Is it a bug?
Following an update from a working "stable" Debian installation, to "unstable" (from an Australian mirror), running startx elicited: X: cannot stat /etc/X11/X (No such file or directory) Trying: strings /usr/bin/X11/X | grep X | more shows "/etc/X11/X" appears in the executable. The update had blown away startx, necessitating an apt-get in order to get onto first base. I'm now in a quandary: Did the update blow away more than just a little, necessitating a re-installation from CD? Erik
Re: office suite capable of importing/converting applixware aw & ag files?
On Mon, Jul 05, 2004 at 08:40:31PM +0100, stephen parkinson wrote: > my applix was purchased approx 4-5 yrs ago Last time I looked for an upgrade, it appeared to be no longer supported. (I'd be happy to be proven wrong) > i tgz'd the applix dir and now uncompressed on a libranet 2.8.1 box, > applix complains loudly of missing libstdc++ 2.8 libs > > so do i build & install libstdc++2.8 sources or hope for > a open source program that will import applix aw/ag files ? I'd go with the former, but if the latter should descend in a shaft of light, please ping me. > current libstdc seems to be 2.10 > > nothing much appeared in search of debian-user archives Sometimes I wonder how many of us remain. Regards, Erik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Is newsgate used|useable?
After an "apt-get install newsgate" (woody), there doesn't seem to be any form of doco. Both man and info draw a blank, and: o apt-cache search showed no separate newsgate manpage package. o The only hits, on googling www.debian.org for "newsgate", were two long package lists! Assuming the google site search included all maillist archives, is it advisable to look elsewhere for a working "Mail to News and News to Mail Gateway"? Erik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Is newsgate used|useable?
On Thu, May 13, 2004 at 11:32:42AM +0100, Randy Orrison wrote: > Did you check /usr/share/doc/newsgate? That's the standard place for > debian packages to install documentation files. Thank you, Randy! Seems that the little that I have previously installed had executables, and manpages, matching the package name. Erik -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: IPV6 hosts file (was: Re: That time IPv6 farted in Gene's church (Was Re: forcedeth?))
On 27.05.19 17:06, Gene Heskett wrote: > Thats fine, shows the loop local stuff, but how does one determine the > ipv6 address for picnc.coyote.den for instance. I think it somehow > related to picnc's mac address, but thats just a WAG. On coyote, it'll look something like line 3: $ ifconfig -a eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:31:20:c2:5f:5e inet addr:192.168.1.2 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 inet6 addr: fe81::231:19ff:fea1:4f4e/64 Scope:Link ... But if in doubt, set it to something you like, then add it to /etc/hosts on the others, I figure. (Haven't yet fussed with IPV6, myself.) Erik P.S. Yes, there's doubtless an "ip" way to show addresses too. BMG. -- Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs a step at a time. - Mark Twain, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Re: That time IPv6 farted in Gene's church (Was Re: forcedeth?)
On 27.05.19 23:32, Jimmy Johnson wrote: > No, seriously I would like to get some user feedback to the question. > And also why is net-tools being deprecated? It's not. You and I fully approve of it, so it's fine for the use cases in which it gives the desired results. (See ifconfig use on this thread.) It's Network-Munger which I have had to deprecate right off my machines in the past, in order to get static networking running. If I were Gene, I'd blow it away first, ask questions afterwards. But that's just my experience. His WV mountain gremlins might have placed other obstacles, but one less can only help in this case. Erik
Re: That time IPv6 farted in Gene's church (Was Re: forcedeth?)
On 28.05.19 08:02, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Monday 27 May 2019 11:18:49 pm Joe Pfeiffer wrote: > > > Gene Heskett writes: > > Your version (1.14.6-2) of network-manager appears to be out of date. > > The following newer release(s) are available in the Debian archive: > > experimental: 1.18.0-1 > > Please try to verify if the bug you are about to report is already > > addressed by these releases. Do you still want to file a report > > [y|N|q|?]? > > And this exposes something in debian's policy I object to, as strenuously > as I can. A newer version may well fix the bug, but its never given to > the users until they upgrade to the next release, and that brings a > never shrinking list of new bugs. Gene, you're just too shy and retiring. In such a case, if experimental is not your cup of tea, why not conclude "It needs to be fixed in stable.", and hit 'y' to still file a report. After all, until it's backported to stable, it's still an outstanding bug. That said, one could upgrade just that one package, and try it out. If it is fixed, you're on a winner then and there. "Fixed" beats "reported", as you can get on with the next issue. Erik
Re: IPV6 hosts file (was: Re: That time IPv6 farted in Gene's church (Was Re: forcedeth?))
On 28.05.19 14:59, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Tue, May 28, 2019 at 08:51:41AM -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > > [...] > > > But who or what is the gatekeeper to make sure the address you choose, > > supposedly at random, isn't in use someplace next door or half the > > planet away? There may be some sort of an enforcement in ipv6, but I've > > not heard of it. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just that if it > > does, I've never read about it. > > I refer you (second time today, hint, hint) to this page from Wikipedia: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link-local_address#IPv6 That gives a vague nebulous overview, but Gene needs a bit more detail. A quick google of "linux static ipv6 address howto" gave some promising looking hits. I liked the look of the third hit: https://kb.wisc.edu/ns/page.php?id=14099 While the example is aimed at a specific site, it shows the files to be edited, and IIUC, FE80 is for local addressing, like ipv4 non-routable address ranges, so it should be generally applicable, I figure. The tutorial in the second hit: https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/ubuntu-ipv6-networking-configuration/ might be worth a try next, using an FE80 address, I figure. Use your google foo, Gene! There's so much chaff out there, and life's too short to be sorting the wheat out with tweezers. Erik
Re: That time IPv6 farted in Gene's church (Was Re: forcedeth?)
On 28.05.19 08:59, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Tuesday 28 May 2019 08:34:37 am Erik Christiansen wrote: > > That said, one could upgrade just that one package, and try it out. If > > it is fixed, you're on a winner then and there. "Fixed" beats > > "reported", as you can get on with the next issue. > > > > Erik > > A great idea Erik. What then is the deb line in sources.list to enable > that? Thats what I was alluding to when I said inner circle. At https://wiki.debian.org/DebianExperimental#To_configure_APT we see a sources.list line and how to pin a specific package install to that, either on the command line or in /etc/apt/preferences. Here's hoping that your wife's COPD is bearable, she doesn't throw your cooking at you, and you can maintain the stamina each day to be her palliative carer despite your 84 years. Erik
Re: What is agetty, and why can't it be stopped?
On 06.06.19 07:14, Gene Heskett wrote: > > # Example how to put a getty on a serial line (for a terminal) > > # > > #T0:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS0 9600 vt100 > > #T1:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -L ttyS1 9600 vt100 > > > Yes, I recall those days. But until now ttyS0 and S1 if it existed, were > free for my to use. Now it seems to want to grab everything in sight. Er, Gene, does your /etc/inittab have either of those lines uncommented to activate a getty on them? If so, just comment them again. If not, did your upgrade land you in systemdix land, so the traditional way is gone. > This is MY machine, and it should be able to do what I want it to do. I > finally did kill the one that was grabbing ttyS0. In fact it appears I > killed them all, htop cannot find one running now, and neither can an > lsof, Yet the machine seems to be running normally. > > > Cf. man inittab for details. See? Still gettys being started > > here, for the Linux virtual consoles. And some examples on > > how to do it for serial terminals. > > > No man page for inittab seems to be installed. That seems to be a head > scratcher right there. Nah, systemd replaces the traditional SysV init stuff, if you let it be installed. Then you have to learn new ways. Erik -- manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others. - Ray Simard
Re: What is agetty, and why can't it be stopped?
On 08.06.19 11:28, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Saturday 08 June 2019 10:20:09 am deloptes wrote: > > Did you try running this without systemd? I recall you mentioned > > somewhere you removed it > > > > regards > > No. And I doubt there would even be a running system left. I don't think > I wrote that it had been removed... > > I just didn't know that it could be made so pervasive in one swell foop. Err, Gene, this foop has swelled to 1.2 million lines of code while your back was turned. Pervasiveness is its essence. https://linux.slashdot.org/story/19/05/25/0538206/systemd-now-has-more-than-12-million-lines-of-code Erik
Re: What is agetty, and why can't it be stopped?
On 09.06.19 06:59, Gene Heskett wrote: > And what do we call that Erik, thats much bigger than a normal foop, a > megafoop maybe? Good grief, Charley Brown. And we're stuck with it. :( Well now, there are folks who have observed that not all progress is forward, and not all code bloat and pervasiveness is a benison, resulting in at least two ways to remain essentially debian without remaining stuck in the foop, mega or otherwise. One simple method is from the "Insidious systemd" thread on this list. Quoting from <20190527144308.0398ce4b@debian9>: On 27.05.19 14:43, Patrick Bartek wrote: > I used the "approved" conversion documented on Debian's web site > somewhere: apt (or apt-get) install sysvinit-core. ... > Totally automatic. All of systemd's libraries remained along with udev > and a couple others I don't recall. It freed up about 6 or 7 MB of > RAM over a systemd boot. One apt-get install is about as easy as it could be. Some residual unused libraries mouldering in the background do no harm, but if they offend, then there is devuan. While my laptop and main desktop are pre-systemd debian, I've run devuan on another host for some time. It is only sans-systemd debian, remaining true in other regards. Downloading an image, putting it on a usb stick, and doing yet another install is a bit more work, and another list to subscribe to. There are a number of debian users who appear satisfied with the sysvinit-core package. To my mind it neatly solves the problem of an old bloke, happy with traditional sysvinit, having to load wetware RAM with a completely new way to get the same bucket of water from the well as we've been doing for decades. (Speaking of self, here.) Erik -- "If you want to eat hippopotamus, you've got to pay the freight." - attributed to an IBM guy, about why IBM software uses so much memory.
Re: What is agetty, and why can't it be stopped?
