Posts by Altoid

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

golinux wrote:

. . . perhaps you could adopt, adapt and maintain SLiM for devuan . . .

Thanks for the suggestion.
I was expecting it, it is not as if I have never heard it. 8^7

But I am not a coder or programmer, just an advanced (?) user with a few years of (more hardware than software) experience but who can't find his way around bash.

Actually, I'm an architect by trade who got into IT to make ends meet when recession and lack of work hit me broadside in 1995.
As you can imagine, I'd have no idea where to start and at 65+ I'm rather past the point of wanting to find out.

But IMO, the truth is that as SLiM is not news, shiny or desired, one wants to maintain it.

Like I said, a pity.

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

I'm slowly approaching Beowulf and to start off I'm installing a parallel systen on an extra 73Gb SAS HDD I have in my box.

But I've come across a strange issue:

I boot up the devuan_beowulf_3.0.0_amd64-netinstall.iso which has been dd'd to a 2.0Gb SD Card but when I get to partitioning the drive, the installer only offers format a partition (or the whole disk for that matter) to ext2, FAT16, FAT32 or SWAP.

The HDD is in perfect health and I can partition and format it with GParted from my Devuan ASCII but the installer won't have anything to do with that.

Same thing happens even if there is no partiton table on the drive. ie: it has been cleared.

Any idea as to what may be going on here?

TIA,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... sorry about the file descriptor misinformation.

It's quite allright.
Happens.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... best display manager is clearly no display manager ...

I would have to agree ...

But (if I recall correctly) not having a DM brought along quite a few (permission?) issues that surfaced while I was installing ASCII.
Cannot recall but installing SLiM solved everything right away and that was it.

So that's why I use SLiM.
I didn't even want the log-on process to execute startx.

I've set it up as simple as possible.
A dark screen with a cursor line: no 'USER', 'PASSWORD' or field to fill out, no 'Shutdown', 'Reboot' or 'Session'.

I wanted to also eliminate the cursor (I know there's a way in the SLiM config file) but never go around to it.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

SLiM runs X under the root user whereas a console login followed by startx[0] results in the X server being run under the normal user, which is clearly a major advantage

Indeed it is.

Being things as they are, for the moment I have no choice but to stay with SLiM.
And still think it is a real pity it has been abandoned.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

Vernon wrote:

... Thunderbird apt-get install thunderbird for a graphical e-mail client.
... Alpine apt-get install alpine. as a text based e-mail client.

If I recall correctly, after trying out Eudora and some other whose name I cannot recall, I finally settled on Pegasus Mail as my email client.
This was way back then, as I went from W3.11 to W95.
Never looked back.

When I (finally) switched to Linux, it was because I was confident that I would be able to (via Wine) have PMail as my email client and this had the benefit of my being able to have my favourite photo tool (IrfanView) at hand without having to switch OSs.

I was sure that I could eventually manage to do without IrfanView but not without PMail.

A couple of years ago, I thought that maybe there was an email client out there in Linux-land that could replace Pmail.
After searching through what was available I came across one which looked as it could do: Sylpheed-Claws.

All the boxes seemed to check: it was a similar front end and the Sylpheed-Claws FAQ indicated that it had what to me was a deal-breaker PMail feature: selective mail download.

So I installed Sylpheed-Claws to try it out but found none of that was there and there was no mention of it anywhere save that FAQ.

I asked at one list list but got no reply so I asked at another and got this:

Selective download was never in sylpheed, iirc, but it was in
Sylpheed-Claws many years ago, but was dropped by the time we
switched from gtk1 to gtk2, and has never reappeared (and is not
likely to).
The nearest thing to it would be to set a 'Receive size limit' on the
Receive page of the account preferences. Messages which have been
partially retrieved will show a button when opened, allowing you to
download the message in full.

How 'selective mail download' is in any way comparable (nearest thing) to 'receive size limit' is beyond me.

So ...
Pegasus Mail it will be, rightfully so as it has proven to be excellent and has served me very well for almost 25 years.
I have not been able to find anything to use as a suitable replacement in Linux.

