Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Sat, 08 Dec 2018, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>On 08/12/2018 07:33, David Haller wrote:
>> *Meh*
>> 
>> I miss my Matrox Mystique (first model w/170MHz RAMDAC!) with a
>> whopping 4 MB SGRAM, and not even a heatsink, just the plain naked
>> chip, much less a fan, and it ran in a PCI slot, at about ~4.5W (or
>> was it 5W?) theoretical max usage...
>
>As it happens, I had the exact same card! Well, almost. I had the 2MB
>version. There was a 2MB module that you could use to upgrade to a total of
>4MB, but I was never able to find it anywhere. And there was no "online
>shopping" back then. As result, I was only able to play Tomb Raider 1 at
>512x384 instead of 640x480 :-)

from a lilo.conf back when:

append="video=matrox:vesa:789 ..."

best 2D ever, eh? The con is noticeably much slower on nvidia than
with that matrox at any resolution (from "normal" to whatever)... Oh,
and I could play "Descent" just fine at 800x600 or so. Got sorta dizzy
the first hour or so, but once adjusted, wow, *that's* a 3D game! And
still is! :) I still like to play it (as d1x, patched for max
ammo[1]/energy/shield *hrhrhr* I play alone and for fun, not for
setting records ;) I also patch BfWesnoth in the same vein... *eg*

*ARGH* I should get meself a github account and polish and submit some
of my local patches / new ebuilds ... No, not those "cheating" patches :)
Just e.g. stuff that makes stuff optional for libreoffice... *gnarf*

-dnh

[1] for the gauss, signed short, IIRC.

-- 
 / "When it works, it is just biding its time waiting for  \
 \ a more inconvenient time for it to fail."  -- Joe Moore /

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Dale wrote:
>David Haller wrote:
>> On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Dale wrote:
>>> Peter Humphrey wrote:
 Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at
 the side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at
 once. I've been using it for donkeys' years.
>>> That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
>>> frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 
>> Nope. Try your local x11-plugins/gkrellm-gkfreq, see attachment ;)
>
>Oh man.  They added a lot of plugins since I last looked.  I couldn't
>find the one you mentioned but I did find gkrellm-cpupower which seems
>to be it.  Maybe they changed a name recently???

Nah, cpupower seems to be even older that gkfreq, but that is also at
least from 2010 ;) IIRC I found it linked from the gkrellm homepage.

>Thing about that, it takes up way to much room to display. I could
>check it on occasion but I wouldn't want to leave it up there all the
>time. 

You can configure it! But cpupower seems to take at least a
line/CPU-Core. BTW it seems you have to restart gkrellm to have
cpupower update it's config, unlike most other plugins (e.g. gkfreq ;)

>Thanks for the tip tho.  I'm going to check into the other plugins that
>might be nifty to have. 

gkfreq can be configured that it just shows one line (e.g. "Max",
which is how I have it), and which suits me. Oh and with that slower
update-rate in my other follow-up with the patch.

Check both out. You can use both cpupower and gkfreq for testing and
keep whichever you like better ;)

-dnh

-- 
[David hat Thomas einen Geologen genannt]
>Ich bastle auch schon an der Bombe fuer David :-)) 
*JAUL* *duck* *fluecht* *eingrab* *Ach nee, das bringt bei nem
Geo_PHYSIKER_ ja nix* *Heul* *UFO kaper*  
   [Thomas Hertweck und  Haller in suse-talk]

[gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/12/2018 07:33, David Haller wrote:

*Meh*

I miss my Matrox Mystique (first model w/170MHz RAMDAC!) with a
whopping 4 MB SGRAM, and not even a heatsink, just the plain naked
chip, much less a fan, and it ran in a PCI slot, at about ~4.5W (or
was it 5W?) theoretical max usage...


As it happens, I had the exact same card! Well, almost. I had the 2MB 
version. There was a 2MB module that you could use to upgrade to a total 
of 4MB, but I was never able to find it anywhere. And there was no 
"online shopping" back then. As result, I was only able to play Tomb 
Raider 1 at 512x384 instead of 640x480 :-)

