brightness. It's either full-on or full-off. This is a much more > minor concern. > > - audio. As mentioned above, audio works fine via Blluetooth (watched an > interesting Adam Savage video about a $13 USB-c cable vs Apple's $130 > version; I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think the Apple version might > actually be worth that), but I can't get a peep out of the built-in > speakers. Everything *seems* to be in order; alsamixer sees both the > Pipewire device and the native Mac sound device; volume controls move up > and down (or left/right); there's just never any sound. Not even from > "speaker-test" after I've killed X/Wayland/gdm3, although "speaker-test" > (as a non-root user) looks like it's working. It acts like the speakers are > muted, but I can find no way to unmute them. When I run "speaker-test" as > root, it complains that the service (server? device?) is not > running/available? (Sorry; don't recall the exact message at the moment.) > > - Though not really a hardware matter, thought I'd mention this for anyone > who wants to try Debian on their MacBook Air M1; when I updated to Sid, > apparently the Mac got "confused", and when I tried to boot back into > macOS, the system insisted on having my decryption password (which I guess > is normal, now that I think about it, 'cause FileVault 2 does that also, > just ... differently, so that I didn't recognize it), but then it also > insisted on a Recovery Key being typed in (like when Bitlocker locks you > out of Windows when it thinks the hardware has been tampered with). > Thankfully I had that key available, or it would have been a wipe/reimage > (or perhaps worse, the way Apple has locked things down of late). > > So if anyone has any help for these issues, especially audio and the > keyboard backlight, I'm all ears. > Have you considered just running Debian in a Virtual Machine until hardware support matures. > Thanks! > > Linux debian kernel 6.1.0-rc8-asahi #1 SMP Tue Dec 6 21:41:25 CET 2022 > aarch64 GNU/Linux > trixie/sid > > -- > Kent West<")))>< > IT Support / Client Support > Abilene Christian University > Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com > -- ⢀⣴⠾⠻⢶⣦⠀ ⣾⠁⢠⠒⠀⣿⡁ Debian - The universal operating system ⢿⡄⠘⠷⠚⠋⠀ https://www.debian.org/ ⠈⠳⣄⠀⠀
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
On 10/11/23 04:44, Kent West wrote: I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with Debian 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting better hardware support). Out of curiosity, does Debian 12 support the M1 NPU (Neural Processing Unit) ?
Re: Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
Am 09.11.2023 um 14:44:20 Uhr schrieb Kent West: > Not even from "speaker-test" after I've killed X/Wayland/gdm3, although > "speaker-test" (as a non-root user) looks like it's working. It acts > like the speakers are muted, but I can find no way to unmute them. > When I run "speaker-test" as root, it complains that the service > (server? device?) is not running/available? (Sorry; don't recall the > exact message at the moment.) Have you checked alsamixer for MM? Can you check which chip it is with lspci and which kernel module is loaded? What does dmesg say?
Hardware Misses on MacBook Air M1 2020
I have an M1-chip 2020 MacBook Air on which I have dual-booted with Debian 12 initially, then "upgraded" to sid (in hopes of getting better hardware support). It has several hardware ... glitches, and my google-fu is failing me in finding solutions. I'm hoping someone here can help. First, the good news: Basic functionality works fine. Both Gnome and Plasma work on both X11 and Wayland; graphics are crisp (albeit tiny, until I use the GUI's size-mag feature to bump it to about 175%), and both wired and wireless networking work, even with our certificate-based authentication wireless network, that I could never get to work with a version of Debian around 9 or 10 or so (but the connection is a little daunting for the average Joe). I can't really speak for Sleep/Hibernation, as I haven't had it running that long (UPDATE: It just announced it was automatically suspending as I was typing this; I suspect it'll wake when I try it in a few (UPDATE: Yes, it woke up instantly, perhaps too instantly?)), but screen time-out/wake-up works fine. Audio via my Bluetooth ear buds works great. Now the bad news: - keyboard backlight. Ag, how I need this in my usually-dark computing environs! - display brightness. It's either full-on or full-off. This is a much more minor concern. - audio. As mentioned above, audio works fine via Blluetooth (watched an interesting Adam Savage video about a $13 USB-c cable vs Apple's $130 version; I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think the Apple version might actually be worth that), but I can't get a peep out of the built-in speakers. Everything *seems* to be in order; alsamixer sees both the Pipewire device and the native Mac sound device; volume controls move up and down (or left/right); there's just never any sound. Not even from "speaker-test" after I've killed X/Wayland/gdm3, although "speaker-test" (as a non-root user) looks like it's working. It acts like the speakers are muted, but I can find no way to unmute them. When I run "speaker-test" as root, it complains that the service (server? device?) is not running/available? (Sorry; don't