I just hope to someday be able to settle my debt with David Harris.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Maintenance for SLiM stopped in 2013 so any security issues will not be addressed.

Yes, I know ...

That's why I said:

Altoid wrote:

A real pity.
With so many capable developers out there, going after the newest shiniest whatever instead of supporting/maintaining good software. :^ *

~$ echo foo >&3
bash: 3: Bad file descriptor
groucho@devuan:~$ tail -1 /var/log/slim.log
slim: waiting for X server to begin accepting connections.
~$ ls -l /var/log/slim.log
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 403312 Sep  5 15:44 /var/log/slim.log
~$ whoami
groucho
~$

I really wanted to avoid using anything and just log in and startx from the command line.
But it proved problematic for a number of reasons related to other parts of the system, so I went with the simplest and (to me) less problematic DM.

Unsupported and all, I believe BSD had it as the default DM at least up to a couple of years ago.

I recall having seen an article on-line where it was voted the best DM out of 19. (found it!).

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

rdav wrote:

Hi fsmithred
... the ancient DM I use: "Slim".

After trying the two or three out there, I cannot but emphatically recommend SLiM to one and all.
It is not systemd compatible which is not an issue for us but probably the reason nobody is taking care of it these days.

A real pity.
With so many capable developers out there, going after the newest shiniest whatever instead of supporting/maintaining good software. :^ *

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

viverna wrote:

... card with VIA VT6308P chipset. Works very well.

Glad to know you got the problem solved. 8^ )

It would be interesting (for future reference to others) if you would post whatever information you have (hardware, brand, source, etc.) as well as what is provided by dmesg, lspci, lsmod, etc.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Because su can be used for things other ...

I see.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Read man su

Yes, my use of su is rather limited to the basics, so I really have quite a bit of reading to do.
That's what you get from arriving to Linuxland late in life. 8^7

Thanks for your input.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... seems to be an error ...
... should be added to /etc/login.defs.

I see.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... call su correctly:
su -
^ The - is important.

Of course it is.
su won't work as intended expected without it.

Q:
Why not just get rid of the old su and let the output be command not found?

Now we have sudo, su and su - ...

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

See https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo … bug=905409

Thanks for the link.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... a PITA to add a - after the command?

Yes.
I forget to do it because I am very much used to su.
And I don't like sudo although it is convenient if properly used/configured.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

altoid wrote:

Would have been mine also ... 8⁷ |

I did not have /etc/default/su and generating the file and adding ALWAYS SET PATH yes did not work.

What did work was ...

root@devuan2:/home/groucho# export PATH=$PATH:~/usr/local/sbin

root@devuan2:/home/groucho# $echo $PATH
bash: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/root/usr/local/sbin: No such file or directory
root@devuan2:/home/groucho#

Got it from https://wiki.debian.org/EnvironmentVariables:

--- snip ---
... after doing su, your PATH may not contain directories like /sbin, and many system administration commands will fail. There are several workarounds:
...

Put the system administration directories (/sbin, /usr/sbin, /usr/local/sbin) in your regular account's PATH (see EnvironmentVariables for help with this).

--- snip ---

BTW: whatever the reason for the change in how su works, I hope it is a good/justified one and not another one of Poettering's wet dreams. It is a PITA.

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

viverna wrote:

I read another link:
https://sgcdn.startech.com/005329/media … V2_QSG.pdf
and startech says to offer Linux Ubuntu.

The *.pdf also says this:

Requirements
For the latest requirements, please visit www.startech.com/PEX1394A2V2

That link is to yet another *.pdf that says this:

Software
OS Compatibility
Windows® 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10
Windows Server® 2003

There is no mention of Linux in what seems to be the *.pdf with "latest requirements" for this card/chipset.

The card selling at the site recommended by GNUser is the same one I made reference to.
If it turns out to be expensive, just shop around for any other PCIe card that has the same chipset.

ie: Texas Instruments XIO2213B controller

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

viverna wrote:

Seller wrote me that Startech firewire card seems recognized in Windows.