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

David Haller wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Sat, 08 Dec 2018, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> On 08/12/2018 03:01, Dale wrote:
>>> I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable.  I
>>> never had one that powerful before.  O_O
>> You've been out of the loop it seems. GPUs have required power cables for
>> over a decade now. The GPU I use actually needs *two* power cables and places
>> a minimum wattage requirement on the power supply... :-P
> *Meh*
>
> I miss my Matrox Mystique (first model w/170MHz RAMDAC!) with a
> whopping 4 MB SGRAM, and not even a heatsink, just the plain naked
> chip, much less a fan, and it ran in a PCI slot, at about ~4.5W (or
> was it 5W?) theoretical max usage...
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrox_Mystique
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatroxMystique2MBcard.jpg
>
> I only replaced that ~10yearish ago because my new screen had a
> whopping 1280x1024 on 17", which those 4MB just won't do at decent
> bit-depth... *sigh* For 1152x864 on the CRT it was still good, but
> that screen just got too dark to see anything at all, so I had to
> replace it. Got a nice (expensiveish) PVA-TFT. Still very nice after
> ~10 years, even with CCFL it has darkend only minimally[1] :) And yes,
> I'm still fine with 1280x1024 on 17", TYVM :) I could even set up the
> spare monitor (same size/res) alongside, but I just don't need it.
>
> Now, I've got (again) a passive GPU for PCIe (max. 75W) w/o extra
> power. Main reason: the latest had a fan, which started to scream. As
> in almost not running. Cleaning did not help. So... No fan, no sound,
> and cleaning a heatsink is easy, as opposed to cleaning a fan +
> heatsink combo. And besides, a downward-facing heatsink does not
> tend to clog up as one that has a fan blowing onto it...
>
> -dnh, *darn* Time to clean-out the CPU-heatsink once again too :(
> CPU-temp and fan-speed are still ok though.
>
> [1] I started with IIRC ~30-40% "brightness" as preferred setting, and
> am now at ~40-50%... Which is good for a 10yr+ old CCFL, eh? :)
>


I have some old cards like that too.  One I had given to me and the heat
sink fell off of it before I got it.  I could see the glue that was left
behind and I stuck a new one on there and used it for a long time. 
Later, I added a fan.  It got warm but not hot.  Still, I like to run
things as cool as possible.  The fan ran at a low speed so no noise.

I was digging around the other day and found a couple cards that used to
be used for adding a mouse.  That is a pretty old card.  Of course, I
don't have any working systems that I can plug any of that into.  I'm
actually throwing away old systems that no longer even beep on power up,
which is a lot.  I also found a mid 90's mobo. I think the max ram was
1MBs.  Heck, almost all hard drives have more cache than that nowadays.

How far we have come computer wise.  I've got more memory than I used to
have in hard drive space, even when having more than one drive in a rig.

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Sat, 08 Dec 2018, David Haller wrote:
>On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Dale wrote:
>>Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at
>>> the side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at
>>> once. I've been using it for donkeys' years.
>>
>>That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
>>frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 
>
>Nope. Try your local x11-plugins/gkrellm-gkfreq, see attachment ;)

Made a little patch (drawn from the gkfreq-2.0 source) to make updates
not quite that often (I barely could read them)...

Patch + updated ebuild attached. Have fun.

-dnh

-- 
And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports
on it, you know they are just evil lies."
(By Linus Torvalds, linus.torva...@cs.helsinki.fi)# Copyright 1999-2018 Gentoo Authors
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

EAPI=6

inherit gkrellm-plugin toolchain-funcs

DESCRIPTION="CPU frequency plugin for gkrellm2"
HOMEPAGE="https://sourceforge.net/projects/gkrellm-gkfreq/;
SRC_URI="mirror://sourceforge/${PN}/${P}.tar.gz"
LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~amd64 ~x86"
IUSE=""
RDEPEND="app-admin/gkrellm:2[X]"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}"

PATCHES=( "${FILESDIR}/gkrellm-gkfreq-2.4-dont_update_too_much.patch" )
diff -purN -x '*~' a/gkrellm-gkfreq.c b/gkrellm-gkfreq.c
--- a/gkrellm-gkfreq.c	2014-12-23 14:23:13.0 +0100
+++ b/gkrellm-gkfreq.c	2018-12-08 05:58:49.732739849 +0100
@@ -172,6 +172,9 @@ static gint panel_expose_event(GtkWidget
 static void update_plugin() {
   gint i;
   
+  // dont do it too much...
+  if ((GK.timer_ticks % 10) != 0) return;
+
   // Get all CPU frequencies and calculate max, avg & min
   for (i=0; i

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

David Haller wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Dale wrote:
>> Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at
>>> the side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at
>>> once. I've been using it for donkeys' years.
>> That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
>> frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 
> Nope. Try your local x11-plugins/gkrellm-gkfreq, see attachment ;)
>
> HTH,
> -dnh
>

Oh man.  They added a lot of plugins since I last looked.  I couldn't
find the one you mentioned but I did find gkrellm-cpupower which seems
to be it.  Maybe they changed a name recently???  Thing about that, it
takes up way to much room to display. I could check it on occasion but I
wouldn't want to leave it up there all the time. 

Thanks for the tip tho.  I'm going to check into the other plugins that
might be nifty to have. 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Sat, 08 Dec 2018, Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>On 08/12/2018 03:01, Dale wrote:
>> I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable.  I
>> never had one that powerful before.  O_O
>
>You've been out of the loop it seems. GPUs have required power cables for
>over a decade now. The GPU I use actually needs *two* power cables and places
>a minimum wattage requirement on the power supply... :-P

*Meh*

I miss my Matrox Mystique (first model w/170MHz RAMDAC!) with a
whopping 4 MB SGRAM, and not even a heatsink, just the plain naked
chip, much less a fan, and it ran in a PCI slot, at about ~4.5W (or
was it 5W?) theoretical max usage...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrox_Mystique
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MatroxMystique2MBcard.jpg

I only replaced that ~10yearish ago because my new screen had a
whopping 1280x1024 on 17", which those 4MB just won't do at decent
bit-depth... *sigh* For 1152x864 on the CRT it was still good, but
that screen just got too dark to see anything at all, so I had to
replace it. Got a nice (expensiveish) PVA-TFT. Still very nice after
~10 years, even with CCFL it has darkend only minimally[1] :) And yes,
I'm still fine with 1280x1024 on 17", TYVM :) I could even set up the
spare monitor (same size/res) alongside, but I just don't need it.