On 09.06.19 19:11, Brian wrote: > On Mon 10 Jun 2019 at 00:52:21 +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > > > > On 09.06.19 06:59, Gene Heskett wrote: > > > And what do we call that Erik, thats much bigger than a normal foop, a > > > megafoop maybe? Good grief, Charley Brown. And we're stuck with it. :( > > > > Well now, there are folks who have observed that not all progress is > > forward, . > > Indeed there are; their promotion of "backward progress" mangles the > English language and brings into doubt any subsequent argument being > promoted. Are these the same people who observe "forward regression" > in some processes? No, that's just your lack of understanding being expressed by you. Many of the nuances of the meaning of "progress" may be found in: 1. To make progress; to move forward in space; to continue onward in course; to proceed; to advance; to go on; as, railroads are progressing. "As his recovery progressed." --Thackeray. Please think on the following example. A party might progress (continue onward in course) deeper into a swamp, the mire might progress (advance) up the sides of their boots, and their progress (procession) may grow progressively slower and more laboured. Does this progress (advance) their goals? Once you apply your mind to it, I'm sure that you can understand these nuances of the English language. (If English is not your first language, then your uninformative overly opinionated interruption is excused. ;) > Incidentally, the OP has no intention of changing the init system he > is using. He has enough problems on his plate already. How fortunate Gene is to have you to tell him what he wants. Perhaps you'll also tell him to be grateful for your decisionmaking on his behalf? Incidentally, I thank you for leaving the task of providing informative contributions, outlining real-world options, to the helpfully inclined. It'll save confusion. Erik
Re: Reading pdf files
On 13.06.19 16:29, k. jantzen wrote: > > in general I do not have a problem reading a pdf file with either xpdf or > documentviewer. Yup, documentviewer will sometimes show faint lines better, I find, but it's easy to set the background colour in xpdf. > But once in a while I get a pdf file that they cannot read and then I have > to go to Windows to open it. > > What is so spectacular about these files that they cannot be read by the > above mentioned programs? That varies, and a reader with good error messages is the easiest way to find out. > Is there another program that would read such a file? Well, given s/would/could, try mupdf: $ apt-cache search mupdf mupdf - lightweight PDF viewer mupdf-tools - commmand line tools for the MuPDF viewer libmupdf-dev - development files for the MuPDF viewer In my case, a pdf certificate from a state authority displayed the logo and signature in xpdf, but none of the text - not much use at all. A quick install of mupdf not only allowed the whole document to be displayed, but issued (a squillion times) the following error message on stderr: Error: Couldn't create a font for 'ABCDEE+Calibri,Bold' Error: Found a bad table definition on true type definition, trying to continue... after an initial: Error: PDF file is damaged - attempting to reconstruct xref table... I only use mupdf for problem pdf files, but it's very nifty to have on hand. Erik
Re: Forgot name of Debian "configuration" {wrong word?} file
On 14.06.19 06:10, Richard Owlett wrote: > I can't remember the name of the file which identifies the association > between a directory (i.e. \home) and which physical partition it is on. The > file I'm looking for also identifies which partition is used for swap. Easier than looking in /etc/fstab is just running the "mount" command. The "df" command also includes what you seek in its output. Erik
Re: Reading pdf files
On 14.06.19 10:51, Celejar wrote: > On Fri, 14 Jun 2019 18:50:22 +1000 > Erik Christiansen wrote: > > I only use mupdf for problem pdf files, but it's very nifty to have on > > hand. > > I actually love mupdf, and I use it as my main pdf reader. It's just so > lightweight and easy to use for basic pdf reading. On trying it again, it does look very promising. Is there a way to set the background colour? With xpdf I use "-papercolor wheat3" to avoid eyestrain from the white background. Erik
Re: Reading pdf files
On 15.06.19 07:51, Curt wrote: > curty@einstein:~$ mupdf > usage: mupdf [options] file.pdf [page] > -p -password > -r -resolution > -A -set anti-aliasing quality in bits (0=off, 8=best) > -C -RRGGBB (tint color in hexadecimal syntax) > -W -page width for EPUB layout > -H -page height for EPUB layout > -S -font size for EPUB layout > -U -user style sheet for EPUB layout > > So I guess, 'mupdf -C FFEFD5 foo.pdf' (which gives papaya, not wheat--can't > find > wheat--but at least it's a foodstuff). Works here. Many thanks, Curt. I'll have to update my mupdf: $ mupdf -C FFEFD5 ~/Personal/domestic/shed/design/plans.pdf mupdf: unknown option -C usage: mupdf [options] file.pdf [page] -b -set anti-aliasing quality in bits (0=off, 8=best) -p -password -r -resolution -A disable accelerated functions And that seems to need an update of my ancient debian version, as an "apt-get install mupdf" offers nothing newer. Procrastination does seem to catch up on one eventually. Erik
Off-topic: Action [Was: Re: Off topic: remaja (teens)
On 22.06.19 12:23, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Hi, > > deloptes wrote: > > Please stop! > > You know what happens if you try to issue commands here, do you ? > > > > BTW you are also a carbon dioxide producer ;-) > > Voluntarily i'm only part of the athmospheric carbon cycle, not of the > unearthing of carbon for oxidation. I'm doing my best to reduce the > profits which carbon diggers can make from me. Sitting here, in the down under winter, heating with carbon-neutral biomass as I've done for the last 30 years, doing paperwork to progress my off-grid 100% solar and biomass (i.e. stored solar) powered rural build, I'd suggest that moving at least 2m above current sea level before the end of the century, is not wasted effort. > But i am not a teenager any more. So i am glad to see how well they are > doing their job of annoying us in a constructive way. Not all old folk are slow learners. I'm 65, and am accelerating the action I've been taking for over three decades. What we're seeing socially is the late adopters finally catching on. (Including bankers and insurers, showing the problem is not imminent - it is here now.) With Chennai running out of water now, and the Himalayas losing 1% of snow mass yearly (28% already gone), the CIA's projection of water wars by 2030 is optimistic, I expect. Here, in southern Australia, our farm is destocked, because the last dam, dug in a watercourse, deepened to 6 metres, has run dry. Neighbours dams have been dry for a year. Never before has there been no water at all. The national (arguably vanity) rice crop over the last three years is: 807,000 ; 635,000 ; 52,000 tonnes. Hay prices have tripled, despite a steady high stock slaughter rate. Usually one of the world's largest wheat exporters, we are now importing increasing quantities to try to keep core breeding stock alive. The extra 1 billion human mouths to feed every 12 years puts increasing strain on decreasing food supply reliability. Loss of farmland to suburbia is compounding the problem, also due to water use. Feedback effects are small snowballs yet, but measurably growing: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190612-the-poisons-released-by-melting-arctic-ice We're slow to the party down here, but even we can pick up our game: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-14/australias-largest-solar-and-battery-farm-opens-in-kerang/11209666 Let's all act before "Children as young as 10 were being sent to fetch water a train ride away, hauling back containers of water almost as big as they were." becomes symptomatic of the next generation's fate: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-22/chennais-telling-the-globe-a-story-about-water-scarcity/11229084 Erik
Re: Wireless home LAN - WiFi vs Bluetooth?
On 29.07.19 14:44, Joe wrote: > On Mon, 29 Jul 2019 09:34:25 -0400 > Dan Ritter wrote: > > > > In a single-family house, Powerline is about as secure as wired > > ethernet: you need to come in and plug something in to spy on > > it. > > Most people won't have RF blocking filters at their house electricity > inlet, so there may be some leakage to the next house that's on the > same phase. Several of those clamp-on ferrite noise suppression cores, of a size to fill a partly closed fist, would do some good without requiring wiring alteration. > I can get a reliable connection on the end of about 100ft of house and > extension cable, so I wouldn't be surprised to be able to find a signal > in another house. And ethernet cable is twisted pair, minimising radiation. Power wiring is just parallel conductors, so a sniffer has more signal to pick up. Additionally, transmitted power levels in a Powerline network would likely be higher than on a clean ethernet cable, due to the intermittent electrical noise found on power circuits, due to switching loads, motors, etc. (It's either that or retransmit corrupted packets.) The analog designers in an R&D lab I worked in about 40 years ago spent their lunch hours on a powerline intercom. Pushing a good clean signal through the noise was a challenge. > Presumably, when we speak of security here, we're not talking about > accidental reception, wi-fi WEP would be sufficient to prevent this, > but a deliberate attempt to break in. We could assume that someone > trying to get into a power-line link would be able to amplify the > signals involved. The street wiring would act as an extension of the antenna provided by the house wiring, and with much larger loop area between conductors, radiate much better. Acting against that is masking RF noise from everything else in the street, requiring either selectivity or at least a capacitive connection in the street or the comfort of a neighbour's house. But even if you have a wireless keyboard, the your passwords are out there several times per day, I figure. Erik
Re: Wireless home LAN - WiFi vs Bluetooth?
On 29.07.19 20:46, David Wright wrote: > On Mon 29 Jul 2019 at 18:00:25 (-0400), Gene Heskett wrote: > > On Monday 29 July 2019 17:26:17 ghe wrote: > > > > > On 7/29/19 1:57 PM, David Wright wrote: > > > > Irrelevant in a domestic setting: it's illegal to have more than one > > > > phase in an ordinary house. > > > > > > FYI, and significantly OT: > > > > > > I don't think that's true in the US. > > IIRC Joe's in the UK. 3-phase there is lethal. 1 is bad enough. Here in Australia we also have only "240v", generally closer to 230v nowadays, and domestic 3 phase is no big deal, just a couple of thousand dollars more, as it's just a 3 phase cable, 3 fuses on the pole instead of 1, and then what you want to cram in your switchboard. Good for a big aircon in a big house on a 43°C day. (110°F) People who have it and a nice big PV array on the roof are allowed to feed much more power back into the grid than someone with only one phase. Now that the feed-in tariff is better, some consumers have close to zero electricity bill, despite using grid power at night. (Much cheaper than batteries.) Should have no power-line signal leakage on my new build, it's off-grid, with a mile to the nearest neighbour. ;-) Erik
Re: 3 phase power (was Re: Wireless home LAN - WiFi vs Bluetooth?
On 30.07.19 11:34, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > Most residential power in the US is created using a single phase transformer > (so called because (1) it only takes power from one of the 3 phases mentioned > above and (2) darn -- it's a bitch getting old. Tell me about it. ;-) I'd offer that (2) is simply that there's only one primary and one secondary, not three of each, on multiple arms of the core. > The secondary of that > transformer is center tapped with the center tap almost always grounded, such > that the other two taps from the secondary both produce 120 volts (RMS > nominal), but out of phase with each other by 180 degrees. Those details on this thread have been interesting, because 120v is unknown down under - and, I think, in the UK. Erik
Re: Error with logrotate.
On 13.08.19 00:38, Gene Heskett wrote: > Its good that we can fix it, BUT IF you are going to restrict where we > keep logfiles like this then FIX the /var/log perms so that fetchmail, > procmail, spamassassin, clamav and its ilk, running as the user can > access /var/log to keep its logs. Debian's legendary paranoia about who > can write a log in /var/log has long since forced most of us that want > that log, into moving it to /home/username/log and reprogramming > logrotate to maintain it there years ago. Nuthin' wrong with that. An individual user's logs in his tree, and system logs in theirs. No effort: $ grep log .fetchmailrc .procmailrc .fetchmailrc:set logfile "/tmp/fetchmail_log" ... .procmailrc:LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/tmp_log.$$ .procmailrc:FINAL_LOG=$MAILDIR/log If you had a house full of rowdy teenagers, would you really want them all able to wallop /var/log? And what if it were a tribe of uni students? (I think I have you sufficiently worried now, Gene.) Erik (Who was both, once.)
Re: is it possible run 32-bit app on 64-bit amd system??
On 13.08.19 07:47, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > On Monday, August 12, 2019 10:56:22 PM riveravaldez wrote: > > >> btw which option should i add to mplayer command line > > >> so that it play only audio part (not video part) of a file? > > > > $ mplayer -novideo file > > I'm in a strange mood today (I end up here often) -- I like to see things > like > that written as: > > mplayer -novideo > > or > > mplayer -novideo > > It makes it more clear what is "fixed text" and what is a variable / > parameter. Yes, to those of us who have done a bit of reading, especially from the days when clarity of written expression was more highly valued. (Or at least given greater formality.) But not everyone has been exposed to the above long and widely established substitute for italics or similar to denote non-literal text, so your "teaching moment" is an act of generosity. Erik
Have managed a CUPS printer addition, but the queue is a black hole.
After a fresh update of CUPS, and a fresh "Add Printer", selecting the first (gutenberg) model option, printing a pdf page from xpdf caused display of GUI message boxes indicating "printing started" and "printing completed", but no printer output. At localhost:631 -> Job Management, "Show all jobs" gives: ▲ ID ▲ Name User Size PagesState HP-LaserJet-3050-1 Unknown Withheld 8k Unknown completed at Sat Jun 23 20:42:53 2018 so CUPS processed the job, but the printer stands silently oblivious, displaying "Ready". So why no printing? $ lsusb Bus 001 Device 005: ID 03f0:3217 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 3050 $ lpstat -t scheduler is running system default destination: HP-LaserJet-3050 device for HP-LaserJet-3050: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_3050?serial=00CNCKR73450 device for HP-LaserJet-3050-Fax: hpfax:/usb/HP_LaserJet_3050?serial=00CNCKR73450 device for HP_LaserJet_3050: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_3050?serial=00CNCKR73450 HP-LaserJet-3050 accepting requests since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:42:53 AEST HP-LaserJet-3050-Fax accepting requests since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:27:56 AEST HP_LaserJet_3050 accepting requests since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:40:42 AEST printer HP-LaserJet-3050 is idle. enabled since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:42:53 AEST ready to print printer HP-LaserJet-3050-Fax is idle. enabled since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:27:56 AEST printer HP_LaserJet_3050 is idle. enabled since Sat 23 Jun 2018 20:40:42 AEST $ lpq -PHP-LaserJet-3050 HP-LaserJet-3050 is ready no entries I'd like to try an "lpc up", but lpc seems not to be there, and I don't know which package would have it. Any prodding in the direction of an exit from the maze would be most welcome. Erik
Re: Have managed a CUPS printer addition, but the queue is a black hole.
Aargh! Apologies for committing a subthread hijack. That wasn't intended. The new CUPS & HP-LaserJet-3050 addition prints the printer self-test page immediately, the CUPS test page after several minutes, but other print jobs not at all. Again, printing from xpdf, the job is queued: $ lpq HP-LaserJet-3050 is ready and printing RankOwner Job File(s) Total Size active (null) 5 untitled8192 bytes then $ lpq HP-LaserJet-3050 is ready no entries but no printer output. In /var/log/cups/error_log, for that job, we see: 2 I [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] [Job 5] ready to print 3 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] [Job 5] Set job-printer-state-message to "ready to print", current level=INFO 4 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] Discarding unused job-progress event... 5 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdMarkDirty(-S) 6 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Printing jobs and dirty files", busy="Printing jobs and dirty files" 7 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] [Notifier] state=3 8 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] [Notifier] PrinterStateChanged 9 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdReadClient: 24 POST / HTTP/1.1 10 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files", busy="Printing jobs and dirty files" 11 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdAuthorize: No authentication data provided. 12 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdReadClient: 24 1.1 CUPS-Get-Printers 1 13 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] CUPS-Get-Printers 14 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] Returning IPP successful-ok for CUPS-Get-Printers (no URI) from localhost 15 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] PID 9829 (/usr/lib/cups/backend/hp) exited with no errors. 16 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdMarkDirty(-S) 17 D [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] cupsdSetBusyState: newbusy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files", busy="Active clients, printing jobs, and dirty files" 18 I [23/Jun/2018:21:49:26 +1000] [Job 5] Job completed. but still nothing printed. The CUPS test page includes "Driver: HP3380_6.PPD". I don't know if it has selected the best one, or if that's relevant to this print job evaporation. Erik
SOLVED, mostly. [Was: Re: Have managed a CUPS printer addition, but the queue is a black hole.