Windows is not Linux. 8-⁷
The Startech webpage for this card does not mention Linux support.

That said ...

The card uses the Texas Instruments Texas Intruments -TSB82AA2 chipset and Startech's vendorID is 14b0.

Looking up TSB82AA2+14b0 on the linux-hardware.org website, we get this.

----

Results for 'Texas Instruments', 'TSB82AA2', id='14B0-*', type='firewire controller', bus='PCI' (0)
No data

----

Given that it is a card you can probably replace for less than US$25, I suggest that you get one that has Linux support.

See this one with a different TI chipset.

There are probably a few others, you'll have to shop around.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

Excalibur wrote:

... as you say ...
... contain images of various sorts ...
... would affect the efficiency of the base64 encoding ...

Quite so, the document's physical surface is roughly 50% magazine quality colour photos.

Learnt something new this week. =^)
Thanks a lot for your input.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

Excalibur wrote:

... will see a larger Email upload size than the actual data you are sending because the data is converted to base64 encoding.
This has a tendency to inflate the size of your data quite considerably. Hence, the discrepancy.

I see ...

This is just with Pegasus Mail or is it ...

Just read about it and it is probably common to all email clients or text to binary data conversions.
Like you say, base64 inflates the size of the data, but much less than decimal or hexadecimal:

Base-64 maps 3 bytes (8 x 3 = 24 bits) in 4 characters that span 6-bits (6 x 4 = 24 bits). The result looks something like "TWFuIGlzIGRpc3Rpb...". Therefore the bloating is only a mere 4/3 = 1.3333333 times the original.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/201536

Still, 15.5Mib x 1.3 = 20.15MiB, not 30.5MiB ...

What could be causing the other 10.35MiB worth of bloat?

Could it be that I am not sending a text file but *.pdf file, with all its complexities? ie: symbols, compression, etc. and the file is 15.5Mib 'on-disk'.

Thanks for your input.

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

golinux wrote:

... perhaps some wine overhead?

No idea, maybe with the CPU cycles.

Don't think it would affect transmitted data.

golinux wrote:

... my 2000th post!

Congrats !

A.

Altoid · Other Issues

Hello:

I run Devuan ASCII 2.0 and my email client is Pegasus Mail 4.73 under Wine Debian 1.8.7-2.

~$ uname -a
Linux devuan 4.9.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.228-1 (2020-07-05) x86_64 GNU/Linux
~$

I keep tabs on my LAN with Conky using this configuration:

--- snip ---
NETWORK LAN
${hr 2}
IP address: $alignr ${addr eth0}
${downspeedgraph eth0}
Incoming: ${downspeed eth0}  /s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth0}
${upspeedgraph eth0}
Outgoing: ${upspeed eth0}  /s $alignr total: ${totalup eth0}
--- snip ---

The thing is that (had not noticed this before) I just sent an email with a 15.5MiB *.pdf document but Conky informs me there were a total of 30.5MiB transmitted. ie: outgoing.
That's almost 2X the original file size.

There was practically no incoming activity while the file was being uploaded so I don't think (?) it was retransmission of dropped/failed packets.

At the risk of revealing my ignorance, could anyone explain to me what is going on?

Thanks in advance.

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

walterbyrd wrote:

... trying to install plexmediaserver, I added some debian sources ...
These are the debian sources that I had:
# deb [url]http://deb.debian.org/debian[/url] buster main contrib non-free <-- Error: it's either ascii or buster. Can't be both. 
# deb [url]https://downloads.plex.tv/repo/deb[/url] ./public main

fsmithred can surely expand on this more than I could, ie: how to fix it.

But what I'm sure of is that # deb http://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free should not be/have been there.

BTW: please use code to insert code and quote to insert a quote.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Desktop and Multimedia

Hello:

walterbyrd wrote:

Dependency hell.

Could you post your surces list?