Now, I've got (again) a passive GPU for PCIe (max. 75W) w/o extra
power. Main reason: the latest had a fan, which started to scream. As
in almost not running. Cleaning did not help. So... No fan, no sound,
and cleaning a heatsink is easy, as opposed to cleaning a fan +
heatsink combo. And besides, a downward-facing heatsink does not
tend to clog up as one that has a fan blowing onto it...

-dnh, *darn* Time to clean-out the CPU-heatsink once again too :(
CPU-temp and fan-speed are still ok though.

[1] I started with IIRC ~30-40% "brightness" as preferred setting, and
am now at ~40-50%... Which is good for a 10yr+ old CCFL, eh? :)

-- 
 "Waking up this morning was a pointless act of masochism" -- Girl

Re: [gentoo-user] kstars and indilib

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Alexander Puchmayr wrote:
>I tried to compile kstars with useflag indi, but the provided version in 
>portage is too old:
>
>[build.log from kstars]
>1.7.1 is required
>1.7.1 is required
>
>I have no idea why it pretends to find indi-1.5.0, when 1.6 is installed :-(

Could be some cmake thingy ;)

>Version 1.6 is currently the only version in portage, which renders
>the useflag "indi" for kstars useless, as the resulting kstars binary
>does not support indi.
>
>https://indilib.org/download/gentoo.html shows a way to add an overlay, but 
>the repo proposed does not exist anymore.
>
>Where do I find a ebuild for installing at least indilib-1.7.1?

Just updated the one in the tree in my local overlay, see attached
indilib-1.7.5.ebuild.

Oh, and I updated sci-astronomy/kstars to 2.9.8 there too, see also
attached inside a tarball with patches... Oh, a note on that, I've
added the knewstuff IUSE as I like to disable that generally, but as
it's a '+'ed, you should be fine. Not sure what the qtdatavis3d
feature does that I've added, I'm new to the program. ;) Hope I didn't
bork the Manifest while editing/packing/editing/packing... ;)

Any Questions?

HTH,
-dnh

-- 
> (Diva's Law of Software: quality is inversely proportional to price.)
Stevo's Addendum to Diva's Law of Software: But try explaining that to the PHB
# Copyright 1999-2018 Gentoo Authors
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

EAPI=6

MY_PN="${PN/lib/}"
CMAKE_MAKEFILE_GENERATOR=emake

inherit cmake-utils udev

DESCRIPTION="INDI Astronomical Control Protocol library"
HOMEPAGE="http://www.indilib.org/;
SRC_URI="https://github.com/${PN}/${PN/lib/}/archive/v${PV}/${MY_PN}_${PV}.tar.gz
 -> ${P}.tar.gz"

LICENSE="BSD GPL-2+ LGPL-2+ LGPL-2.1+"
SLOT="0/1"
KEYWORDS="amd64 ~ppc ~ppc64 x86"
IUSE="ogg test"

RDEPEND="
net-misc/curl
sci-libs/cfitsio:=
sci-libs/gsl:=
sci-libs/libnova
sys-libs/zlib:=
virtual/jpeg:0
virtual/libusb:0
ogg? (
media-libs/libogg
media-libs/libtheora
)
"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}
sys-kernel/linux-headers
test? ( >=dev-cpp/gtest-1.8.0 )
"

DOCS=( AUTHORS ChangeLog COPYRIGHT README )

S=${WORKDIR}/${MY_PN}-${PV}/libindi

src_configure() {
local mycmakeargs=(
-DINDI_BUILD_QT5_CLIENT=OFF
-DINDI_BUILD_UNITTESTS=$(usex test)
-DUDEVRULES_INSTALL_DIR="$(get_udevdir)"
$(cmake-utils_use_find_package ogg OggTheora)
)

cmake-utils_src_configure ${S}/libindi
}

src_test() {
BUILD_DIR="${BUILD_DIR}"/test cmake-utils_src_test
}


kstars.tar.gz
Description: sci-astronomy/kstars.tar.gz

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[David Haller]

Hello,

On Fri, 07 Dec 2018, Dale wrote:
>Peter Humphrey wrote:
>> Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at
>> the side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at
>> once. I've been using it for donkeys' years.
>
>That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
>frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 

Nope. Try your local x11-plugins/gkrellm-gkfreq, see attachment ;)

HTH,
-dnh

-- 
Keep me informed on the behaviour of this kernel..  As the "BugFree(tm)"
series didn't turn out too well, I'm starting a new series called the
"ItWorksForMe(tm)" series, of which this new kernel is yet another
shining example.-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.29# Copyright 1999-2018 Gentoo Authors
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