On 24.06.18 10:04, mick crane wrote: > On 2018-06-23 13:12, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > The new CUPS & HP-LaserJet-3050 addition prints the printer self-test > > page immediately, the CUPS test page after several minutes, but other > > print jobs not at all. Again, printing from xpdf, the job is queued: ... > > but no printer output. > > > The CUPS test page includes "Driver: HP3380_6.PPD". I don't know if it > > has selected the best one, or if that's relevant to this print job > > evaporation. > > any error messages on the printer ? > more than 1 tray ? right tray selected ? No errors on the printer, and now I find that in addition to the test pages mentioned, it prints a .ps saved to file from libreoffice immediately, without any problems. But postscript output by xpdf, which is what I had to hand for the post-installation tests, is still queued and lost without output or visible symptom. So, to probe what's up there, I printed to file from xpdf, then lpr-ed that, as I had done with the saved .ps from libreoffice. That disappeared too, so it seems that the ps from xpdf is somehow unprintable, though they're all %!PS-Adobe-3.0. For the moment, I'll put it down to an xpdf problem, rather than cups, as another .ps I had to hand prints too. Ah ... printing directly from libreoffice, something I very rarely use, works too. It's mysterious rather than a show-stopper now, so we'll see how much effort I put in later to try to print from xpdf and anything else which fails similarly. Thanks for the inquiring mind. Erik -- If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then Quit. No use being a damn fool about it. - W.C. Fields
Re: Looking for ratings of all-in-one printers for Linux (Ubuntu in particular)
On 10.07.18 12:53, David Wright wrote: > On Mon 09 Jul 2018 at 19:05:52 (-0400), Dan Ritter wrote: > > On Mon, Jul 09, 2018 at 06:53:44PM -0400, Michael Stone wrote: > > > On Mon, Jul 09, 2018 at 06:39:29PM -0400, Dan Ritter wrote: > > > > You're both missing the main point, which is that a Brother > > > > printer with BRscript/3 is essentially a Postscript printer, and > > > > you can treat it as one. No drivers needed. > > I'm not really interested in a PostScript printer per se, but in a > printer that handles PDFs natively. Is this the same thing? So long as CUPS can translate for the printer what the app (even as simple as lpr) hands over, then the only cost is a print delay if the postscript is computation-intensive - but that has to be done either in the printer or on the host anyway, and the host is probably faster. I'm using a decade-old HP Laserjet 3050 all-in-one, and the hplip drivers in CUPS sufficed during a recent software update. > > > So you can use it as an all-in-one postscript printer/scanner? > > > > You can use it as a printer. As far as I know there is no such > > thing as a "postscript scanner". > > What I would understand by the expression "postscript scanner" is > something that scans a document and yields a PDF file. I think > a lot of scanners (most?) will also scan to a JPEG file. When arcing up my Epson Perfection V350 flatbed scanner in xsane or the other image scanner, I tend to save as jpg. ISTRC that it's a smaller file. _But_ I wouldn't buy an all-in-one again. The scanner in that is useless for books, and even magazines can be too valued to allow ripping out pages. Only the flat-bed scanner has seen any use in the last half decade. OK, the all-in-one has an integrated fax - but I've never used it, and doubtless now never will. > > The Brother all-in-ones tend to have "scan-to-network" abilities, > > though, and that doesn't require a driver -- just an internal > > FTP or SAMBA server to receive the files. My workplace has a > > bunch of these. Walk up, select Scan, select Network, and put > > your document(s) in. You get PDFs or TIFFs in your filesystem. > > That's the sort of thing, but I'm used to it writing the files > onto a USB stick (and prefer that). Both the Laserjet 3050 and Epson V350 are USB, but no sticks needed. ISTM that quite a range of printers and scanners work with linux, and the only thing I'd like to add is an A3 printer, but can't justify the expense while I can drop into the local library with a usb stick and print the very occasional large format page for negligible cost. Erik
Survival Notes [Was: Re: If not "newbie" then ????
On 21.07.18 10:42, Richard Owlett wrote: > P.S. I've saved ~6 years of useful posts from this group. I've been trying > to figure out how to organize it in order to create a QWSBFA rather than a > FAQ. QWSBFA=="Questions Which Should Be Frequently Asked" ;/ There are so many paths that people have trodden, and so many levels of expertise, that survival notes are somewhat individualised, I figure. How best to manage it probably depends on your vintage. Over three decades I've accumulated ~ 420 pages of *nix user & sysadmin, embedded programming, and text munging notes. With folding enabled, Vim presents the single plain text file as one page - the table of contents. Headings are capitalised, and a ':' follows keywords (also capitalised). A search hit automatically unfolds to the fold level required. It's simple, easy to manage, and fast - but most importantly, my fingers know Vim. Stuff from technical lists which doesn't make it to the survival notes, i.e. the few % of posts worth keeping, are sorted on first reading to topic-specific mailboxes. Tonight there are: $ ls -1 mail/* | wc -l 1266 and $ ls -1 mail/cnc* | wc -l 454 are LinuxCNC-related. (Gene's favourite hobby.) Even with automated search, it's a lot easier to look for one keyword in a hundred posts from a single context, than try to make keyword combinations which will fight off out of context hits in a hundred thousand posts. > OWL ducks fer cover ;} Hopefully owl ducks make good cover. Erik
Re: Arduino and Python or gcc compiler?
On 22.07.18 10:29, cyaiplexys wrote: > I think my mindset also came from my days of trying to program the WowWee > RoboSapien RS Media (ARM/Linux with Java). That was like a fully > programmable computer and robot all in one. Then the full arduino environment will be more comfortable than raw C on bare iron. While I program AVRs, including the ATmega328P used on most arduino boards, in C and assembler, I understand that the arduino environment provides a high level programming interface which allows e.g. artists to write "sketches" to perform real-time tasks. There is quite a bit of peripheral hardware on an ATmega328P, from serial USART, through timer/counters useful for e.g. PWM motor control, through multi-channel 10 bit Analogue to digital converter. The chip datasheet is 440 pages in length, and learning to initialise and drive the on-chip paraphernalia is a non-trivial task. The arduino environment provides a library of drivers AIUI, to allow programming at the application level, rather than writing your own drivers¹. It won't necessarily give you the last microsecond of real-time performance, but it should be a low-pain introduction. (Must be some reason for its popularity, I figure.) > I don't mind using C, but am pretty bad at it. Maybe this is the time to > finally get better at it. Learning two things at once is for self-driven stoics only, at least if they're both non-trivial. Beginning with a friendly development environment and application framework, complete with examples which could be downloaded and used for tutorial purposes, avoids the pain of a lot of stuff failing not because of coding errors, but because not yet grokking the 440 pages of hardware spec left one bit in that other mode enabling register unset, so it'll never work until you find the clue in the doco. There must be an arduino ML or forum, which would be a sanity saver. Once master of that, then there's the AVRfreaks forum when the more serious C journey begins. OK, there are one or two arduinos with ARM chips, but I don't count that as original arduino. A raspberry Pi, running linux, would be a more familiar environment by the sound of it. No problem running python there, but would there be python I/O libraries? ¹ OK, drivers for e.g. 2x20 character LCDs can be found on the net, but where there's an arduino LCD "shield" (plug-in daughterboard), there'll be an arduino driver ready to use. Erik
Re: If not "newbie" then ????
On 23.07.18 10:28, Eric S Fraga wrote: > On Sunday, 22 Jul 2018 at 05:39, Tom Browder wrote: > > Sounds like there are a lot of fellow travelers here. If you lean > > more towards loving programming as I do (started in FORTRAN IV in > > 1961), you might check out the new world of Perl 6 (https://perl6.org) > > Interesting. I started way back when with FORTRAN 66 and APL but I have > moved on to Julia (julialang.org) these days. In 1972 we were still submitting FORTRAN IV jobs on Hollerith punched cards, to run on an ICL1901 24-bit mainframe, which half-filled a room with its fridge-sized chain printer and big card reader and disk drives. But the electrical engineering department had its own little HP2100A 16-bit minicomputer, with 16k words of 980 ns ferrite core memory. (Very spiffy stuff, back then.) If you overwrote the punched tape bootloader in the first dozen words or so of RAM, then you had to load it by hand from the frontpanel switch register, word by word, in octal. The three-chip 8080A CPU had become the single-chip 8085 by the time I programmed it, before moving to the 8051 microcontroller, but sprinkling 13 of 'em in a system, 12 mask programmed, so no coding errors permitted, My first home CPU was a TMS9900, which like the COSMAC had 16 x 16 bit registers, but not on-chip. A pointer register set the location of the register workspace in RAM, so that on interrupt or subroutine call, changing one register gave a new set of registers instantly. It also had a barrel shifter, rotating a register any number of bits in a single instruction, optionally controlled by the 4 LSBs of R0. (Magic for computing sine and cos by the CORDIC method.) And it had 16x16 multiply and 32/16 divide. But the contemporary COSMAC was well ahead of its time - a CMOS CPU in 1976. Erik
Re: Cross-Platform Assembly Language Compilers?
On 26.07.18 08:29, cyaiplexys wrote: > I'd like to try a native compiler but also I would like to have something I > could compile for Arduino (here we go again) and ARM and other CPUs as well. $ apt-cache search avr | more arduino - AVR development board IDE and built-in libraries libavresample-dev - FFmpeg compatibility library for resampling - development files libavresample4 - FFmpeg compatibility library for resampling - runtime files gcc-avr - The GNU C compiler (cross compiler for avr) avrdude-doc - documentation for avrdude avr-libc - Standard C library for Atmel AVR development gdb-avr - The GNU Debugger for avr avrdude - software for programming Atmel AVR microcontrollers binutils-avr - Binary utilities supporting Atmel's AVR targets When you install gcc-avr, binutils-avr will also be installed, else gcc-avr can't produce executables. You can use avr-as to assemble your own assembler source files, but if you put your *.S files through gcc-avr, then you can use the 'C' header files, with cpp doing the macro mappings. Unless arduinoing, you'll probably want to install "make", as it's very handy for building a code suite. (Duno what arduino uses, but IDEs usually try to appear to do something more than the elements of a CLI build environment - aka "*nix is the IDE") Once entangled in the peripherals (initialisation and utilisation) of one CPU, you'll find enough to learn that hopping on to the next target will not immediately appeal. However, what you learn of the GNU toolchain on one target is equally applicable to the next. (E.g. ld, objdump, nm, ar, gprof, gdb, readelf, ...) Read the avrdude manpage and avrdude-doc for suitable programming dongles, or just hop on ebay. Maybe buy a couple of arduinos while there, leave the bootloader intact, and produce your code with the GNU toolchain if arduino "sketches" seem too naff. They're easier, than a laptop, to screw to a post if the project is a computerised birdfeeder. (And easier to power out there.) Arduino: # apt-get install arduino Then read all doco, and google. X86: Similar to above. Erik
Re: Cross-Platform Assembly Language Compilers?
On 30.07.18 08:11, cyaiplexys wrote: > On 07/27/2018 12:31 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > On 26.07.18 08:29, cyaiplexys wrote: > > > I'd like to try a native compiler but also I would like to have something > > > I > > > could compile for Arduino (here we go again) and ARM and other CPUs as > > > well. > > > > $ apt-cache search avr | more > > arduino - AVR development board IDE and built-in libraries > > libavresample-dev - FFmpeg compatibility library for resampling - > > development files > > libavresample4 - FFmpeg compatibility library for resampling - runtime > > files > > gcc-avr - The GNU C compiler (cross compiler for avr) > > avrdude-doc - documentation for avrdude > > avr-libc - Standard C library for Atmel AVR development > > gdb-avr - The GNU Debugger for avr > > avrdude - software for programming Atmel AVR microcontrollers > > binutils-avr - Binary utilities supporting Atmel's AVR targets > > Awesome! I also will hope that there is an x86 assembler and maybe even an > ARM assembler in there as well (I just want to tinker with assembly language > for different types of systems). If your desktop/laptop has an Intel chip, then the native toolchain will be x86. What I tend to do for that is: # apt-get install gcc # apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r) # apt-get install gcc-4.1-doc glibc-doc manpages-dev binutils-doc Where the "4.1" will be a higher number now. (See what apt-cache search finds.) And for arm: $ apt-cache search gcc-arm gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi - GNU C compiler for the armel architecture gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf - GNU C compiler for the armhf architecture You'll be able to get yourself into no end of interesting (not to mention challenging) situations if you tackle those two and AVR at the same time. If you make it as far as tweaking linker scripts, then the info page is infinitely more informative than the manpage. Good luck! Erik
Re: Cross-Platform Assembly Language Compilers?