~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list

I run on an updated Devuan ascii 2.0

~$ uname -a
Linux devuan 4.9.0-13-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.228-1 (2020-07-05) x86_64 GNU/Linux
~$

# apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get install -f
Hit:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security InRelease
Hit:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-updates InRelease
Hit:4 http://deb.devuan.org/devuan ascii-proposed InRelease
Hit:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-backports InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
#

Here's my sources.list, please disregard the comments:

~$ cat /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii main 
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-security main 
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-updates main 

# needed x virtualbox backport - enable to update package
deb http://deb.devuan.org/devuan/ ascii-proposed main contrib non-free 
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii-backports non-free contrib main 

# needed x nvidia non-free drivers installation
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii contrib 
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged/ ascii non-free 

# virtual box repository 
# deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/ stretch non-free contrib

With those sources, if I try to install vlc, I get this:

# apt-get install vlc
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
vlc is already the newest version (3.0.11-0+deb9u1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
#

Same with the plugin:

# apt-get install vlc-plugin-video-output
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
vlc-plugin-video-output is already the newest version (3.0.11-0+deb9u1).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
#

Check your sources.list, maybe there's something there that should not be or maybe there's something missing.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Devuan

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... just a python script so you can fudge an "installation" ...

Right, I'll get to it.
Thanks a lot ! 8^ )

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Devuan

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

... use ps_mem to analyse per-application memory ...

Is there a *.deb package available for ASCII?
Can't seem to find it.

TIA,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

freenet_bro wrote:

... tried Guix, Gentoo, Artix and a few others, but it always ended up with the same set of bullshit spyware.

Hmm ...

Just what is it that you do with your rig?

Did you sanitize your drive before each installation?

ie: with a bootable Linux install CD/DVD run gparted and clear the drive.
Then reboot, format it to FAT32, then reboot and clear it again.
Repeat till you have gone through ext3, ext4 and cleared one last time.

Only then install the OS again, from scratch.

freenet_bro wrote:

... a copy of my entire root directory from several different installs.

From what you say, I have the idea that whatever is dumping that crap into your installation is probably in your backups.
Have you gone through them and checked what was there?

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

The kernel & headers metapackages need to install new versions of their dependencies ...

Right ...

But why has this happened with my VM Devuan ascii ...

groucho@devuan:~$ uname -a
Linux devuan 4.9.0-12-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.210-1+deb9u1 (2020-06-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
groucho@devuan:~$

... and not with my everyday rig:

groucho@devuan:~$ uname -a
Linux devuan 4.9.0-12-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.210-1+deb9u1 (2020-06-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
groucho@devuan:~$

ie: what difference is there between them that causes those packages to be kept back? <- which was the reason for my OP.

There's more ...

EDIT:
It seems that between running apt-get update and apt-get upgrade on my rig and then doing the same on the VM used for the USB plug, the repos were updated.

So it looked like two different update/upgrade processes were taking place.

ie: one machine did it on the repos just before they were updated and the other just after they were updated.

Just what are the chances? 8^D

Thanks a lot for your input.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Installation

Hello:

I was in the process of updating/upgrading a Devuan image I burn to a USB plug as an emergency recovery tool.

groucho@devuan:~$ uname -a
Linux devuan 4.9.0-12-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.9.210-1+deb9u1 (2020-06-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
groucho@devuan:~$

The image was built with refracta snapshot 10.2.4 (20190713).

It is supposed to live inside the box, plugged into a USB socket on the MB but I've been sloppy lately so it is outside and not updated.
But I digress ...

On starting the process I came across this:

---

groucho@devuan:~$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for groucho: 
Get:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii InRelease [25.6 kB]
Get:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-security InRelease [25.6 kB]
Get:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-updates InRelease [25.6 kB]
Get:4 http://deb.devuan.org/devuan ascii-proposed InRelease [54.5 kB]
Get:5 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-backports InRelease [25.6 kB]
Get:6 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/main amd64 Packages [7198 kB]
Get:7 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/contrib amd64 Packages [50.8 kB]                                                                  
Get:8 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii/non-free amd64 Packages [78.8 kB]                                                                 
Get:9 http://deb.devuan.org/merged ascii-updates/main amd64 Packages [3504 B]                                                              
Fetched 7488 kB in 9s (767 kB/s)                                                                                                           
Reading package lists... Done
groucho@devuan:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done