EAPI=6

inherit gkrellm-plugin toolchain-funcs

DESCRIPTION="CPU frequency plugin for gkrellm2"
HOMEPAGE="https://sourceforge.net/projects/gkrellm-gkfreq/;
SRC_URI="mirror://sourceforge/${PN}/${P}.tar.gz"
LICENSE="GPL-2"
SLOT="0"
KEYWORDS="~amd64 ~x86"
IUSE=""
RDEPEND="app-admin/gkrellm:2[X]"
DEPEND="${RDEPEND}"

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 08/12/2018 03:01, Dale wrote:
>> I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable.  I
>> never had one that powerful before.  O_O
>
> You've been out of the loop it seems. GPUs have required power cables
> for over a decade now. The GPU I use actually needs *two* power cables
> and places a minimum wattage requirement on the power supply... :-P
>
>
>


I've seen them before, online of course, I've just never owned one. Keep
in mind, Kpatience and watching TV from my computer is about as tough as
it gets on my video card.  Until a year or so ago, it was just
Kaptience.  Watching TV does put a bit of a load on the current card but
it works fine even in HD.

I found the card used on ebay.  I think $70.00 is the most I've ever
spent on a video card, even a new one.  That said, the biggest reason
I'm getting a newer card is not because I need the power, I just want
newer and more stable drivers.  My current card uses old drivers.  I've
ran into a couple bad ones recently.  I'm hoping the newer drivers will
be supported better.  They may not but I'm hoping.  Old card uses 340
drivers.  New card can use 410 or 415 drivers.  I might add, the current
card has a LOT of hours on it.  I'm surprised the fan still spins at
all.  Since I plan to keep it as a spare, I'm going to try to find a new
cooling system, either new heat sink or fan or both. 

I found the power supply box and pretty sure I have the right cable. The
ends look right at least.  We'll see when it gets here I guess.

Maybe I can play some sort of game when it gets here.  Hm, I'd
rather have a remote to control the videos on the TV that play from my
puter tho.  Heck, pause, skip forward/reverse would be handy. 

I'm getting up with the big dogs now.  ROFLBO

Dale

:-)  :-) 

[gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 08/12/2018 03:01, Dale wrote:

I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable.  I
never had one that powerful before.  O_O


You've been out of the loop it seems. GPUs have required power cables 
for over a decade now. The GPU I use actually needs *two* power cables 
and places a minimum wattage requirement on the power supply... :-P

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday, 7 December 2018 12:41:06 GMT Dale wrote:
>> Peter Humphrey wrote:
>>> On Friday, 7 December 2018 00:19:24 GMT Dale wrote:
 Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> I don't use lm-sensors either. KSysGuard sees the kernel sensors just
> fine without it. You just need to add them in the KSysGuard options.
 Got it.  I did some digging but I found it.  I had to add a tab and then
 add it to that.  I also found the options as well.  There are tons of
 things to monitor in there.  Right now, my current CPU is dead on.  It
 reads 3200.  Now when I upgrade, I know where to go look.  I can also
 compare to what cpuinfo says too.
>>> Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at the
>>> side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at once. I've
>>> been using it for donkeys' years.
>> That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
>> frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 
> No, I've not seen it either. I see what you mean about adding tabs and 
> digging 
> in KSysGuard. My frequency is varying around 3380, which is pretty near the 
> nominal 3300.
>
> Thanks for showing me this, Dale.
>

Hey, we helping each other here.  LOL  At least I'm pretty sure my puter
isn't going to blow up when I swap CPUs.  lol  I also seem to have a
pretty decent rig here or will after the upgrades anyway.  Found out fan
is here tomorrow, 8TB hard drive Monday and video card is still pending,
could be Monday or Tuesday since it isn't far away. 

I just noticed the video card that is coming requires a power cable.  I
never had one that powerful before.  O_O 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 07/12/2018 09:30, Dale wrote:
>> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> If you want to see all of the installed packages that are affected,
>>> you need to set CPU_FLAGS_X86 to an empty string:
>>>
>>>    CPU_FLAGS_X86=""
>>>
>>> and then do "emerge -puDN --with-bdeps=y @world". This is because
>>> CPU_FLAGS_X86 is not empty by default. It contains sse and sse2 by
>>> default, because these are supported by all 64-bit CPUs.
>>>
>>
>> What I did, I commented out the whole line and ran it that way.
>
> If you comment it out, it will have default values. If you set it to
> an empty string, you should be able to see which packages make use of
> the default flags (like sse and sse2.)
>
> Note it's a pretend emerge (-p). Just to check which packages you have
> installed that make use of these flags.
>
>

I'm pretty sure I tried it empty as well.  On one hand, it makes sense
that it only affects video type packages since those are mostly about
video stuff, right?  I'd never thought about it before.  I just always
get the info from that gcc command or the cpu flag tool and put them
in.  I never paid any attention to what packages it affected. 