On 05.08.18 18:59, Erik Christiansen wrote: > If you make it as far as tweaking linker scripts, then the info page is > infinitely more informative than the manpage. s/the info page/the info page for ld
Re: Please help with error message
On 07.08.18 09:05, Rodolfo Medina wrote: > dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable > dpkg: warning: 'start-stop-daemon' not found in PATH or not executable > dpkg: error: 2 expected programs not found in PATH or not executable > Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin Looks like your root $PATH is mangled. Could you post the output from: # echo $PATH Here I have: /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin That's consistent with what you read: > Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin > and /sbin If setting up a proper root $PATH isn't the simple fix, then we need: # type ldconfig Here I have: ldconfig is /sbin/ldconfig which will be found in root's PATH. If "type" returns a full path to ldconfig, then we need the output of: $ ls -l /sbin/ldconfig # Or wherever your's finds it. Does it have execute permission for root? If that doesn't hit any paydirt, it would be interesting to see if you have an ldconfig anywhere at all: $ locate ldconfig Erik
Re: mailing list vs "the futur"
On 10.08.18 11:46, Dan Purgert wrote: > Rich Kulawiec wrote: > To expand on that with my own personal prejudice -- the people using > these "sub-par" tools are also the ones who're the cause of some of the > existent (modern?) problems with mailing lists. > > Namely: > > - HTML Messages > - Not wrapping messages at ~80 characters > - top posting > It is easy to delete posts so egregiously presented that reading them is too much trouble. (When I return from a week out in the country, every month, there's usually over 1200 emails waiting - down to half that after procmail has done some weeding. So a post should also chop out all quoted text not explicitly related to the reply, if it is to be read in the time which can be given to it.) > > > > Serious email users should be using mutt, which is fast, compact, > > resistant to attack, and has an astonishing number of features. > > Guess I'm not a "serious" email user then. Half the time I'm still > using Tbird. Having moved to mutt between 15 & 20 years ago, I've found it powerful and highly configurable. It'll see me out. > > Those who receive large volumes of mail should be using procmail > > to pre-sort it, and they should be aware of RFC 2919 (and thus > > the existence of List-Id) as an excellent means for doing so. > > These two tools in combination make dealing with large amounts > > of traffic to large numbers of mailing lists quite easy. And then with the list mailboxes arranged in order of interest in "mailboxes" line(s) in ~/.muttrc, they are presented in priority order. If domestic management, kids, or walking the dog intrude, then it's automatically the less important emails which must wait for another day. > Not familiar with procmail. A quick perusal of the manpage seems to > indicate this is a local mail "processor" for sorting things, as opposed > to say something on the mailserver itself? Yup. Details on how to direct its filtering/distribution are in the procmailrc manpage. Its development stabilised some time ago, and those of us who use it are very content with that. Erik
Re: Installing package *NOT* in repository
On 13.08.18 06:47, Richard Owlett wrote: > PREAMBLE: > I've downloaded a .deb file. > I've recently done such an install but don't remember how. > Looking at the man pages for apt, apt-get, aptitude didn't help. > Couldn't come up with useful search term for wiki. > Eventually recalled "dpkg -i" which worked. > > QUESTION: > How would someone find the answer if the answer wasn't already known? > I went thru the same sequence last time. Personal survival notes, arranged by topic, focused on how a task was accomplished last time, and with searchable tags of some sort. My 420+ pages of bumpf has accumulated over 3 decades, so some of it is perhaps dated now, but still preserves what sanity remains. If I search for "PACKAGE INSTALL:" or "\.DEB:", it's my first hit, as I uppercase headings & tags shoved over to the RHS for minimal intrusiveness. The trailing ':' may be superfluous, but reminds me I intend it to be a tag. The whole thing is just a plain text file, edited and read with Vim, using multi-level folding, so it all presents as a one-page TOC. My version is probably of limited use to anyone else, as it e.g. only deals with dpkg and apt-get in the current context. All else is completely unknown. Now that we have google, I must admit that there's an alternative, but it won't tell you whether that's what you did last time, giving the particular outcome which you prefer, or confidence of the same result. Erik
Re: Installing package *NOT* in repository
On 14.08.18 06:44, Richard Owlett wrote: > On 08/14/2018 01:43 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > The whole thing is just a plain text file, edited and read with Vim, > > using multi-level folding, so it all presents as a one-page TOC. My > > version is probably of limited use to anyone else, as it e.g. only deals > > with dpkg and apt-get in the current context. All else is completely > > unknown. > > > > Now that we have google, I must admit that there's an alternative, but > > it won't tell you whether that's what you did last time, giving the > > particular outcome which you prefer, or confidence of the same result. > > > > I'm working on it :} Someone pointed me to CherryTree. I have much > information in saved emails. Please don't tell anyone, but I too have quite a number of list posts flagged in mutt for adding to the notes - just not done yet. While deleting 95% of posts and flagging 1% does distill the local archive to a useful essence, it's still not as accessible as structured notes, where related information is colocated, mixed with personal experience. The optimal balance between doing and documenting depends significantly on how good the wetware memory still is, but the act of documenting can significantly improve that memory. (I have forgotten the numbers put forward, at a seminar decades ago, for the percentage retention of what we: hear, read, write, carry out in practice, but the difference is marked.) Erik
Re: df -h shows insufficient precision
On 26.08.18 12:25, Zenaan Harkness wrote: > A regular itchy annoyance for years now: > > df shows bytes, df -h shows only one decimal place, so e.g. on a > 1.8TiB drive "1.6T" is the free space, but that resolution/ precision > is insufficient. For more than 3 decades I've just used "df -k". OK, even on smaller disks than yours, that's a lot of digits, so a bit of mental juggling: $ df -k Filesystem1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda9 293477416 15376432 263193184 6% /home Better is "df -m". On larger disks, you'll have more digits than here: $ df -m Filesystem1M-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on /dev/sda928660015017257025 6% /home > Of course I can fire up bc, set scale=20 and do some > powers of 1024 division, but that's all very clunky. > > How hard would it be to add an option to bc, to choose the number of > decimal places to use in the output, or the number of digits of > precision to display? Harder than putting the output of df -k through two lines of awk in a shell function, I figure. Erik
Re: Cannot Install/Uninstall sendmail
On 29.08.18 11:57, Jonathan Dowland wrote: > However both sendmail and update-inetd are orphaned at the moment (no > regular maintainers, although Andreas Beckmann has done a lot of work > via the QA team) After favouring sendmail for a decade and a half, I thought I was slow to switch to postfix around 15 years ago when sendmail was already showing signs of age, such as security issues, IIRC. That anyone would use it today is quite a surprise. Postfix has a nice set of sendmail compatibility functions, and the list is very helpful. From the manpage: mailq(1), Sendmail compatibility interface newaliases(1), Sendmail compatibility interface sendmail(1), Sendmail compatibility interface Erik
Re: File with weird permissions, impossible to delete
On 11.09.18 13:52, Pétùr wrote: > I have some files, with weird permissions: > > # ls -la > d-wS--S--T 2 1061270772 2605320832 4096 oct. 7 2412 index.html OK, you have the suid, sgid, and sticky bits set, and it's a directory. Execute (directory navigate) permission is off. > Cannot delete, cannot change owner or group (what is this user > 1061270772 and group 2605320832 by the way?) even for root. Linux supports 32 bit uids and gids, so those numbers seem OK. The blockage will be the sticky bit, if your effective UID is not root. > How can I get rid of these? I'd also check that the filesystem is not mounted "noexec", and please post the permissions on the parent directory, as its ownership and permissions are just as relevant as what is shown. Erik
Re: ext2 for /boot ???
On 14.09.18 16:10, Michael Stone wrote: > On Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 01:23:31PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > I just find it amazing that the kernel has grown to be so big as to be > > comparable to a complete unix distribution on a workstation of some > > years ago (with GUI, compilers, ...). > > Have you tried one of those lately? I keep some around on VMs, and they were > *terrible*. It's nice every once in a while to remember how far we've come. Yep, as Stefan implied, not a step forward. I cannot detect any difference between the SunOS-4.1.3 workstation I used just over a quarter of a century ago, and my current linux box. The four xterms I put up are still yellow on darkslategrey, from the same rgb.txt file as back then. GUI stuff now runs slower than back then, and developers futz with look and feel, without adding life-enriching new functionality. I stopped upgrading Eagle years ago, as its UI just became harder to use. And Firefox/Iceweasel is slow as a wet week, sometimes crashes, and is mostly a PITA. Kdon't kget kme kstarted kon KDE. At least the fusspots can't stuff up vim, mutt, fetchmail, procmail, awk, and the other daily basics. Erik
OT: The vagaries of English [Was: Re: calibre ebook project?
On 25.09.18 20:19, Brian wrote: > On Tue 25 Sep 2018 at 14:08:23 -0500, Nicholas Geovanis wrote: > > > Brian wrote: Note to non-English speakersnatural English politeness > > will get you a nod of the head but there will be incomprehension > > in the mind > > > > That also works with Americans who are native English speakers, that same > > mute incomprehension. I think that works with Australians too.. :-) > > Americans? Are you referring to the ones who live in Patagonia? > > Are Australians native English speakers? That depends. Youth less so¹, I find, but those of us who had the benefit of schoolteachers who were educated prior to WWII retain a certain mastery of English - even realising that it once had a grammar. But back to coaches; here they are only sports coaches. Any other connotation will whistle over the head of an Aussie, unless you put "stage-" in front, to trigger recollection of wild west movies. ¹ Now the young resort to a tautological pidgin indistinguishable from A-mayorkhan, complete with major disregard for singular/plural and many other grammatical niceties. (I thought Socrates had made a similar complaint, but it was more general, it seems.) Erik
Re: any program that search for same files?
On 14.10.18 22:06, Long Wind wrote: > given two directories, the program can print files that are in both > directories > > to make it easy, if file name and size are same, then they are same > > i've to admit my memory is poor, if good, who need such program? > > i'm about to write it in java, it can be completed in a few hours > but i think there might be simple solution > What I use with full satisfaction is just "diff -qr dir1 dir2", though that does actually diff the files. So it suits well for double checking a backup to flash stick. N.B. My paranoia began after one stick showed corrupted bytes _without_ any change in file size. I.e. size is no guide. My favourite was once the dircmp script, from AT&T, back in 1988. Google shows others have sought it since, but I've not seen it on Linux. Erik
Re: Micro-report: using Stable without systemd
On 14.10.18 12:36, Patrick Bartek wrote: > FYI: Testing Devuan ascii now for future consideration. No problems so > far. Still like runit though. And it's easy to convert the > default sysvinit to it. +1 (Running pre-systemd debian on laptop and one old desktop, devuan ascii on the new one and any future hosts. Erik -- (5) It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea. RFC-1925
Re: versioning file system
On 26.10.18 13:05, David Christensen wrote: > When programming, I tend to do check-in's when I make some kind of progress > (ideally, the code builds and the test suite passes). Yup, the smaller edits of bugfixes aren't going to threaten code stability. > > The trap is when I work for a while, make some progress, make a wrong turn, > and then make a mess. A versioning file system makes it easy to get back to > "make some progress" and try a different turn. Yes. If the major hack can be limited to one file, I've been known to rely on Vim's undo capability to buffer all the changes long enough for a build and test. That could perhaps be extended to several editor instances for a couple of files, for a quick but disruptive tentative test of a divergent approach. The more robust way is though to develop on a VCS branch, check in prior to jumping off the cliff, and merge back to trunk when it's all sorted and tested. > > The compromise is to do a "work in progress" check-in prior to risky turns. Yup, but risk can grow after initial edits reveal that additional structural changes are needed in order to enable the revised strategy to be completely implemented. In response to that late awareness, I've been known to ifdef out the old, to leave it in the file for recovery if a massive stone ball comes rolling down the path I've hacked through the jungle. And yes, if CVS is the VCS you're most familiar with, then it's still fit for use. Traffic on the ML is rare now, but there is still some legacy use out there, and I use nothing else for my own versioning, having used it for multi-team international software development for many years. Its automatic merging capability alone is a dream. OK, git is quicker and preferred for big projects, but for small teams of greybeards who were weaned on it, CVS is still fine. (And if you're fumble-fingered and flummoxed by cryptic error messages, then take a snapshot of the entire repository before any major operation on it, so that deletion and replacement entirely undoes any embarrassing stuff-up. Erik
Re: Online copies of textinfo content available?
On 26.10.18 13:20, Gene Heskett wrote:
> On Friday 26 October 2018 10:41:54 Richard Owlett wrote:
> > 1. I don't want to install unneeded packages just to find out whether
> > or not the package might be useful.
> > 2. The info output has an annoying format. A browser acceptable format
> > {plain text fine -- HTML *NOT* needed} is MUCH more functional.
>
> Agreed, a good man page is the best. I've no clue why there seems to be
> an aversion to a man page that has to be scrolled to read it all. All of
> us have up/down arrows on our keyboards, and 99% have a mouse wheel, so
> there is no excuse that holds water to not put it all in the man
> page. "man bash" if you man page authors want to see what a real man
> page looks like.
Yup, the info menu maze is an irritating impediment. But there is so
much more information in the "as" and "ld" info files than their
corresponding manpages, that they are an essential resource.