The following packages have been kept back:
  linux-headers-amd64 linux-image-amd64                           <------------ this

The following packages will be upgraded:
  glib-networking glib-networking-common glib-networking-services libcups2 libgnutls30 libneon27-gnutls libopenjp2-7 libperl5.24
  linux-compiler-gcc-6-x86 linux-kbuild-4.9 nfs-common perl perl-base perl-modules-5.24 tzdata wpasupplicant xdg-utils
17 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 12.6 MB of archives.
After this operation, 63.5 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

Makes me wonder because I have linux-headers-amd64 and linux-image-amd64 as essential.
¿Why are these packages being kept back?
¿Is there some application that would break if forced the upgrade?
If so, ¿how can I find out which one?

Thanks in advance,

A.

Altoid · Hardware & System Configuration

Hello:

Debuser2018 wrote:

Another option is using CUPS.

+1

When (in a hurry) I purchased a M2020W, the only thing that worked almost right away (Devuan 2.0 ascii) was CUPS.
No issues since.

Cheers,

A.

Altoid · Off-topic

golinux wrote:

There is another distro?

No ...
Not really. 8^7

Don't know all I can do with just one, what would I want two for?

A.

The officially official Devuan Forum!

#1526 Re: Installation » Upgrading from Ascii to Beowulf » 2020-09-06 23:15:29

#1527 Installation » [Solved] Beowulf Netinstaller problem » 2020-09-06 22:42:10

#1528 Re: Installation » Upgrading from Ascii to Beowulf » 2020-09-06 20:36:44

#1529 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Choosing an email client » 2020-09-06 13:00:41

#1530 Re: Installation » Upgrading from Ascii to Beowulf » 2020-09-05 21:12:32

#1531 Re: Installation » Upgrading from Ascii to Beowulf » 2020-09-05 16:37:48

#1532 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Startech firewire card » 2020-09-04 21:18:53

#1533 Re: Other Issues » sbin PATH problems on Beowulf [SOLVED] » 2020-09-04 19:40:25

#1534 Re: Other Issues » sbin PATH problems on Beowulf [SOLVED] » 2020-09-04 18:34:07

#1535 Re: Other Issues » sbin PATH problems on Beowulf [SOLVED] » 2020-09-04 15:26:21

#1536 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Startech firewire card » 2020-08-27 16:39:31

#1537 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Startech firewire card » 2020-08-20 00:20:50

#1538 Re: Other Issues » Uploading file to email server - size vs. outgoing total discrepancy. » 2020-08-19 13:26:11

#1539 Re: Other Issues » Uploading file to email server - size vs. outgoing total discrepancy. » 2020-08-18 19:59:59

#1540 Re: Other Issues » Uploading file to email server - size vs. outgoing total discrepancy. » 2020-08-18 19:52:58

#1541 Other Issues » Uploading file to email server - size vs. outgoing total discrepancy. » 2020-08-18 19:09:42

#1542 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Cannot install VLC » 2020-08-13 22:48:37

#1543 Re: Desktop and Multimedia » Cannot install VLC » 2020-08-13 14:00:04

#1544 Re: Devuan » Fotoxx not complaining about low RAM » 2020-08-12 18:07:38

#1545 Re: Devuan » Fotoxx not complaining about low RAM » 2020-08-11 21:51:04

#1546 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » Making Devuan more secure. » 2020-08-01 22:41:01

#1547 Re: Installation » Devuan ascii 2.1 - 'Kept back' packages » 2020-07-20 19:27:36

#1548 Installation » Devuan ascii 2.1 - 'Kept back' packages » 2020-07-20 17:45:47

#1549 Re: Hardware & System Configuration » [SOLVED] Just bought HP 8025, not detected » 2020-07-18 00:15:52

#1550 Re: Off-topic » What other distro are you using (besides devuan)? » 2020-07-15 16:28:37

Board footer