>> One last question for anyone who has done this recently.  When finished,
>> I'll have a FX-8350 CPU with 8 cores at 4.0/4.2GHz, 32GBs of memory all
>> on a Gigabyte 970 series mobo.  Would there be any point in upgrading to
>> a whole new rig or is what I have about as fast is reasonable to build?
>> I don't do gaming or anything.  Even the GTX 650 video card is likely
>> overkill for what I do here.  The older 200 series card is working just
>> fine.  On one hand, my current build is several years old.  On the
>> other, computers seem to have reached their peak.  I'm sure there is
>> more powerful systems out there but would I be any better off with one?
>
> If you don't play video games, it's fine

Since my mobo will be the oldest part, I may keep a eye out for a sale
on them, after the holidays maybe.  If I find one, buy it and just stick
it on the shelf in case I need it.  I replaced the power supply just a
few years ago.  It should be fine for a while longer.  Still, I may can
catch one of those on sale too.  ;-)  If I keep going with this, I'll be
looking for a case too. ROFL 

According to the tracking, my CPU fan should be here tomorrow.  That's
what I'm waiting for.  I got the CPU several days ago.  May get busy
tomorrow or Sunday.  o_O

Dale

:-)  :-) 

[gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Nikos Chantziaras]

On 07/12/2018 09:30, Dale wrote:

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

If you want to see all of the installed packages that are affected,
you need to set CPU_FLAGS_X86 to an empty string:

   CPU_FLAGS_X86=""

and then do "emerge -puDN --with-bdeps=y @world". This is because
CPU_FLAGS_X86 is not empty by default. It contains sse and sse2 by
default, because these are supported by all 64-bit CPUs.



What I did, I commented out the whole line and ran it that way.


If you comment it out, it will have default values. If you set it to an 
empty string, you should be able to see which packages make use of the 
default flags (like sse and sse2.)


Note it's a pretend emerge (-p). Just to check which packages you have 
installed that make use of these flags.




One last question for anyone who has done this recently.  When finished,
I'll have a FX-8350 CPU with 8 cores at 4.0/4.2GHz, 32GBs of memory all
on a Gigabyte 970 series mobo.  Would there be any point in upgrading to
a whole new rig or is what I have about as fast is reasonable to build?
I don't do gaming or anything.  Even the GTX 650 video card is likely
overkill for what I do here.  The older 200 series card is working just
fine.  On one hand, my current build is several years old.  On the
other, computers seem to have reached their peak.  I'm sure there is
more powerful systems out there but would I be any better off with one?


If you don't play video games, it's fine.

Re: [gentoo-user] I want a low-end usb laser printer with minimal config hassle

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 18:46:54 GMT Manuel McLure wrote:

> I'd highly recommend getting a networked printer that supports Port 9100
> instead of a USB one - this allows you to use the same printer for all of
> your systems.

Nonsense. You just don't need a network interface if you don't have one. This 
is Linux, not WinBloze.

I have an old Kyocera FS-1020D postscript printer which has just a USB 
interface. I connect it to one machine and make it available from there to 
others on the network. No problem. CUPS can do that.

(OT: A well known subscriber here very generously gave me a USB-network 
interface box so that I could take the network route, but I'm afraid I haven't 
got round to installing it yet because of another complication that's cropped 
up, requiring a more-or-less complete rewiring of the whole bunch of systems. 
My joints aren't as flexible as they used to be.)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

[gentoo-user] kstars and indilib

[Alexander Puchmayr]

Hi there,

I tried to compile kstars with useflag indi, but the provided version in 
portage is too old:

[build.log from kstars]
-- Checking for module 'libindi'
--   Found libindi, version 1.6.0
-- INDI version 1.5.0 found in /usr/include/libindi, but at least version 
1.7.1 is required
-- INDI version 1.5.0 found in /usr/include/libindi, but at least version 
1.7.1 is required
-- Found INDI: /usr/lib/libindiclient.a, /usr/include/libindi

I have no idea why it pretends to find indi-1.5.0, when 1.6 is installed :-(
Version 1.6 is currently the only version in portage, which renders the useflag 
"indi" for kstars useless, as the resulting kstars binary does not support 
indi.

https://indilib.org/download/gentoo.html shows a way to add an overlay, but 
the repo proposed does not exist anymore.

Where do I find a ebuild for installing at least indilib-1.7.1?

Regards
Alex

Re: [gentoo-user] I want a low-end usb laser printer with minimal config hassle

[taii...@gmx.com]

On 12/07/2018 01:46 PM, Manuel McLure wrote:

> The main thing you want to look for is PCL and/or PostScript compatibility.
> And I'd highly recommend getting a networked printer that supports Port
> 9100 instead of a USB one - this allows you to use the same printer for all
> of your systems.

Seconded!

You will get a lot more milage out of a network pcl/ps printer than one
that isn't for instance my printer no longer works with USB as drivers
aren't made for newer os but I can still use network pcl/ps to print.