Solution: View the info files with vim. Now they're flat files, just
like a manpage, and you can search and weave freely. Problem (info)
eliminated! (And productivity restored.)
Erik
Re: Online copies of textinfo content available?
On 26.10.18 19:17, Brian wrote: > On Fri 26 Oct 2018 at 13:20:36 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote: > > Agreed, a good man page is the best. I've no clue why there seems to be > > an aversion to a man page that has to be scrolled to read it all. All of > > us have up/down arrows on our keyboards, and 99% have a mouse wheel, so > > there is no excuse that holds water to not put it all in the man > > page. "man bash" if you man page authors want to see what a real man > > page looks like. > > An excellent man page. Intended for masochists and those who have all > the time in the world to read and absorb it. :) TBT, I've never read more than the few islands of text brought up by a search for a term of interest, then a second search term learnt from that. In-search-read-out. Job done in minimal time. Much faster and easier than info bumpf, unless it's flattened with vim, to make it like a manpage. Erik
Re: Online copies of textinfo content available?
On 26.10.18 22:39, Brian wrote: > On Fri 26 Oct 2018 at 15:13:20 -0500, Dennis Wicks wrote: > > I agree, and I have found a lot of info "complete manual"s > > to be exactly like the man page! > > Please give an example. Anyone who has tried info a number of times, in the hope of finding a bit more information than the manpage provides, will have experienced the info fudge, I submit. Here's the first which I recalled: $ info xpdf File: *manpages*, Node: xpdf, Up: (dir) xpdf(1)xpdf(1) NAME xpdf - Portable Document Format (PDF) file viewer for X (version 3.03) SYNOPSIS xpdf [options] [PDF-file [page | +dest]] DESCRIPTION Xpdf is a viewer for Portable Document Format (PDF) files. (These are also sometimes also called 'Acrobat' files, from the name of Adobe's PDF software.) Xpdf runs under the X Window System on UNIX, VMS, and OS/2. ... -Info: (*manpages*)xpdf, 781 lines --Top Welcome to Info version 4.13. Type h for help, m for menu item.
Re: Help me Linux
On 31.10.18 11:49, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote: > On 30/10/2018 21:17, P M wrote: > > Although right now I am using Windows but still I feel very enthusiastic > > and energetic with Linux; even I don't know what the reason is. > > You are feeling the potential of open source: a community open to all and > your freedom to change anything. Even Microsoft is embracing it. > > > I TRIED TO INSTALL DEBIAN MANY TIMES BUT FAILED BADLY. I NEVER USED DEBIAN. > > Debian is harder to install than Ubuntu because it gives you more choice. > Choice reduces happiness: > https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy For the use case, ubuntu might be a good lead-in for confidence building. I once read on luv-main, in slightly longer form: "My grandmother currently runs ubuntu. This was not my doing, but she managed to wipe her windows and install it accidentally when someone handed her the live CD to deal with a windows problem she was having. The computer asked her to do things. So she did." Erik -- Debian is for people who can read man pages. Robert Moonen (on luv-main ML)
Re: Online copies of textinfo content available?
On 29.10.18 10:58, David Wright wrote: > On Sat 27 Oct 2018 at 09:19:15 (+0100), mick crane wrote: > > I made the mistake of printing out man bash once. It's really, really long > > Some of the longer man pages (eg bash, fvwm, video programs) are > rather unmanageable when just presented as flat text, even when > coloured, but I find this line useful for generating a little > library of PDFs that are much easier to skim through with your > favourite viewer: > > $ man -t foo | ps2pdf - - > path-to-your-library/foo.pdf There's also: man2html - browse man pages in your web browser man2html-base - convert man pages into HTML format (Not tried here - I'm fine with monochrome manpages.) Erik
Re: Looking for a "friendly" e-mail service
On 26.11.18 17:13, Gene Heskett wrote: > Get on the horn and ask your isp if they run a mailserver. Mine does, and > I use it, but when I first started, I had to call their network guy and > have him whitelist all the mailing lists I an on. Here, down under, that's the norm - I've never heard of an ISP which so despises the 'S' that there's no mail. We generally have a choice of IMAP or POP3. (I have fetchmail set to use the latter.) > Other than that, it just works, and I'm only getting perhaps .01% of the > spam I was getting thru a qmail server I used previously as an ex > employee. Ditto. I've had to use my ISP's GUI utility to relax their spam filtering, else I miss out on even notices of specials from the vendors I deal with. The few unwanted which then also sneak in are just diverted with an additional procmail recipe, as that utility is already in place for distributing list mail to individual mailboxes. (Saves learning yet another app when not really needed.) Erik
Re: Looking for a "friendly" e-mail service
On 26.11.18 21:12, Celejar wrote: > On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 09:37:21 -0500 > Mark Neidorff wrote: > > Now, I don't like the webmail interfaces and the limited storage for old > > Limited storage? Who - big or small player - offers unlimited storage > for old emails? There are various values for old and limited, in reality. When I'm out of town for a fortnight, there's usually 1500 to 2k emails piled up on the ISP's mailhost. Fortunately only a small subset of them are over 1 MB in size. It is fortunately rare for ISPs to block multi-megabyte emails now that we've left the old millennium behind, as I'm in the process of building, and local authorities, building surveyors, fire authorities, etc., mostly issue their documents by email now. Still, a few hundred MB usually does it for the fortnight, and the longer absence over the new year is an email drought, so size would be similar. Those who leave read mail on the ISP's mailhost, due to accessing from multiple client hosts, are at greater risk of exceeding their quota, and would naturally look for some extra, I figure. Erik
Re: librecad
On 07.12.18 09:17, John Hasler wrote: > Gene writes: > > Thats a huge part of the problem, but theres another fence to > > jump. most of these so-called cad programs cannot generate even the > > most basic gcode. > > I can see not wanting to learn even a small part of a CAD program if all > you want to do is draw a simple floor plan and then never use it again, > but doing CNC without CAD is baffling. > > Freecad can produce gcode which you can inspect and modify. The > post-processor can be customized for your particular machine. > Solvespace can also output gcode. I have no idea how good the gcode > produced by either of these programs is because I have no way to use it. Gene would have no trouble tweaking that if it was in the ballpark, after his years of writing the stuff from scratch. (Although auto-generated gcode will be a bit primitive, with a lot of data points, rather than a few optimised functions.) While I'm the one who did the 8 house plan drawings in Postscript, I wouldn't advocate that path for CAD for CNC. OK, Postscript can "print" text to stdout in addition to its drawing operations, so it could spit out gcode equivalent to what is drawn for inspection, _but_ you'd have to hand knit the gcode to be generated by each of your hand knitted drawing functions. After a couple of months of development you'd have a nifty library available for re-use, but it's quite a hike to get there. > The major feature of these CAD programs is the constraint solver, which > understands geometry and does a huge amount of work for you. You can > draw a part with dozens of equally spaced holes, change the length of > the part, and the holes will move appropriately. Draw an angle bracket > with a brace, change the angle, and either the bracket length or > position will adjust appropriately depending on how you constrained it. > Draw a gear specifying pitch and tooth count and the diameter will be > computed. Change the pitch or tooth count and the diameter will > change. The diameter will only change by a commensurate amount: no need > for you to calculate allowable dimensions (unless you want > fractional-tooth gears). If moved to try that in Postscript, you'd have to program the computations, and therefore decide in advance what would be auto-adjusted, e.g. input gear pitch and tooth count, then diameter will result. (While tolerances may appear on a drawing, gcode specifies a precise toolpath, and it's up to the machine to do its best to follow that. LinuxCNC will issue a "following error" and stop if it can't meet run-time tolerance specs.) > You can also do assemblies and specify constraints between assemblies so > that a change in one part will cause appropriate changes to others. > Interferences that would result in two objects occupying the same space > won't happen. You can animate assemblies and watch the machine run. No > more making cardboard models of linkages and then having to stick to the > tested ratios. Hmmm ... D for design, not just drawing. Powerfully tempting, if I ever have to do more than shuffle bits of house plans around on a sheet. (There the human utility, convenience, and comfort considerations, and even building regulations aren't amenable to automation, so drawing suffices, I found.) Sounds like Gene's bitten the bullet and done the job with what he has, by the sound of it. That's never a wrong move when it works. Erik (Who's gone owner-builder (swore I wouldn't do that again), and is currently too flat out to look at Freecad.)
Re: Non-GUI Arduino IDE ?
On 07.12.18 16:42, Jason wrote: > On Fri, Dec 07, 2018 at 05:05:30PM -, Dan Purgert wrote: > > Jason wrote: > > > Does anyone know if there is a console based Arduino IDE available for > > > Debian? I am interested in making a portable programmer that could be > > > taken out on a job to edit and upload Arduino programs on site, without > > > messing with a mouse. > > > > Don't know of any IDEs for the commandline, but you can always use > > avrdude straight from the commandline to handle writing the compiled hex > > to the thing. > > And what could I use to create the compiled hex? The Arduino IDE uses the GNU toolchain behind the scenes. There are people who use the toolchain on the commandline, eschewing the GUI. Since the AVR crosscompiler and binutils will already be installed with the IDE, it is just a matter of editing sourcefiles with your favourite text editor, then running "make". If the IDE doesn't produce a makefile, instead using something nonstandard, you could look at the upthread link to Arduino-Makefile. As I program AVRs directly (without bootloader), using avrdude, I had to check the manpage to see if it is compatible with the Arduino bootloader: » The Arduino (which is very similar to the STK500 1.x) is supported via its own programmer type specification ``arduino''. « That would presumably merely use a laptop USB port to interface to the Arduino target board. It looks pretty straightforward, but reading a few of the hits for a google of "arduino gnu toolchain", it seems that after editing the source with e.g. vim or emacs, the Arduino IDE itself can be commandline invoked without any GUI: » Alternatively, if any of the following command line options is given, no graphical interface will be shown and instead a one-off verify (compile) or upload will be done. « https://github.com/arduino/Arduino/blob/master/build/shared/manpage.adoc (I think that link has already been cited upthread.) Erik
Re: About /dev/sr impatience with automatic tray loading
On 11.12.18 09:44, Dan Ritter wrote: > mick crane wrote: > > On 2018-12-10 20:02, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > > > For the purpose of sr_drive_status(), the loop is really inappropriate. > > > This function shall obtain the drive status and not wait until the > > > status of the medium is decided. > > > > > > completely off the topic but I have noticed that people whose first language > > might not be english use > > "shall" as apposed to "will" or "should". It seems a little bit old > > fashioned but maybe it isn't. > > The English use it more than Americans do. > > "Shall" has a connotation of ordering future action. Americans > nearly always prefer "should". Here down under, my exposure to "shall" over the last four decades has primarily been in communications products specifications, where it meant "must" as far as we the system designers and implementers were concerned. "Should" would not be an adequate substitute, I think, where failure to comply is breach of contract. Erik
Re: backintime
On 17.01.19 18:35, David Christensen wrote: > On 1/16/19 2:15 PM, Andy Smith wrote: > > I second the suggestion to learn version control... > > +1 > > I started with RCS. The concepts and commands are straight-forward, but the > granularity is per-file. It works great for managing key /etc/* files on > remote servers. But, RCS gets tedious when you want to manage many files. > > I soon discovered CVS, which operates on directories (projects). I put the > CVS repository on my file server and can access any project from any machine > over SSH with the CVS client. This arrangement has proven to be incredibly > useful. (Every night, the file server is backed up and the CVS repository > is also archived.) > > The canonical CVS book is "Open Source Development with CVS", which has been > released under GPL3: > > http://cvsbook.red-bean.com/ > > David Seconded. After a couple of decades using CVS, I'm not likely to shift to the newfangled offerings either. The manual which served us well in the old days was "The Cederquist": https://ftp.gnu.org/non-gnu/cvs/source/feature/1.12.13/cederqvist-1.12.13.pdf The thing with RCS's per-file focus is that two different versions of the application may use the same version of some of the sourcefiles, but will have different versions of others. CVS's "tag" command facilitates identifying that set of file versions, with a meaningful name. Being able to also apply a check-in comment is also nifty. When managing software projects across three countries, I found its automatic merge ability to be an incredible productivity boost. It will, though, take some getting used to, as will any VCS. Erik
Re: Looking for advise to replacy Pan newsreader
On 17.02.19 10:16, hdv@gmail wrote: > On 17/02/2019 05.05, Juan R. de Silva wrote: > > Can your share with me what do you use for newsgroups reading. I do not > > care > > about binaries. All I want to follow several Linux usenet newsgroups. Plain > > text reading. > > For text-only groups I use mutt. Which patchset do you use to enable that? (And is there any doco on the set-up?) Erik
Re: Looking for advise to replacy Pan newsreader
On 17.02.19 12:07, hdv@gmail wrote: > On 17/02/2019 11.58, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > On 17.02.19 10:16, hdv@gmail wrote: > >> On 17/02/2019 05.05, Juan R. de Silva wrote: > >>> Can your share with me what do you use for newsgroups reading. I do not > >>> care > >>> about binaries. All I want to follow several Linux usenet newsgroups. > >>> Plain > >>> text reading. > >> > >> For text-only groups I use mutt. > > > > Which patchset do you use to enable that? (And is there any doco on the > > set-up?) > > If my memory serves me well I always just used the version taken from the > Debian > repository. Nowadays that would be neomutt. > > Maybe you can use this page for the set up? > > https://neomutt.org/feature/nntp Many thanks. I'll have to think about a switch from mutt to neomutt. Erik