recall the exact message at the moment.) - Though not really a hardware matter, thought I'd mention this for anyone who wants to try Debian on their MacBook Air M1; when I updated to Sid, apparently the Mac got "confused", and when I tried to boot back into macOS, the system insisted on having my decryption password (which I guess is normal, now that I think about it, 'cause FileVault 2 does that also, just ... differently, so that I didn't recognize it), but then it also insisted on a Recovery Key being typed in (like when Bitlocker locks you out of Windows when it thinks the hardware has been tampered with). Thankfully I had that key available, or it would have been a wipe/reimage (or perhaps worse, the way Apple has locked things down of late). So if anyone has any help for these issues, especially audio and the keyboard backlight, I'm all ears. Thanks! Linux debian kernel 6.1.0-rc8-asahi #1 SMP Tue Dec 6 21:41:25 CET 2022 aarch64 GNU/Linux trixie/sid -- Kent West<")))>< IT Support / Client Support Abilene Christian University Westing Peacefully - http://kentwest.blogspot.com
Hardware Error Messages
I have a Desktop PC running Debian 11. A few days ago I found the following error messages on an xterm window running in the background :- Message from syslogd@piglit at Sep 28 09:44:25 ... kernel:[51369.604961] [Hardware Error]: Deferred error, no action required. Message from syslogd@piglit at Sep 28 09:44:25 ... kernel:[51369.604965] [Hardware Error]: CPU:1 (19:21:2) MC27_STATUS[Over|-|-|-|PCC|SyndV|UECC|Deferred|Poison|Scrub]: 0xd3edbbfde0a1894c Message from syslogd@piglit at Sep 28 09:44:25 ... kernel:[51369.604969] [Hardware Error]: IPID: 0x, Syndrome: 0x Message from syslogd@piglit at Sep 28 09:44:25 ... kernel:[51369.604970] [Hardware Error]: Power, Interrupts, etc. Ext. Error Code: 33 Message from syslogd@piglit at Sep 28 09:44:25 ... kernel:[51369.604971] [Hardware Error]: cache level: RESV, tx: RESV Can any helpful information be obtained from them or are they high level pretty meaningless messages ? Does Debian have any way of trapping low level hardware Error Messages ?
Re: Same Debian, different hardware = different OpenGL version?
On 2023-10-03 02:43 +0200, Anders Andersson wrote: > I recently installed Debian stable on my old desktop and my trusty old > Thinkpad X200, without messing with any driver settings. Both are > running the default gnome desktop with the same kernel. > > I installed the terminal emulator 'kitty' from the main repository on > both machines but it only works on my desktop. > > The relevant bug report for kitty > (https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/2536) tells me that kitty > requires OpenGL 3.3, and to check with "glxinfo | grep OpenGL > version". > > On my desktop I get: OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility > Profile) Mesa 22.3.6 > On my thinkpad: OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 22.3.6 > > Is there anything I can do about this using open source drivers? The only option, already mentioned in the above bug report, is to use the llvmpipe renderer by setting LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 which makes kitty start at the cost of high CPU load and bad performance. > I don't know enough about OpenGL, if it's a software issue or if it's > simply that the old intel GPU in the Thinkpad X200 can not work with > new OpenGL, while the AMD RX460 in my desktop can? That's it, the GPU in your Thinkpad most likely only supports OpenGL 2.1. Intel provides a table at [1], and while I could not find the Thinkpad's GMA 4500M HD listed there, its age makes a maximum OpenGL version of 2.1 plausible. Cheers, Sven 1. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/05524/graphics.html
Same Debian, different hardware = different OpenGL version?
I recently installed Debian stable on my old desktop and my trusty old Thinkpad X200, without messing with any driver settings. Both are running the default gnome desktop with the same kernel. I installed the terminal emulator 'kitty' from the main repository on both machines but it only works on my desktop. The relevant bug report for kitty (https://github.com/kovidgoyal/kitty/issues/2536) tells me that kitty requires OpenGL 3.3, and to check with "glxinfo | grep OpenGL version". On my desktop I get: OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 22.3.6 On my thinkpad: OpenGL version string: 2.1 Mesa 22.3.6 Is there anything I can do about this using open source drivers? I don't know enough about OpenGL, if it's a software issue or if it's simply that the old intel GPU in the Thinkpad X200 can not work with new OpenGL, while the AMD RX460 in my desktop can?
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
ce (12023-06-08): > What about ads for car insurance? Yes, what about them? What do you think they have special? (Hint: an ad for a car insurance is not to convince you to subscribe to any insurance rather than none, it is to convince you to subscribe to this insurance rather than any other.) -- Nicolas George signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On 6/8/23 01:34, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: Ad industry /is/ about convincing people to do things which potentially damage them. So it is deceptive by design. Read up on Big Tobacco for a good example. What about ads for car insurance?