My advice is to buy a used HP laserjet 4300 which is a nice usb/network
pcl/ps printer and get third party toner carts.

hp 4300 model names explained:
d = duplexer
s = stapler/stacker (2nd output tray with an automatic stapler)
t = 2nd tray
n = network
(dtns is the highest end model as it has all 4 upgrades but they can
also be bought individually)


Buying new printers especially the cheap models is a suckers bet due to
the high consumables costs, the printers themselves being cheaply made
and sold for less than the cost of production with the money being made
back with overpriced ink and toner - newer models also frequently have a
"security" feature that prevents the use of "dangerous" third party
toner/ink.

Re: [gentoo-user] I want a low-end usb laser printer with minimal config hassle

[Manuel McLure]

On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 8:12 AM »Q«  wrote:

> I'm looking for recommendations for a low-end laser printer. I don't
> need networking and I'd like to keep things as simple as possible, so
> I'm probably looking for just a usb printer which works with cups.  I'd
> very much prefer one which doesn't require proprietary firmware to be
> loaded or anything to be installed outside of portage.  I'd Duplex
> printing would be a plus, but not necessary.
>
> For reference, if the Brother HL-L2300D works easily with cups, it
> would suit me fine.  (But I don't have any preference of manufacturer
> -- I just happen to have the Brother URL handy as I'm typing this.)
> 
>

The main thing you want to look for is PCL and/or PostScript compatibility.
And I'd highly recommend getting a networked printer that supports Port
9100 instead of a USB one - this allows you to use the same printer for all
of your systems.

The Brother HL-L2370DW (https://www.brother-usa.com/products/HLL2370DW)
seems to be the cheapest Brother that supports PCL.

-- 
Manuel A. McLure WW1FA  
...for in Ulthar, according to an ancient and significant law,
no man may kill a cat.   -- H.P. Lovecraft

Re: [gentoo-user] do I need plasma-meta to use KDE ?

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 15:11:21 GMT Philip Webb wrote:
> I've just updated all my installed pkgs ( c 112 ) for KDE
> (apps frameworks plasma), except for 'plasma-meta',
> which raises an error :
> 
>   Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
>   installed at the same time on the same system.
> 
>   (gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3/3::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
> gnome-base/gnome-common:3 required by
> (sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4-r1:2/2::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
> 
>   (sys-devel/autoconf-archive-2018.03.13:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for
> merge) pulled in by sys-devel/autoconf-archive required by
> (sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4-r1:2/2::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
> sys-devel/autoconf-archive required by
> (sys-fs/lvm2-2.02.145-r2:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)
> 
> None of the pkgs in the error msg are needed by anything outside kde-plasma.
> 
> Before I reboot & risk failure of KDE to start,
> can anyone advise me whether I need kde-plasma in order to use KDE ?

You don't need any meta packages to have a working plasma desktop. The "Why 
vulkan" and "Plasma sound devices" threads above were about this. My system 
now has several dozen fewer packages than it had.

The way I did it was to emerge --deselect the highest-level meta package, 
emerge -c and note what I'd have to put back in later. Then the next meta 
package, and so on until they'd all gone. Don't forget to quickpkg the system 
if you don't have packages already.

Then I defined three sets under /etc/portage/sets; I've attached a file 
listing their kde entries; of course your list will differ but you can see the 
idea.

A word for those of a nervous disposition: all this work feels like an 
adventure, not to be undertaken lightly, but a modicum of common sense and 
availability of backups should see you through. No guarantees, though.   :)

-- 
Regards,
Peter.
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/akonadi
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/akonadi-import-wizard
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/akonadiconsole
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/kcolorchooser
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/kdepim-addons
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/khelpcenter
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/kwalletmanager
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/mailimporter
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/mbox-importer
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/print-manager
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-apps/spectacle
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/breeze-gtk
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/kde-gtk-config
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/kdeplasma-addons
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/powerdevil
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/sddm-kcm
/etc/portage/sets/utils:kde-plasma/systemsettings
/etc/portage/sets/plasma:kde-apps/konsole
/etc/portage/sets/plasma:kde-plasma/plasma-desktop
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/ark
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/dolphin
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/filelight
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/gwenview
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/k3b
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/kmail
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/kwrite
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/okular
/etc/portage/sets/apps:kde-apps/konqueror

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 12:41:06 GMT Dale wrote:
> Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > On Friday, 7 December 2018 00:19:24 GMT Dale wrote:
> >> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> >>> I don't use lm-sensors either. KSysGuard sees the kernel sensors just
> >>> fine without it. You just need to add them in the KSysGuard options.
> >> 
> >> Got it.  I did some digging but I found it.  I had to add a tab and then
> >> add it to that.  I also found the options as well.  There are tons of
> >> things to monitor in there.  Right now, my current CPU is dead on.  It
> >> reads 3200.  Now when I upgrade, I know where to go look.  I can also
> >> compare to what cpuinfo says too.
> > 
> > Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at the
> > side of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at once. I've
> > been using it for donkeys' years.
> 
> That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
> frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 

No, I've not seen it either. I see what you mean about adding tabs and digging 
in KSysGuard. My frequency is varying around 3380, which is pretty near the 
nominal 3300.

Thanks for showing me this, Dale.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] RAM checks for chromium

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 15:01:09 GMT Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 5:48 AM Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> > On Friday, 7 December 2018 10:17:17 GMT Andreas Fink wrote:
> > > On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:14:45 +
> > > 
> > > Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> > > > And today, of course, there's an upgrade. That's another reason I
> > > > ditched it. Is there a way to force chromium to be not ~amd64 on a
> > > > ~amd64 system?
> > > 
> > > Yes, I do that with this entry in /etc/portage/package.keywords:
> > > www-client/chromium -~amd64
> > 
> > Ah, yes, of course. Ta muchly.
> 
> You'll be doing a build shortly in any case:
> https://bugs.gentoo.org/672606
> 
> So, I'd hold off on any upgrades/downgrades/etc for a day or so until
> this hits if CPU time matters to you.

Too late! was the cry...

Never mind; that's interesting anyway. 43 security fixes in one release, eh? 
Perhaps we should all be wary of the beast until the other umpteen have been 
fixed as well.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

[gentoo-user] I want a low-end usb laser printer with minimal config hassle

[»Q«]

I'm looking for recommendations for a low-end laser printer. I don't
need networking and I'd like to keep things as simple as possible, so
I'm probably looking for just a usb printer which works with cups.  I'd
very much prefer one which doesn't require proprietary firmware to be
loaded or anything to be installed outside of portage.  I'd Duplex
printing would be a plus, but not necessary.

For reference, if the Brother HL-L2300D works easily with cups, it
would suit me fine.  (But I don't have any preference of manufacturer
-- I just happen to have the Brother URL handy as I'm typing this.)

[gentoo-user] do I need plasma-meta to use KDE ?

[Philip Webb]

I've just updated all my installed pkgs ( c 112 ) for KDE
(apps frameworks plasma), except for 'plasma-meta',
which raises an error :

  Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
  installed at the same time on the same system.

  (gnome-base/gnome-common-3.18.0-r1:3/3::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
gnome-base/gnome-common:3 required by (sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4-r1:2/2::gentoo, 
ebuild scheduled for merge)

  (sys-devel/autoconf-archive-2018.03.13:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for 
merge) pulled in by
sys-devel/autoconf-archive required by (sys-fs/udisks-2.7.4-r1:2/2::gentoo, 
ebuild scheduled for merge)
sys-devel/autoconf-archive required by 
(sys-fs/lvm2-2.02.145-r2:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge)

None of the pkgs in the error msg are needed by anything outside kde-plasma.

Before I reboot & risk failure of KDE to start,
can anyone advise me whether I need kde-plasma in order to use KDE ?

-- 
,,
SUPPORT ___//___,   Philip Webb
ELECTRIC   /] [] [] [] [] []|   Cities Centre, University of Toronto
TRANSIT`-O--O---'   purslowatchassdotutorontodotca

Re: [gentoo-user] RAM checks for chromium

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Dec 7, 2018 at 5:48 AM Peter Humphrey  wrote:
>
> On Friday, 7 December 2018 10:17:17 GMT Andreas Fink wrote:
> > On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:14:45 +
> >
> > Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> > > And today, of course, there's an upgrade. That's another reason I
> > > ditched it. Is there a way to force chromium to be not ~amd64 on a
> > > ~amd64 system?
> >
> > Yes, I do that with this entry in /etc/portage/package.keywords:
> > www-client/chromium -~amd64
>
> Ah, yes, of course. Ta muchly.
>

You'll be doing a build shortly in any case:
https://bugs.gentoo.org/672606

So, I'd hold off on any upgrades/downgrades/etc for a day or so until
this hits if CPU time matters to you.

-- 
Rich

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Friday, 7 December 2018 00:19:24 GMT Dale wrote:
>> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>> I don't use lm-sensors either. KSysGuard sees the kernel sensors just
>>> fine without it. You just need to add them in the KSysGuard options.
>> Got it.  I did some digging but I found it.  I had to add a tab and then
>> add it to that.  I also found the options as well.  There are tons of
>> things to monitor in there.  Right now, my current CPU is dead on.  It
>> reads 3200.  Now when I upgrade, I know where to go look.  I can also
>> compare to what cpuinfo says too. 
> Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at the side 
> of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at once. I've been using 
> it for donkeys' years.
>

That's what I generally use.  I don't see a place for it to show the CPU
frequency tho.  Did I miss it? 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Alec Ten Harmsel]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2018 at 01:30:48AM -0600, Dale wrote:
> 
> One last question for anyone who has done this recently.  When finished,
> I'll have a FX-8350 CPU with 8 cores at 4.0/4.2GHz, 32GBs of memory all
> on a Gigabyte 970 series mobo.  Would there be any point in upgrading to
> a whole new rig or is what I have about as fast is reasonable to build? 
> I don't do gaming or anything.  Even the GTX 650 video card is likely
> overkill for what I do here.  The older 200 series card is working just
> fine.  On one hand, my current build is several years old.  On the
> other, computers seem to have reached their peak.  I'm sure there is
> more powerful systems out there but would I be any better off with one?
> 
> Thanks to all for the help on this. 
> 
> Dale
> 
> :-)  :-) 
> 

IMO that's totally fine. I just built a new rig to use for programming
and some "light" gaming and it's not even that good. My specs are AMD
Ryzen 5 1600 (6 core, 3.2 GHz) and 16GB RAM.

This replaced a rig that was 7 years old that had a better CPU (Intel
3930K) and more RAM (32GB) :D.

Alec

Re: [gentoo-user] RAM checks for chromium

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 10:17:17 GMT Andreas Fink wrote:
> On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:14:45 +
> 
> Peter Humphrey  wrote:
> > And today, of course, there's an upgrade. That's another reason I
> > ditched it. Is there a way to force chromium to be not ~amd64 on a
> > ~amd64 system?
> 
> Yes, I do that with this entry in /etc/portage/package.keywords:
> www-client/chromium -~amd64

Ah, yes, of course. Ta muchly.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] RAM checks for chromium

[Andreas Fink]

On Fri, 07 Dec 2018 10:14:45 +
Peter Humphrey  wrote:

> And today, of course, there's an upgrade. That's another reason I
> ditched it. Is there a way to force chromium to be not ~amd64 on a
> ~amd64 system?

Yes, I do that with this entry in /etc/portage/package.keywords:
www-client/chromium -~amd64

Cheers
Andreas

Re: [gentoo-user] RAM checks for chromium

[Peter Humphrey]

On Thursday, 6 December 2018 10:35:19 GMT Peter Humphrey wrote:
> On Wednesday, 5 December 2018 11:11:06 GMT Mick wrote:
> > On Wednesday, 5 December 2018 10:12:10 GMT Peter Humphrey wrote:
> > > The main reason I've ditched chrome and chromium altogether is that they
> > > insist on redirecting me to their mobile site - and this is a 27-inch
> > > screen! But I'm also uncomfortable with the privacy concerns such as you
> > > mention.
> > 
> > I haven't noticed something like this here.  Is there a particular site
> > that causes this you could share?
> 
> I'd like to check, but today I can't compile chromium; it throws a lot of
> errors about an end of file coming before the end of data. I suppose it's
> running out of space, though there seems to be plenty. I'll look into it.
> 
> As far as I can remember though, it was the google.com home page. I didn't
> get any further than that before complaining to google, waiting for the
> inevitably absent reply, then giving up and ditching it.

Well, I did manage to compile chromium in 165 minutes, but I had to switch off 
jumbo-build to do it. I'd have thought that 32GB RAM and 38GB swap would be 
enough for anything reasonable, but perhaps chromium isn't reasonable.

And today, of course, there's an upgrade. That's another reason I ditched it. 
Is there a way to force chromium to be not ~amd64 on a ~amd64 system?

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Peter Humphrey]

On Friday, 7 December 2018 00:19:24 GMT Dale wrote:
> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:

> > I don't use lm-sensors either. KSysGuard sees the kernel sensors just
> > fine without it. You just need to add them in the KSysGuard options.
> 
> Got it.  I did some digging but I found it.  I had to add a tab and then
> add it to that.  I also found the options as well.  There are tons of
> things to monitor in there.  Right now, my current CPU is dead on.  It
> reads 3200.  Now when I upgrade, I know where to go look.  I can also
> compare to what cpuinfo says too. 

Have you tried gkrellm? It's very neat. Sits in a vertical strip at the side 
of your screen and shows a whole load of things all at once. I've been using 
it for donkeys' years.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.

Re: [gentoo-user] CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Dale]

Neil Bothwick wrote:
> On Thu, 6 Dec 2018 19:17:22 -0600, Dale wrote:
>
>> Sounds like I need to build a new kernel as well. I guess I could name
>> one with FX in it to be able to tell it from the old one.  I do mine
>> manually anyway, except for the dracut thingy. 
> Or set LOCALVERSION in the kernel config. Then the kernel will be be
> named automatically and you will also be able to see which version you
> are running with uname.
>
>

I still copy mine manually.  That way I can name it to anything I want
and even version them in a way that I know which is which.  Automatic
tools may be nice in some ways but I've gotten used to doing it
manually.  The biggest thing, knowing what I'm booting by looking at the
grub boot menu. 

If after I've booted I need to be sure which one I booted, then cat
/proc/cmdline will give me that. 

Still, things could change and I use that one day.  ;-) 

Dale

:-)  :-) 

Re: [gentoo-user] CPU upgrade and LVM questions.

[Neil Bothwick]

On Thu, 6 Dec 2018 19:17:22 -0600, Dale wrote:

> Sounds like I need to build a new kernel as well. I guess I could name
> one with FX in it to be able to tell it from the old one.  I do mine
> manually anyway, except for the dracut thingy. 

Or set LOCALVERSION in the kernel config. Then the kernel will be be
named automatically and you will also be able to see which version you
are running with uname.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

"I need your clothes, your boots, and your tagline!"


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