Re: text editors
On 25.03.19 04:38, mick crane wrote: > Is there any text editor, preferably in a terminal that has the facility to > protect lines in the document, not the document itself ? > I've got 2 blocks of "code" that look similar and I keep editing the wrong > one and then it doesn't work. The only thing I can think of, using vim (haven't used anything else for 30 years), is to turn on folding, and include a warning in a comment on the first line of the block. Whether folding is on blank lines (simple paragraph/block folding), or foldmethod=marker, the first line line is displayed while folded. Having to unfold the block, with only the warning and a short initial line of code or block identifier visible, ought to be sufficiently alerting if the blood level in the caffeine stream is not too high. Putting the warning in "foldtext" wouldn't work, because then it'd appear on all folded paragraphs - unless you used foldmethod=manual, and only folded the troublesome blocks. In extremis, you could write a vimscript function to do all sorts of weird stuff on folding, but I think it would be a bit of work to put a password on unfolding. :help folding Erik
Re: text editors
On 25.03.19 07:53, mick crane wrote: > not heard about folding. It can be very handy. I have around 420 pages of notes in one file. They present as a one-page contents table with section page counts. While cursoring down and then across opens a chosen fold, there are several folding levels to the bottom. Hierarchical groping and digging is an inefficient constraint suffered by GUIs; it is much quicker to just use vim's '/' to search for a keyword. Given capitalised headings and keywords, suffixed with a ':' for the major section on that topic, the right line in 28532 lines is quickly found, and the required folds opened automatically. > I'm not very good at this. Give it 30 years. Experience creeps up on you. > kind of related I'm having difficulty copy and pasting. > If on windows [sorry] and in putty session for Debian no gui vi, if Commiserations. I'd be sorry too if I had to use windows. (Avoided it entirely during 30 years in IT - took a fat redundancy package when windows finally caught up, and retired. > highlight text with mouse then it is automatically saved to windows > clipboard for pasting but then in putty cannot scroll past bottom of screen. Sounds like a putty limitation? I'll admit to only ever having copied to an X11 clipboard, so can't offer relevant experience. I've never used gvim - plain vim in an xterm works fine with the X11 clipboard, so long as I remember to turn off autoindent before pasting, to avoid a stairstep paste. (I have the F12 key mapped to toggle vim's "paste" attribute, so a single key handles both on and off.) > If set marks and then yank to other mark text is yanked but is not in > windows clipboard buffer for pasting. Have you checked whether the yank goes into the "* (clipboard) register? Check also the "+ register, in case the windows clipboard is looking there instead. A post on the vim-use ML might elicit more info related to your environment. Back in 2011, Gary Johnson had a "Copy and paste problem" which was fixed for windows with "set clipboard^=unnamed".) :help 'clipboard' :help :set^= I tend to just use a mouse drag to grab text to the X11 clipboard for pasting into something GUI. > In visual mode I can highlight all text with go to mark but that is not in > windows buffer either. > I tried all different commands to try to get text into windows buffer but > nothing seems to work. Check " :set clipboard ? " IIUC, it should include unnamed and unnamedplus for problem-free communication with the windows clipboard - inferring from a couple of archive posts from 2011,12. Including unnamedplus isn't good for the linux clipboard, though. If all else fails, the vim-use mailing list is a darned sight more knowledgeable on vim/windows stuff. Erik
Re: text editors
On 26.03.19 11:52, John Hasler wrote: > mick crane wrote: > > there it is then, although I've so far managed to avoid Emacs since > > heard it is more of an operating system than an editor. > > Teemu Likonen writes: > > There are those who know Emacs, and there are those who know decades > > old jokes about Emacs. > > And there are those who avoid learning what Emacs is actually like > because they have heard decades old jokes about it. IME, the real reason why we won't consider the other editor is because of the time and energy spent learning the first good one we came across, and the grating frustration and lost productivity of dropping to the bottom of the learning curve to switch to horse of a different colour but similar performance. The "typing chords" vs modality difference essentially becomes moot once you adapt to your choice. Probably. Erik
Re: text editors
On 28.03.19 12:34, rlhar...@oplink.net wrote: > Once you start using Emacs macros and see the benefit, you likely shall find > yourself creating and using numerous macros within each editing session. > You demonstrate once to the robot, and the robot faithfully mimics you, > without error. The only question is whether you are willing to teach the > robot by recording your keystrokes in a macro (it takes two keystrokes in Vim or Emacs. > ).
Re: text editors
On 28.03.19 21:32, Matyáš Bobek wrote: > I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How is it > done? It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp. There is a large landscape of add-ons written in the language, and a choice of managers to automate the minor tedium of installing them in the right place. The few bits of vimscript in my .vimrc are minimal, such as a function to append section length in lines or pages when the section is folded. Erik
Re: text editors
On 27.03.19 11:07, mick crane wrote: > On 2019-03-26 19:27, Wayne Sallee wrote: > > I use vim. > > > > Log in as user that will use vim, and run the following command: > > > > cat > .vimrc << "EOF" > > set nosi noai > > set number > > > I have line numbers as the default but copy/paste with the mouse also copies > the numbers so I have to turn it on and off. True, so it's handy to be able to toggle them on and off on a single keystroke. I use F1, as it is easy to find. This vimscript in .vimrc then implements the switch, in my case for _relative_ line numbers, as they allow e.g. y7+ to copy current line plus the lines down to a chosen point, without having to count the lines. That's a greater productivity improver than just knowing you're on line 27423: " Toggle relative line numbering. function! NList_toggle() if &rnu == 1 set nornu" For absolute, elide the 'r'. else set rnu " For absolute, elide the 'r'. endif endfun To avoid stairstepped insert when pasting that here from the clipboard, I have F12 mapped to: set pastetoggle= " is easier. (See "Paste") I tend to forget that I also have the alternative: " Paste " Paste without needing pastetoggle to avoid staircase text, due to ai always set. " Works with "+y in another vim instance. Also avoids wrapping. nnoremap "+p inoremap ^["+p^Mi nnoremap "+y (The ^[ is entered as control-v Esc, and ^M as control-v Enter, but you knew that.) is Alt-p. Your choice of invoking key may differ. So, yep, Vim does allow two-key chords, and the distinction from Emacs reduces a little when you do that. Vimscript may look a little C-like in places, but that can't be helped. (Awk is also significantly C-like. Perl is much more successful at voiding the benefit of common language know-how.) Erik
Re: text editors
On 29.03.19 17:26, Erik Christiansen wrote: > " Toggle relative line numbering. > function! NList_toggle() > if &rnu == 1 > set nornu" For absolute, elide the 'r'. > else > set rnu " For absolute, elide the 'r'. > endif > endfun Apologies. There's almost always something omitted when pasting from elsewhere. Let's include the connection to the F1 key: noremap :call NList_toggle() A more meaningful function name would be better, too. (but important here is only the connection, and the toggling, for the moment.) Erik
Re: text editors
On 29.03.19 08:47, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote: > >>>>> "EC" == Erik Christiansen writes: > > EC> On 28.03.19 21:32, Matyáš Bobek wrote: > >> I reckon writing vim extensions in C must be quite obscure... How > >> is it done? > > EC> It's not. They are written in vimscript, analogous to elisp. > > Sorry not. While Elisp is a Lisp dialect, therefore is a language that > has been formally proved to be equivalent to turing-machine, that is > not certain for vimscript. Yes, yes, reflexive combativeness is jolly good fun, but understanding is more useful in the long term. The statement you think you've replied to would seem to use "equal"¹, but the actual word used refers to being an analogue, i.e. taking the same place in the other editor. Erik ¹ As in "of equal standing", perhaps. -- No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why. - Mignon McLaughlin
Re: text editors
On 29.03.19 10:44, deloptes wrote: > One can live and do everything without Emacs. Can't resist paraphrasing that in light of Emacs' OS-like reputation: One can live and do everything within Emacs ... or without. I would be tempted to have a look at ne, except that my fingers would just continue to work vim-wise, after more than 30 years of daily vim/vi use, up to 8 hrs per day. When leading software development teams, I never asked team members which editor they favoured, either at hiring interview, or later. We just agreed on coding standards, and they configured their editors to conform. Erik
Re: text editors
On 29.03.19 10:50, Gian Uberto Lauri wrote: > >>>>> "EC" == Erik Christiansen writes: > > EC> Yes, yes, reflexive combativeness is jolly good fun, but > EC> understanding is more useful in the long term. > > In my experience, if the language is elegant and wise, you can write > your code "easily" and often you get better coding. > > EC> word used refers to being an analogue, i.e. taking the same place > EC> in the other editor. > > As someone else wisely pointed out in this thread (my apologies for > forgetting the name), Emacs is built in Lisp, the interpreter and some > speed critical parts are coded in C, but the latter are somewhat "C > coded Lisp objects". > > Differently from other tools that can be extended with "plugins", in > Emacs is simpler to pass from the "I know which key to press" to the > "I know what code to write" - provided you have some minimal knowledge > of Lisp syntax and constructs - because in Emacs every keystroke > triggers a function call and you Emacs tells you which function is > invoked, how to use it and even, if you have the lisp sources > installed, see its implementation. That's how some "random amateur > lisp coder" was able to bang the original html-helper-mode to the tool > he used to survive ASP pages :). Yup, again, output-only mode - unrelated to input. A ROM-based monologue doesn't make for much of a conversation, certainly not a thoughtful one. Erik
Re: text editors
On 30.03.19 01:29, deloptes wrote: > John Hasler wrote: > > > I'm not trying to persuade anyone to use Emacs. I am trying to convince > > people not to be deterred from trying it because of myths such as "You > > can't use Emacs if you can't program in Lisp". > > Sorry John, but all of this is obsolete, if you are pragmatic enough, you > would admit it. Just take a step back and have a look from the other side. > What I am trying to say is that it is not worth investing time in learning > it - learning not lisp, but the whole emacs stuff and partially lisp, > because as someone said sooner or later you need this or that - finally > this is THE feature of emacs. If you do not take advantage of lisp, then > why not use any other editor. Sorry! As a 30 year vim/vi veteran, I'm not wildly predisposed to emacs, but some of its users might prefer 3-key chords to vim's modality - having to remember whether you're in normal or insert mode for minutes at the time. (Unless you turn on an indicator. I change the cursor colour as well as having mode displayed in the status line. Over-65s may be granted that dispensation, perhaps.) The only other editor I've used is the line editor, CREDIT. (Yes, everything was in capitals only, IIRC.) That was 1981, and it was on the Intel "Blue Box" MDS, complete with 8" floppy drives. (Harddrives were only know on mainframes and top end minicomputers back then.) Erik
Re: Measuring (or calculating) how many bytes are actually written to disk when I repeatedly save a file
On 07.04.19 08:12, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > Sorry, I should have tried to be more clear -- sort of a digression, but I > came from an environment where anytime someone used the word assume, someone > else would point out what (they thought) that meant (it makes an ass out of > [yo]u and me). Not the boys in blue, by any chance? Station sergeants tend to plant that lesson early in a rookie's consciousness, I hear. > I still use the word, but use the "(I know)" as a defensive mechanism to > stave > off the expected response. Given that the implication of "assume" is to take something on faith, without supporting evidence, a safer word might be "surmise". A guess with an implication of thoughtful deliberation behind it leaves little for the overly opinionated to gnaw on. Erik
Re: Simple Linux to Linux(Debian) email
On 08.04.19 17:43, to...@tuxteam.de wrote: > On Mon, Apr 08, 2019 at 09:33:03PM +0900, Mark Fletcher wrote: > > Hello all > > > > As I wrote this I began to consider this is slightly OT for this list; > > my apologies for not putting OT in the subject line but mutt won't let > > me go back and edit the subject line. As already mentioned, mutt allows editing of the headers prior to sending. 's' invokes editing of the Subject. > Mutt can do that, too. To send via an alternative SMTP server, I do > roughly: ... That seems very convenient for a mutterer, yet (out of ancient habit) I use mailx to fling off a quick short missive constructed on the command line, here any calendar events looming in the next fortnight: x=`calendar -l 14 -f ~/Personal/calendar` ( [ -n "$x" ] && echo "$x" | mail -s "$x" erik ) (Yes, popular bash idiom has recently (maybe even this century) morphed from backquotes to $(...) gumpf. \Whatever/ ) You may want to put something other than the first line of the script output in the subject line, -s "...". $ apt-cache search mailx | grep mailx bsd-mailx - simple mail user agent heirloom-mailx - feature-rich BSD mail(1) Even more manual would be to employ netcat or telnet to port 25, and talk raw SMTP. (Handy when diagnosing a remote mailhost's peculiarities.) Erik
Re: Net::DNS::Nameserver
On 26.04.19 23:09, mick crane wrote: > I did wonder if was some scheme I was unaware of. > I noticed a couple of weeks ago somebody used these "::" between words to > identify something. > Like in apt you have > /var/lib/apt/lists/security.debian.org_debian-security_dists_buster_updates_main_source_Sources > made me think that these dots was some way of identifying a thing so that > everything is the same over the whole wide world . > Or something like that. More the opposite. i.e. make the tail end of the long::name::thingy identifiable in a _restricted_ scope. The :: nomenclature first appeared (to my eyes) in C++ several decades ago. For perl to adopt an existing convention is a step forward for the language. Here's a brief exchange describing ::, the scope-resolution operator: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15649580/using-in-c Erik -- Arguing that Java is better than C++ is like arguing that grasshoppers taste better than tree bark. - Thant Tessman
Re: which mutt?