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Thu, Jun 08, 2023 at 12:45:38AM +0200, Oliver Schoede wrote: > > On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 06:05:18 +0200 > wrote: > > >On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 05:59:11PM -0400, Celejar wrote: > > > >[...] > > > >> The only case I can see in which such offloading would > >> be unethical is where the website operator is somehow engaging in > >> deceptive behavior, but assuming it is not [...] > > > >A pretty strong assumption given that the crushing maturity of > >the internet is fuelled by the ad industry [...] > So somehow there still is no such thing as free lunch. You could just > as well "blame" a cable TV network for running all those ads, your TV > set after all won't eat less power. No profit means no fancy > shows, sports, nor fancy websites. On the web things get quickly fuzzy > of course, but in general neither is exactly deceptive. Ad industry /is/ about convincing people to do things which potentially damage them. So it is deceptive by design. Read up on Big Tobacco for a good example. > We know what > we're doing and what we're doing is voluntary and the catches, if not > obvious, are obviously well known. Know a workaround or work without > it. I'm still a (somewhat) regular terminal links user, a text browser > that is, no javascript not to mention anything more demanding [...] We are some kind of elite, don't forget that. Think of all those folks pushed to standard browsers (banking) and smartphones (again, banking, in some countries even basic public services). They haven't the means to fight that; things are set up so they don't even realise it, so most of the time they haven't even motive. So it's on us. > [...] After all those years uBlock > Origin probably saved me tangible money too, especially with German > electricity costs (who's to blame?), but then what's cheating? Ah. uBlock. A free lunch, after all? ;-) Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Tue, 6 Jun 2023 06:05:18 +0200 wrote: >On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 05:59:11PM -0400, Celejar wrote: > >[...] > >> The only case I can see in which such offloading would >> be unethical is where the website operator is somehow engaging in >> deceptive behavior, but assuming it is not [...] > >A pretty strong assumption given that the crushing maturity of >the internet is fuelled by the ad industry, which, barred some >exceptions, can be characterised as "deception for hire". > >Cheers So somehow there still is no such thing as free lunch. You could just as well "blame" a cable TV network for running all those ads, your TV set after all won't eat less power. No profit means no fancy shows, sports, nor fancy websites. On the web things get quickly fuzzy of course, but in general neither is exactly deceptive. We know what we're doing and what we're doing is voluntary and the catches, if not obvious, are obviously well known. Know a workaround or work without it. I'm still a (somewhat) regular terminal links user, a text browser that is, no javascript not to mention anything more demanding, find it quite comfortable for text-dominated sites, like docs or Wikepedia, doesn't go well with physics/math content though. Also ok for a quick brush-up on news sites, where there's still a need, most don't work anymore but some do, not the ads. After all those years uBlock Origin probably saved me tangible money too, especially with German electricity costs (who's to blame?), but then what's cheating? Greetings, Oliver
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Mon, Jun 05, 2023 at 05:59:11PM -0400, Celejar wrote: [...] > The only case I can see in which such offloading would > be unethical is where the website operator is somehow engaging in > deceptive behavior, but assuming it is not [...] A pretty strong assumption given that the crushing maturity of the internet is fuelled by the ad industry, which, barred some exceptions, can be characterised as "deception for hire". Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Sun, 4 Jun 2023 16:17:47 +0800 Bret Busby wrote: > On 4/6/23 14:32, Max Nikulin wrote: > > > > > I believe, web site creators should be blamed more aggressively than > > browser developers for RAM requirements of contemporary web applications. > > > > That was the point that I was making - I had not, as a twisted response > indicated, criticised Firefox regarding the misuse of resources - I > explicitly referred to malignant web application developers (for those > that do not understand the term, a web application is the application, > on the web application hosting server, that the user accesses, using a > web browser, not the web browser itself) that steal users' resources > using client-side processing (by using malware such as javascript using > client side processing), rather than properly and ethically using > server-side processing, such as .jsp or Perl .cgi applications. > > The problem is that some web developers (and, especially, their > employers) offload the processing that should be done on the business > web application hosting server, to the victim users' personal computers. > It is a malignant exploitation, like the "gig economy". I am quite puzzled by your perspective: you repeatedly express moral indignation at the offloading of processing to users' machines, calling this "malignant exploitation" and "steal[ing]" and implying that it is unethical. Why? What duty does the website owe you to do any processing at all for you? The only case I can see in which such offloading would be unethical is where the website operator is somehow engaging in deceptive behavior, but assuming it is not, why do you feel that there is an ethical problem here? What right does a user have to demand that someone else perform some processing for him? -- Celejar
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
> With no client-side javascript, it's not possible to change just a part of > a web page[0]. The server must send the whole web page to be rendered by the > client. So while it decreases CPU usage in the client, it increases network > usage. Isn't it unethical to also "steal" more bandwidth than necessary? Indeed, early uses of client side (Javascript) processing really helped make web sites more efficient: for the server, the client, and the network in between. And then web developers realized that a browser-with-Javascript is just a sort of VM. So now we have "web applications" running in that VM, where the backward/forward buttons make you leave/reenter the application rather than move through past states of it, and you can't use bookmarks to refer to the current state any more :-( Stefan
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Sun, Jun 04, 2023 at 10:34:04AM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Sun, Jun 04, 2023 at 04:30:46PM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > > So the practice is that the whole internet dumps the whole framework > > schtack [2] on you. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly We need better craftspeople, not better tools. And no, I'm not actually blaming the people themselves, but an environment which doesn't encourage that. Cheers -- t signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Firefox resource utilization (was Re: A case for supporting antiquated hardware, was Re: A hypervisor for a headless server?)
On Sun, Jun 04, 2023 at 04:30:46PM +0200, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > So the practice is that the whole internet dumps the whole framework > schtack [2] on you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly
