Posts by Altoid

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

RedGreen925 wrote:

... not used one of them systems in good decade ...

Have not had to deal with the UEFI crap.
I expect this box to last me at least another five/seven years without having to do much.
Who knows what I will be up to by then.

[OT]
My first SCSI drives ever were pulls from decommissioned IBM servers destined to be cut in pieces with a blowtorch.
A lot of eight 9.1Gb 68pin U160 HDDs purchased for a song from a usual suspect: the bloke in charge of the blowtorch.
On testing, only one was faulty.

Around six years later, when I upgraded box+HDDs to SAS, five (IIRC) were in perfect working order, no defects.
I actually made a profit selling them to a chap who ran a CT scanner service.
Good hardware is good hardware, there's no two ways about it.
[/OT]

RedGreen925 wrote:

... OS-prober is probably not enabled ...
... prevent the update-grub from checking for other OSs ...

Yes, that was it.
Problem solved.

Had forgotten to disable timeshift and backintime on the cloned drive so I'll have to check if and what was done.
Noticed that I had also neglected to to change display background so as not to forget which system I was working on. 8^°

Now to see about the XFCE surgery ...

Thank you for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

RedGreen925 wrote:

... in the grub.cfg in the EFI partition ...

Well ...
Fortunately for me, my Sun U24 WS is a BIOS boot (only) rig.
As I have no near-future plans to change this hardware, none of that UEFI crap for me.

The deed is done:
I have cloned my 120Gb SATA SSD system drive to a 300Gb SAS HDD and both have their own 'unique' UUIDs.
I can now run tests and experiment on getting rid of XFCE.

update-grub has been executed but it has not picked up the new system present in the cloned HDD.

I still have to check on that, I seem to recall that it stopped being the default action some time ago.

Thanks for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

RedGreen925 wrote:

Only the UUID is checked by the system when the UUID= is used in the fstab.

steve_v wrote:

Filsystem uuids will end up in in grub.cfg if you use grub-mkconfig / update grub ...
Partition and disk uuids are, as you say, irrelevant ...

Good, got that straightened out.
Thank to both for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

steve_v wrote:

... referencing them by UID.
... disks needs to be unique ...

Thought as much.
If I recall correctly, I've been doing it that way since [ascii].

steve_v wrote:

What does number of partitions per drive have to do ...

Directly related to my ignorance in the matter?

But now I know that only UUIDs matter. 8^)

Thanks for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Yes, I have seen that you can use tunefs to change the UUID of a partition to a random/specific one, eg:

# tune2fs -U random /dev/sdb1

But what about those PTUUID and PARTUUID numbers?
They don't change in a source HDD / clone HDD scenario?

Thanks for your input.
Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

Thanks for the prompt reply.

DutchMaster wrote:

Boot from the clone drive, become root, then this command:
blkid /dev/sd* >> /etc/fstab

Right ...

DutchMaster wrote:

... lists all disks and every partition on that disk with their respective UUID's in /etc/fstab.

Right.

$ sudo blkid /dev/sda*     ## source HDD - edited for clarity ##
/dev/sda: PTUUID="0004a8f4" PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sda1: UUID="d6841f29-e39b-4c87-9c52-3a9c3bafe2d3" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="0004a8f4-01"
/dev/sda2: PTUUID="bfb4d548" PTTYPE="dos" PARTUUID="0004a8f4-02"
/dev/sda3: UUID="f0187ff0-be52-4bbc-9461-40f744554b85" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="0004a8f4-03"
/dev/sda5: UUID="c22304ec-0b30-428a-a6ac-500785614702" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="0004a8f4-05"
/dev/sda6: UUID="807e1ce7-72b4-48a3-8f34-65947ea9fd70" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="0004a8f4-06"
$

Yes, but ...
Doesn't the clone have the same UUIDs (filesystem/partition) as the source drive?
And as a result that data is already in each drive's identical /etc/fstab file?