On 03.05.19 18:01, Russell L. Harris wrote: > P.S. Would someone kindly tell me how, while in Mutt and reading a > message such as this, to launch a browser to open links such as [1] > and [2] above? A convenient alternative is to just double-click on a link in mutt's display in an xterm, then paste anywhere in the middle of firefox/iceweasel (not in the URL box up top). That works with a simple config: URL Drop to Invoke: To be able to drop a URL anywhere in the window, to open it: Put about:config in the URL box, scroll to middlemouse.contentLoadURL, and click to toggle it to true. Now a URL highlighted in an xterm can be pasted to firefox (and opened) with one middlemouse click - even if it has a spurious space/line-break in it. (Thanks to John L. Fjellstad) Then html messages can generally be subjected to e.g.: text/html; /usr/bin/html2text '%s'; copiousoutput; description=HTML Text which preserves the recipient's text experience, keeping display in mutt. (Yup, the real one - since late last millennium. ;-) Erik -- HTML is not email, and email doesn't contain HTML, so please turn HTML formatting OFF in your email client. We have filters in place that will reject your message if your posting contains HTML. - http://gpl-violations.org/mailinglists.html
pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
>From the pmount manpage for stretch:
»
pmount device [ label ]
This will mount device to a directory below /media if policy is met
(see below). If label is given, the mount point will be /media/label,
otherwise it will be /media/device.
«
There doesn't seem to be an option for pmount to mount at
/media/label_read_from_the_media
To provide that convenient automation, I use:
$ which lmount
lmount is a function
lmount ()
{
pmount $1 `e2label $1`
}
Is it worth adding a pmount option to provide that simple but useful
convenience for general consumption?
Why? Well some days the automounter just doesn't work on my old Debian
install. The little LED on the stick blinks furiously for seconds on
end after stick insertion, but then ... nada. No joy on running mount
to see if the absence of the GUI navigator-thingy really is indicative.
And my script for off-site backups expects the backup media at the
mountpoint which the automounter normally sets, based on the label.
Just a thought.
Erik
Re: apache2 missing a file, won't run.
On 05.05.19 17:16, Gene Heskett wrote: > You have made it very clear not to assign a pw to root, do everything > with sudo. That's just religion, Gene, promulgated to minimise queries and complaints from people getting themselves into trouble. Like vaccination, it only needs 95% coverage to provide herd immunity. To avoid having to fuss with getting the sudo thing to actually work here, I still do a "su -" in a spare xterm, and leave the root session open for a while, till the current problem is sorted. To remind that more than ordinary user care is warranted in that xterm, in the event of leaving it open beyond short term memory, I put this in /root/.bashrc export PS1="\[\033[1;31m\]\u@\h:\W\$ \[\033[0;0m\]" to make root's prompt red, and declare itself as root. It takes more than a generalisation to alter my habits of more than 30 years. My take is: Use what works best for you, especially if you accept the consequences without complaint. But I figure I'm treading a parallel path to yours there. Erik
Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 06.05.19 09:03, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sat, May 04, 2019 at 01:48:01PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote:
> > Quoting Erik Christiansen (2019-05-04 08:43:53)
> > > $ which lmount
> > > lmount is a function
> > > lmount ()
> > > {
> > > pmount $1 `e2label $1`
> > > }
> >
> > I recommend to install package shellcheck and run "shellcheck lmount".
>
> My initial reaction was similar, but he might not be using a regular
> shell. At the very least, his "which" command is not the standard
> which(1) utility, because that wouldn't know about shell functions.
>
> So, either he isn't in bash/ksh/dash, or his "which" command has been
> overridden with a function or alias. (On the other hand, his output
> from "which" looks identical to bash's "type" output. So maybe he
> did something like alias which=type.)
Well surmised, good sir. It's more than 30 years since I found "which"
on HP-UX inadequate and "type" meaninglessly mnemonic of "print", thus
the alias. Through SunOS, Solaris, and Linux, the inadequacy has
remained - and so the remedy.
> At the end of the day, if this is supposed to be a bash function, it
> has three quoting errors,
Yep, if the robustness required for users other than an author were
applicable, then I see two absences of double quotes. But it is worth
remembering that there are no robustness requirements when the author is
the only user, and supporting a space in "/dev/xxx" is in any event a
pointless exercise.
> and is using the ancient deprecated command substitution syntax (which
> will work in this case, but is not a good habit).
That does appear to remain opinion. The venerably traditional syntax is
still fully legal supported bash syntax, e.g.:
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_03
The recent (late last century, IIRC) introduction of the $(...)
alternative syntax has admittedly brought newer *nix users who know
nothing else, and so delude themselves that there is nothing else. That
is a misapprehension. To each, his own, especially amongst adequately
equivalent alternatives.
HAND
Erik
(Who has used the newfangled syntax on occasion, just to see if it works.)
--
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you.
Their tastes may not be the same.
- George Bernard Shaw
Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 07.05.19 10:12, David wrote: > On Mon, 6 May 2019 at 23:53, Erik Christiansen > wrote: > > On 06.05.19 09:03, Greg Wooledge wrote: > > > On Sat, May 04, 2019 at 01:48:01PM +0200, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > > > > Quoting Erik Christiansen (2019-05-04 08:43:53) > > > > > > pmount $1 `e2label $1` > > > > and is using the ancient deprecated command substitution syntax (which > > > will work in this case, but is not a good habit). > > > That does appear to remain opinion. The venerably traditional syntax is > > still fully legal supported bash syntax, e.g.: > > > > http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/xcu_chap02.html#tag_02_06_03 > > > > The recent (late last century, IIRC) introduction of the $(...) > > alternative syntax has admittedly brought newer *nix users who know > > nothing else, and so delude themselves that there is nothing else. That > > is a misapprehension. To each, his own, especially amongst adequately > > equivalent alternatives. > > Hi Erik > > Maybe you would enjoy answering this question then? > https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-bash/2019-05/msg0.html > > Because apparently no-one else has, hehe :D I can see why - the question wilfully exploits the fact that bash is not a full programming language, and only the author is dumb enough to construct such self defeating perversity as using two echos to fabricate difficulty where none need exist. (Please read next paragraph before kneejerking.) In a real case of substitution of more substantial commands, it is both simple and convenient to perform the operations sequentially (i.e. on separate lines), rather than obfuscate with unnecessary nesting. Having an intermediate result in a shell variable can often save a lot of debugging time, both during script development and later, when unanticipated input causes undesired effects. Having to deconstruct a long nested assemblage in order to debug it leads to a chained implementation in any event. Erik -- Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. - Jim Horning
Remove nautilus to stop automounts? [Was: Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 04.05.19 13:48, Jonas Smedegaard wrote: > Quoting Erik Christiansen (2019-05-04 08:43:53) > > There doesn't seem to be an option for pmount to mount at > > /media/label_read_from_the_media ... > I don't personally use pmount since some years, but that sure sounds > like a nice suggestion: Please consider filing as a bugreport against > pmount with severity "wishlist". Hmmm, reportbug says: Your version (0.9.23-2) of pmount appears to be out of date. The following newer release(s) are available in the Debian archive: experimental: 0.9.99-alpha-1 unstable: 0.9.23-3+b2 Do you still want to file a report [y|N|q|?]? N but # apt-get update # apt-get install pmount gives: pmount is already the newest version. so I'd probably have to move from wheezy to something newer to be up to date on that utility. No time for that now. The nifty pmount feature becomes unnecessary if I instead disable the automounter, eliminating label-defined mountpoints. But: # apt-get install dconf-editor # gives: The following packages have unmet dependencies: dconf-editor : Depends: libdconf1 (>= 0.25.1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.55.1) but 2.33.12+really2.32.4-5 is to be installed Depends: libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.22.0) but 3.4.2-7+deb7u1 is to be installed so the easiest way might just be to remove nautilus, as it's never been used here. The gnome DE wouldn't fall over without it? Erik
Netiquette [Was: Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 07.05.19 07:38, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote off-list: > On Tuesday, May 07, 2019 12:01:49 AM Erik Christiansen wrote: > > only the author is dumb enough > > Why use language like that? (It does not contribute to the welcoming > environment that I'd like to see cultivated here.) > > Aside: I've replied privately, but I would like to reply publically (sp?) in > order to spread the message, but only if you feel comfortable with that > (which > I don't expect you will).) If my judgemental wording has offended the author on the other list, then I will admit to careless use of language. The out-of-the-blue shot across my bow from David, using that awkwardly and unproductively constructed use case looked like a deliberate straw man attack, coming hot on the heels of a deprecation attempt. Where a shell provides syntax alternatives, all still documented and supported, it may be perceived as unwelcoming and unproductive to spontaneously hound one usage in favour of one's own bias. Still, it would be better if my response had been more sanguine. Erik P.S. s/publically/publicly (Yep, spellchecking in Vim in Mutt is OK with that. Caveat: I use a British dictionary. Haven't checked for possible USA divergent spelling.) -- Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. - Hector Louis Berlioz
Re: Netiquette [Was: Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 07.05.19 09:05, rhkra...@gmail.com wrote: > So, I'll use "publicly" -- I was going to do that, but it just seemed wrong > at > the time ;-) It seems harder to remember uncommon spelling now than when I was younger, and until the spellchecker disagreed, I'd gone with your spelling - it's more consistent. But then English isn't famous for that. Erik
Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 11.05.19 14:38, Eric S Fraga wrote:
> On Saturday, 4 May 2019 at 16:43, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> > To provide that convenient automation, I use:
> >
> > $ which lmount
> > lmount is a function
> > lmount ()
> > {
> > pmount $1 `e2label $1`
> > }
>
> This is nice; is there an equivalent for FAT file systems? Most of the
> devices I mount using pmount are sd cards (cameras etc.).
Pmount is just a wrapper around the standard mount program, and that
will try to guess the fs type if not specified in the invocation - as
above. That manages ext2 and ext3 without assistance, but ... Ah, yes,
with a vfat stick it gives:
$ lmount /dev/sdb1
e2label: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sdb1
Couldn't find valid filesystem superblock.
And "tune2fs -l /dev/sdb1" says the same. Quite what the automounter
does to overcome that, I haven't yet figured out. A quick rewrite of
the tiny wrapper wrapper does improve matters somewhat:
lmount () { # Mount a USB stick at
/media/read_stick_label
if [ mp=`e2label $1` ] ; then# if e2label can grok the label.
pmount $1 $mp
else # When that fails, TRY TO
pmount -t vfat $1 vfat# use fs type as mountpoint, for now.
fi
}
mounts vfat OK, but the "label" argument, now third, is ignored despite
being compliant with the manpage. So it falls back to mounting on
/media/sdb1 in a most wilful manner:
/dev/sdb1 on /media/sdb1 type vfat
(rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0177,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,quiet,utf8,errors=remount-ro)
Either I'm not holding my mouth right, or that looks like a bug.
> Thanks.
We're not home yet.
Erik
Re: pmount could perhaps be of greater utility?
On 12.05.19 13:45, Eric S Fraga wrote:
> On Sunday, 12 May 2019 at 17:52, Erik Christiansen wrote:
> > On 11.05.19 14:38, Eric S Fraga wrote:
> >> This is nice; is there an equivalent for FAT file systems? Most of the
> >> devices I mount using pmount are sd cards (cameras etc.).
> >
> > Pmount is just a wrapper around the standard mount program, and that
> > will try to guess the fs type if not specified in the invocation - as
> > above. That manages ext2 and ext3 without assistance, but ... Ah, yes,
> > with a vfat stick it gives:
>
> Sorry, I should have been more explicit. I use pmount all the
> time. Works fine. What I was looking for was an equivalent of e2label
> for vfat, if that even makes any sense.