From what I understand (?) the cloned drive needs a new set of UUIDs so that it is seen by the system as a different drive.
Not too sure but I expect that it would be like this:

clone  /dev/sda    <- needs new PTUUID
clone  /dev/sda1   <- needs new UUID + PARTUUID
clone  /dev/sda2   <- needs new PTUUID + PARTUUID
clone  /dev/sda3   <- needs new UUID + PARTUUID
clone  /dev/sda5   <- needs new UUID + PARTUUID
clone  /dev/sda6   <- needs new UUID + PARTUUID

The UUIDs of the other five drives need to remain exactly the same for both /etc/fstab files.

Thanks for your input.
Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

The OEM* HDD in my U24 box went bad and had to be binned.
After recovering the platters, neodymium magnets and SS screws or course.
*A Seagate 250Gb ST32500NS which I had never had any trust in so it did not hold anything important.

After cleaning up/shuffling data between other HDDs I put a retired IBM-ESXS SAS 78Gb on-line to hold what was left.

Now I had a Hitachi Ultrastar SAS 300Gb 15K drive to use for cloning my system.
The idea being to see how to permanently extirpate XFCE and replace it with some other desktop environment or a WM.
Not sure yet what I'll do, this is just a test bed.

I cloned the system's Kingston 120Gb SSD (~29K hours, no problems) via clonezilla and tested by taking the SSD off-line to boot from the cloned drive. No issues to report.

So far so good.

Now, both HDDs have the same UUIDs.
As a result, they cannot live in the same box unless one of the drives gets new UUIDs.
I think (?) that is the case even if they are not in each other's /etc/fstab file.

Many years ago, I would install different versions W2000/SPSP3 on different HDDs and choose which one to boot from via the box's BIOS.

Later in Linux, I would install different distributions on two or three HDDs (one at the time, main one off-line) and GRUB from the main system drive would find it and give me the options to boot. Tricky but workable.

But now I have a clone which I want to boot from by choosing it from the GRUB screen.
Going into the setup and changing the drive priority would be a (cumbersome) option but then the issue of the duplicate UUIDs for all the partitions will surely cause problems.

So to start off, UUIDs have to be changed and that can be done with gparted but I have only done it on HDDs with a single partition.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Best,

A.

Altoid · News & Announcements

Hello:

greenjeans wrote:

Thanks for all your hardwork, you and the entire Devuan team!

+1

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

... without playing a game, my system has been running smooth as always ...

Maybe "the proof is in the pudding"?

TL;DR:
Your box runs as well as it always has when there is no game software involved.
That being so, you may want to consider that there must be something going on with the combination [game/hardware].

Could be some game [*.conf] issue, game/hardware incompatiblity or just flaky programming*.
Not unheard of, shit happens all the time.

Best,

A.

* Except for the manual installation of 2 games that i wanted to try out ...

Altoid · Off-topic

Hello:

An article about AI refusing commands ...

Along the same lines:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ … ogy-rights

What is really scary is how much crap some people are capable of spewing:
“People demanding that AIs have rights ... " WTHF?

While millions of human beings all over the world are denied basic human rights?

Best,

A.

Altoid · Off-topic

Hello:

Merry Xmas. 8^)

einpoklum wrote:

A discussion thread on reddit ...

Having formed my opinion with respect to systemd many years ago (before settling on Devuan), the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread was that it should not be here but (if at all) in the [Index -> Discuss -> Off Topic] category.

More so if it is crossed linked to another thread on reddit with a title as bait-ty as the one linked.
Please don't take it personally: we have all been there at one time or another.

TL;DR
I doubt that anyone here at Dev1 hates systemd and like John Bercow*, most "couldn't give a flying flamingo" about it.
That said, I am certain that most everyone here knows all there is to know about systemd.
Which is why we run our boxes on Devuan Linux and belong to this forum.

As always, YMMV.

Best,

A.

* Speaker - UK House of Commons - 2009/2019

Altoid · Off-topic

Hello:

Just a short note to wish one and every member of this forum a very Merry [ fill in ] and Happy [ fill
in ] *and* especially thank the maintainers / programmers / moderators and collaborators at Dev1 you for all the work you do.

Best,

Altoid

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

Dutch_Master wrote:

... also updated Devuan Stable on my system.

Ahh ...
Therein lies the difference.

ie:
Devuan [stable] is now Excalibur, released 2025-11-02.
As a consequence, Daedalus is now [oldstable].

Thanks for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

I run an up to date Devuan Daedalus:

$ uname -a
Linux devuan 6.1.0-41-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.158-1 (2025-11-09) x86_64 GNU/Linux
$

I have all these keys as well as those prevously posted:

$ ls -1 /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d
debian-archive-bookworm-automatic.asc
debian-archive-bookworm-security-automatic.asc
debian-archive-bookworm-stable.asc
debian-archive-bullseye-automatic.asc
debian-archive-bullseye-security-automatic.asc
debian-archive-bullseye-stable.asc
debian-archive-trixie-automatic.asc
debian-archive-trixie-security-automatic.asc
debian-archive-trixie-stable.asc
devuan-keyring-2016-archive.gpg
devuan-keyring-2022-archive.gpg
devuan-keyring-amprolla-2022-archive.gpg
devuan-keyring-daedalus-archive.gpg
devuan-keyring-excalibur-archive.gpg
$

Only times I have had an issue with apt it was due to some round-robin malfunction.
Just a question of waiting 15' and trying again.

Now ...
rm on devuan-keyring-2016-archive.gpg and devuan-keyring-2022-archive.gpg screws up apt update.
So it would seem that they are current and needed.

Should they be replaced?
ie: because of the 2022 and 2016 dating?

No idea how all this works.
I'd appreciate a heads up.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

Micronaut wrote:

... maybe a specialized question for the wine developers?

Right on the dot you are.
Wine has nothing to do with how Linux works, so this is really not the place to ask.

Micronaut wrote:

Where could I ask them this question directly?

Here: https://forum.winehq.org/viewforum.php?f=8

I fully understand what you are referring to and am currently suffering some of it. (I run IrfanView and Pegasus Mail)
But I doubt that it is something that can easily be done.

Each and every MS application does [whatever] within (as you say) the MS ecosystem but Wine does not provide an ecosystem.
ie: it is not an emulator so it does not emulate an MS ecosystem: it just gives each of the applications the shit they need to work in Linux.

At least that is what I think I understood.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

I wrote:

So no, no surprises here.

Crikey!!!
Was I ever wrong!

Shortly after I received the reply to my query from the chaps at WD, they sent me an email asking for my opinion on their tech support.
Email which, although ignored, they sent again sometime later.
And then again.

Not wanting to let them down and now feeling inclined to oblige, I replied.

As subtly as possible I wrote that I found their tech support to be lacking as my question had not been answered.
And that no, I would not in any way recommend their products.
And left it at that.

Not to be deterred, WD once again reached out to me, as always in html format.
So, for the amusement of all my fellow forum members, what follows is the complete and unabridged content of their last email:

WD Tech Support wrote:

Incident Update
Case #: 9554268 | Reference #: 251127-000612
Hello Julius Henry*,

We would like to inform you that we have escalated your question to our engineers and will send you their response below:
Thank you for your interest in our products. The information you’re requesting is not publicly available. If you’d like to engage with us on a more strategic level, which would involve purchase minimums and non-disclosure agreements, please complete this form and choose the topic “Looking to Purchase (For Business).
https://www.westerndigital.com/company/contact-us

Unfortunately, we don't support Linux, so we can't comment on the status of the logs you provided. If you'd like to check the drive's functionality, we recommend connecting it to a Windows computer and using our WD Kitfox tool:
Download, install, test, and erase data using Western Digital Kitfox: https://support-en.wd.com/app/answers/d … a_id/51537

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist.

Alternatively Julius Henry, you can start a live chat with one of our support specialists on this link - at the bottom right of the new page, just click the chat bubble! If you prefer to call us, click here.
Sincerely,
Dmitro D
Western Digital Customer Service and Support
https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/support
Please note a 30-second support survey will be sent to your email later. We look forward to your feedback. Thank you for your understanding and support.
Note: If you have not visited our community forums, please make sure to do so. You may also find answer(s) to your question(s) there. Link to WD community forums at: https://community.wd.com .
This electronic message contains information from Western Digital, is intended only for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is confidential. The dissemination of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please respond back to this e-mail or contact us by phone.
In order to process your email, please do not remove this reference #: 251127-000612
Get More Help
• Check our Knowledge Base for helpful articles and FAQs.
• Explore our WD Community forum or visit the Western Digital Support YouTube channel for helpful resources and support.
Update Incident
Case Details
Case Number: 251127-000612
Subject: TS fstrim and mechanical HDDs
Product: WD Blue 2.5"
Date: 11/26/2025 01:44 PM
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[---002:002426:50328---]

I found most interesting the references to the information requested not being "publicly available", engaging with them "on a more strategic level" and the "purchase minimums and non-disclosure agreements" to do so.

No to mention the "we don't support Linux" bit. 8^D !!!!

I have to hand it to these chaps, they have really made an effort to look like idiots.

Best,

A.

* my nom de curmudgeon

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

Welcome to Devuan.

Usjes wrote:

... the Devuan install on the Philips drive is fine ...
... it is just the HP that refuses.

Right.

The problem you have is a BIOS related hardware / Windows installation problem.
If you don't need it, you may be able to fix it by clearing out the Windows installation.
ie: full HDD format.

Or maybe boot the machine without the HDD, if possible.
Otherwise, you need the key if you want access to the Elitebook/HDD as it is.

The previous owner of the Elitebook may have the key.
Or you may be able to recover it from the Windows installation.

See here:
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/i … 6600360-16

The Devuan install on the USB is not at fault.
The problem is the MS/HP arranged protection racket in the HDD. 8^°

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

Calamity wrote:

... better Tahoma font ...

I played around with all the installed *.ttf fonts and found that [Calibri 16] did fine for now.
I also did a regedit for [HIGHDPIAWARE] which seems to have done something.
Curiously enough, the other suggested editions were already done.

[OT] (again)
Adding the missing [arial.ttf] to the fonts directory now made the text above the icon buttons too small.
I do recall I had this same issue many years go but cannnot recall if I fixed it of just kept the font that fit.
In any case, I cannot find a way to change the font or size.
[/OT]

If you have a solution to that, please consider starting a new thread.
I would not want to hijack this one which is about Wine but not related to PMail.

Thanks for your input.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

Calamity wrote:

... actually useful ...

All information is useful.
Information is power.

Calamity wrote:

... small thing but very annoying ...

Quite so.
Seeing it solved made me realise just how annoying it was.
Thanks again.

Calamity wrote:

... a subforum for Wine-related questions is a good idea ...
... nice to have a 'native' place ...

Indeed.
Makes two of us.
Now let's see what management opines.

[OT]
My $WINEPREFIX/drive_c/windows/Fonts/ directory has now gone from being barren/empty to having one *.ttf.
Something tells me that there should be more fonts there as some system and menu legends don't look so good.
What should I populate it with?
[/OT]

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

Calamity wrote:

... buttons are missing minimize/maximize/close symbols:

Yes !!!

Thank you very much for that. =^)
It was the one annoying thing I have been procrastinating about for the longest while.
Actually for a few years, never got around to it.

Thanks a lot for your input.

Suggestion:
How about an [Index] entry with the [Wine & Devuan] label to post solutions such as this last one?

Best,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

... using wine for a while. On ASCII and on Chimaera.

I started to use Wine when I moved permanently to Linux.

Before that, I double booted Linux and XPSP3 solely because of my long time email client: David Harris' Pegasus Mail which I have used since W3.11.

Being able to use Wine/Pegasus Mail was the deal breaker.

Once I got Wine running on Linux (Ubuntu? Mint? CrunchBang? cannot recall), that was it, no more XP.
I do recall that one distribution (Mint?) included a very easy to install Wine package in their repositories.
Once installed, everything was in place and worked right out-of-the-box, installing a Windows application was a breeze.

I have had Wine in every distribution since then and have had it running on Linux Devuan since Jesse, ca. 2017.
No mayor problems to speak of. A bonus to all that was that I did not have to ditch my all time favourite photo application: Irfan Skiljan's Irfan View.

That's about it.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

steve_v wrote:

... don't like XFCE, and I have no idea why it is the default desktop ...

+1

Devuan Linux could very well use what #!++ and BunsenLabs have as default: a customised Openbox WM.
To do that would probably mean much less work for the devs at Devuan.

Those who want / need a desktop could install Mate.
As always, YMMV.

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

Welcome to Dev1.

zxspectrum2000 wrote:

... don't want any screensaver or automatic putting the display to sleep ...
... still turning off the display after some minutes ...

Open a terminal and run this:

$ xset -q

In a section labelled [Screen Saver:] you will see the working settings.
I understand that they override all other settings.

See [man xset] for details on how to set them.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

kapqa wrote:

thanks ...

You're welcome.

kapqa wrote:

... drive in question is a "NVME" ...

Yes.
Please go over my post again.

kapqa wrote:

... should be like "blazing fast".

NVMe does not necessarily mean "blazing fast".
eg: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/kingston-nv2-ssd
There are many factors at play.

Like I wrote previously, you may want to consider running R+W tests with the [gnome-disk-utility] (on both drives) to see what speeds you get.

Best,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

kapqa wrote:

... this can't be quite normal ...

Bear in mind that normal is a statistical term.
ie: conforming to a generalised pattern, known mean or median.

An expected average, if you will.

Up to a few years ago, if you purchased any Kingston memory product, you could rest assured that you had a quality product in you hands.
That was the normal in those days, Kingston = Quality.

Unfortunately, that is no longer the case and given what the chip market is going through due to the A1 delirium, things will not get better.
Quite the contrary, prices are rising steadily and the quality of consumer memory products are decaying.

If interested, see what happened when I puchased a set of three Kingston DataTraveler Exodia M USB 3.2 USB drives without noticing that there was no data sheet included or printed inside the cardboard blister as usual.

TL;DR

Kingston Technical Support wrote:

We apologize if you are dissatisfied with your product. The Exodia USB drive's are a basic low cost model with no minimum performance ratings based off the datasheet.

The reference is to the inexistent data Kingston included in the package.

You don't post the specifics (Kingston part #) of the drives you are using but I suggest you do a search on the web for any of the sites* that publish tests as well as any specs Kingston may have published in their web page.
* one is ssd-tester.com, there are others.

You could also run a benchnmark test on the drives via the [gnome-disk-utility] which is accurate enough to give you an idea as to what is going on.
You will probably have to clear / reformat the drive to test it properly.

Edit:
See this test at Tom's Hardware.

Best,

A.

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-05 22:13:42

#2 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-05 18:26:54

#3 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-05 09:23:09

#4 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-05 09:17:24

#5 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-04 23:37:42

#6 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-04 23:27:14

#7 Hardware & System Configuration » Cloning and UUIDs » 2026-01-04 20:27:41

#8 Re: News & Announcements » Devuan Excalibur 6.1.0 point-release » 2026-01-02 21:08:44

#9 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » [SOLVED] Chimaera started freezing completely under certain occasions » 2026-01-01 16:32:16

#10 Re: Off-topic » Is AI going to become a Frankenstein monster? » 2025-12-30 18:06:10

#11 Re: Off-topic » Cross-linking to a discussion on reddit » 2025-12-25 16:07:20

#12 Off-topic » A Merry and Happy today » 2025-12-24 09:17:34

#13 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Removing obsolete keyrings » 2025-12-22 12:59:39

#14 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Removing obsolete keyrings » 2025-12-22 11:36:51

#15 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Multiple Windows programs in a single wine config? » 2025-12-21 01:49:38

#16 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] fstrim and HDDs » 2025-12-18 18:41:12

#17 Re: Installation » How to boot Devuan from a USB drive on a HP Elitebook 850 G6 ? » 2025-12-18 02:13:16

#18 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Using wine on devuan » 2025-12-17 15:30:31

#19 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Using wine on devuan » 2025-12-17 11:33:41

#20 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Using wine on devuan » 2025-12-17 09:51:16

#21 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Using wine on devuan » 2025-12-16 22:29:11

#22 Re: Installation » Post installation annoyances » 2025-12-13 10:11:53

#23 Re: Installation » Post installation annoyances » 2025-12-12 14:41:57

#24 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » slow file copy / nvme-to-nvme / devuan linux? » 2025-12-11 13:19:43

#25 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » slow file copy / nvme-to-nvme / devuan linux? » 2025-12-11 12:36:23

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