Dunno how much sense can be found here, as dosfslabel doesn't do it, but
this gives the appearance of doing it for me:
$ blkid | awk --field-separator '"' '/sdb1/ { print $2 }'
4DAB-09E3
from blkid's line:
/dev/sdb1: UUID="4DAB-09E3" TYPE="vfat"
As it replicates the automounter's behaviour, and that uses the label
for ext[23] sticks, I'm happy to take that UUID as the label, since I
have nothing else to go on. (Never had a winderz box in 30 years in IT,
or the 11 years since.)
Erik
Re: Is this ALL good advise
On 04.12.19 17:33, Gene Heskett wrote: > My point exactly. That means two accounts at your isp, I think mine > charges only after the 2nd one, and two active fetchmail/procmail > sessions = more trouble than it worth. Me? I got the heck off gmail > years ago for lack of privacy reasons, and I frankly don't understand > why the rest of the planet hasn't bailed out for the same reasons. Hi Gene, I can't fault the idea of avoiding gmail. Incidentally, one fetchmail/procmail session will handle a bunch of mail sources, given more than one "poll" line in .fetchmailrc, AFAIR. And multiple recipients just needs multidrop-mode, which it enters on finding more than one "user" line in the config file. So it should be pretty straightforward. If you really wanted to do it, that is. Erik
Re: sed question
On 06.12.19 14:40, songbird wrote: > Greg Wooledge wrote: > ... > > Ideally, you'd just stop trying to use sed with user-supplied variables > > injected into the code. Sed was never built to be safe for that kind of > > work. > > sed was designed to operate on streams. a sequence of > characters is a stream. i don't see any reason why > putting the variable into the middle of that expression > means anything different. If the sed implementation of variable regexes proves problematic, then there's awk with its Dynamic Regexps. (Section 2.8 of the pdf manual floating about out there.) With its C-like syntax, it's less write-only than perl, perhaps because it is of the same vintage as sed. (And from the same stable.) It does admittedly tend to view its input stream a line at the time. Erik
Re: Displaying an arbitrary file in _both_ HEX and ASCII
On 25.01.20 05:51, Richard Owlett wrote: > My current project is dealing with oddly formatted data. Mostly just plain > ASCII. Progress on another aspect of my project has made this thread moot. For the thread, there's also: $ apt-cache search bvi bvi - binary file editor found at: http://bvi.sourceforge.net/ But if it's mostly ASCII, with a few funnies, then I'd just vim the file, and type ga to display the decimal, octal, and hex value of the character under the cursor. To insert funny characters, I've found digraphs sufficient. (Mapped more mnemonically if used often, e.g. ;e for æ) And for a quick hex/ascii dump of a file, I've used this for over 30 years: $ od -xc < /etc/issue 000654469626e614720554e4c2f6e697875 D e b i a n G N U / L i n u x 02037205c20206e6c5c0a0a 7 \ n \ l \n \n 032 There are options for fudging the offsets, if needed. Erik
Re: Howto?
On 26.01.20 03:03, Gene Heskett wrote: > Greetings all; > > Trying to sort out how to xz compress. But xz is rejecting directories, > like it expects tars output as its input. And the manpage is silent on > redirections. > > I want to compress the directory foo into foo.xz, keeping foo as there > may be further patches applied in the future. > > Syntax? Gene, While the manpage says "xz is a general-purpose data compression tool with command line syntax similar to gzip", it appears to lack the -r option. That'd be why the examples found with a "xz directory compression" google use tar, I figure. (Like in the old days.) Now we know what "similar" means. Erik
Re: how to seamlessly play audio clip
On 07.02.20 23:53, Long Wind wrote: > i use mplayer -loop 0 to play white noise(it might help sleep by masking > other noise) > but when it reach end and restart to play againthere's some interval, which > isn't desirable > any mplayer option or other player i can use so that it plays seamlessly?? I find it very effectively masks barking neighbourhood dogs and dripping water. Most pleasant has been a Surf Sound Generator I built from a kit around 40 years ago. It adds 3 long-period (several seconds) RC oscillators, which amplitude modulate the slightly pink noise. Their different periods keep them out of phase, like random waves whooshing up a beach. A little bit of low-pass filtering of white noise makes it a bit pink. I find modest low frequency emphasis more relaxing - and perhaps a little better at masking, as it is the low frequencies which travel. And it's cheaper than double or triple glazing. Erik
Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
After downloading https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current-live/i386/iso-hybrid/debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde.iso and putting it on a USB stick with unetbootin, the install spuriously stops due to an obsessive excursion to mount a (non-existent) CDROM. The link to the download page says: >> "Hybrid" ISO image files suitable for writing to DVD-R(W) or CD-R(W) media, depending on size, and also USB keys of the appropriate size. << So it does claim to work with USB. How to keep the install process on the media it has used up to that stage, and install as advertised? An attempt to install ubuntu 16.04, using the same USB/unetbootin method went fine for most of the install, but barfed when trying to write the boot block. So it's not unetbootin which has an unhealthy CDROM obsession. Any clues gratefully received. Erik
Re: Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 08:46, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > Afaik, unetbootin unpacks the ISO and replaces the boot loader software. > Debian discourages its use with live and installation ISOs. > > The Debian ISOs for i386 are ready to be simply copied onto the device > file of the overall USB stick (i.e. to /dev/sdX not to /dev/sdX1). Ah, they're what's described as a .img on other sites, then. I chose unetbootin in lieu of a dd copy, based on the .iso suffix. > After ensuring that /dev/sdd really is the device address of the USB > stick, you just do > > dd if=debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde.iso bs=4M of=/dev/sdd ; sync > > See > https://www.debian.org/CD/faq/#write-usb The dd copied the image fine, the Udoo X86 booted on it, and I began the install. Sadly, it barfed at the same stage - after setting geographic location and keyboard, the debian 9 install process threw up a "Detect and mount CD-ROM" screen, insisting on a CD with suitable install content. It seemed quite unaware that it is installing from USB. Performing a "continue" and a "skip" returns to the "Debian installer main menu", with the cursor on "Detect and mount CD-ROM". The dufus thing is still obsessing about CDs, despite the web page promising that it can do a USB install. Are we just up against false advertising? The USB holds ten times what a CD can, so there's no rational reason for last-century media to be involved. I'll wrassle ten years of cabling pile-up on the back half of the desk, move the Udoo to the near end of the coffee table, and string an ethernet cable over. Maybe a net install will work. Erik
Re: Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 08:20, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Tue, Jul 18, 2017 at 10:55:26AM +0200, Dejan Jocic wrote: > > This release of Debian came with buggy live images. It was fixed with > > 9.0.1 live images, or at least it seemed so. > > No, the 9.0.1 Debian live images are still broken when used for > installations. They fail to set a root password or to set up the primary > user account with sudo access, at least in some cases. Users in Freenode > #debian are constantly having to be told how to boot from rescue media > to set the root password. > > WHY DO PEOPLE ATTEMPT TO INSTALL DEBIAN USING A LIVE CD IMAGE www.debian.org -> "CD/USB ISO images", then choose the only possibly viable alternative to CD/DVD, since there's no CD/DVD on the new host. > ESPECIALLY WHEN IT HASN'T WORKED IN MANY YEARS Now we see the problem. There are other distros which do install from the live image, and debian purports to do so. It just fails. > G My sentiments exactly. Debian's failure to function has wasted hours of my time. > Why don't people use the installer to install? The installer delivered with the live image, or another debian installer? > I just can't understand. If "CD/USB ISO images" had not led to a page headed exclusively "Debian on CDs", and reiterated the exclusion of USB at the first download option, I'd have given it a go. It is only debian website obfuscation which has led me to seek an image suitable for USB where it is not visibly excluded. If the live image obsesses over having a CDROM, then heaven help us with an image explicitly for ancient media - it can't possibly work on USB, can it? Erik
Re: Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 11:06, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > On the other hand, if you just want to _install_ Debian rather than to > run it as "live" system, then you should for now use one of the > installation ISOs. > E.g. the small one which is just enough to fetch more packages from the > internet: > > > https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-9.0.0-i386-netinst.iso I should have gone with that one. > or the DVD sized one with a more complete system: > > > https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-dvd/debian-9.0.0-i386-DVD-1.iso But thought I'd give this a try. It's nearly there. I'll install tomorrow, as it's after midnight. > Installation attempts from live-cd ISOs caused lots of complaints. > (It is unclear how many attempts succeeded.) Would it be impertinent to enquire why the malfunctioning install option is not disabled, when it only serves to tarnish the reputation of debian? (I spent 30 years developing telecommunications software. A lot of effort went into preventing the release of buggy software.) Mind you, ubuntu 16.04 doesn't install on the Udoo X86 either, bombing at boot block installation. If all else fails, I could try their own distro, but they've had enough delays getting the hardware out, and their distro might benefit from some bedding down. Debian is more of a known quantity. Erik
Re: Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 15:47, Darac Marjal wrote: > Did you read the two yellow boxes at the top of that page? No, it did not register as text, because it was block colour-guified, which my (other side of 60) mind registered as "commented out - do not read". The tiny fontsize visually confirmed that it must be insignificant fine print. Reading the plain text usually works for me - it just missed useful clues this time. Still, if it works for most, then it's good enough. > 1. If you simply want to install Debian and have an Internet connection > on the target computer please consider the Network Install media which > is a smaller download. > > 2. On i386 and amd64 architectures, all CD/DVD images can be used on a > USB stick too. > I can see your logic, but the webpage IS telling you that "Even if > you're trying to install from USB, these are the images you REALLY > want." Yeah, whatever you do, someone will misread it. But why does the "Download CD/DVD images using HTTP." link obscure the fact that it in reality is "Download CD/DVD/USB images using HTTP." That would help those of us who go straight to the download options to make a selection. (Just a suggestion.) Erik (Who will make notes, as doing it the hard way is no fun.)
Re: Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 10:29, Greg Wooledge wrote: > On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 12:14:52AM +1000, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > www.debian.org -> "CD/USB ISO images" > > That's where your eyes go? That's interesting. Only because this time it's an install from USB, and it's under the heading "Getting Debian". > My eyes skip the banner with its embedded "download me" link (because > it's a friggin' BANNER, and decades of web use have taught me to skip > all banners), and skip the small print sections, and drop me straight > to the link that says "obtain a copy" <https://www.debian.org/distrib/>. That's where I've gone in the past. Unfortunately the maze has grown new rat runs - some with traps. > On the second page, there's "Download an installation image" and > "Try Debian live before installing". Sadly, the instructions under > the "Try Debian live" link claim that the live image's installer will > work. We all know that it doesn't, but the instructions continue to > claim that it does. This little maze-runner is learning too. Thanks for sharing the insiders obstacle-avoidance info. > > , then choose the only possibly > > viable alternative to CD/DVD, since there's no CD/DVD on the new host. > > You also skipped the "Network install" link right above your "CD/USB > ISO images" link. I wonder why. The host isn't yet connected to the network. There's no more room on the desk, and I don't have a spare long ethernet cable, remiss though that is. > On the page you went to, there are two yellow lightbulb boxes, one saying > to use "Network Install" instead, and the second saying "all CD/DVD images > can be used on a USB stick too". > > Somehow you skipped over those as well. "friggin' BANNER" Erik
Can debian-live-9.0.1-i386-lxde be made to install from USB?
On 18.07.17 11:06, Thomas Schmitt wrote: > On the other hand, if you just want to _install_ Debian rather than to > run it as "live" system, then you should for now use one of the > installation ISOs. > E.g. the small one which is just enough to fetch more packages from the > internet: > > > https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-cd/debian-9.0.0-i386-netinst.iso > > or the DVD sized one with a more complete system: > > > https://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/current/i386/iso-dvd/debian-9.0.0-i386-DVD-1.iso > > Installation attempts from live-cd ISOs caused lots of complaints. > (It is unclear how many attempts succeeded.) Many thanks. The second install iso above is much better behaved, but possibly a little overeager. When it was paused at "Install base system", I reached over to the wireless keyboard to press , and inadvertently pressed the space bar while picking it up. That was enough to trigger the installation. No harm done in this instance, but less safe prior to disk formatting. (Users - who'd have 'em. Better off without. ;) It was with delight that I found I could select LXDE, rather than Gnome or KDE. Erik (Who now has debian on all hosts except one old one with ubuntu.)
Apt vs apt-get [Was: Apt-get Upgrade Problem in Stretch?]
On 20.07.17 03:27, Felix Miata wrote: > David Wright composed on 2017-07-19 23:33 (UTC-0500): > > > On Wed 19 Jul 2017 at 14:57:50 (-0400), Felix Miata wrote: > > >> Did you miss that in Stretch apt is preferred to apt-get? > > > I did. Where does it say that? > > It was a long time ago that I first encountered it, and don't remember where > it > was. I have to think searching 'apt-get vs. apt stretch' will get you hits > like > what I've run across. Ah, yes, "I had a dream ... that my preference was ordained from upon high." That's the source of all sorts of bunkum. I've used apt-get for decades, across ubuntu and debian, and it has always worked for me. It is amusing to observe pedants furiously peddling their own preference, not least when some vague "authority" is claimed. Even if it was a bunch of drunk virgins, naked under moonlight (whether devs or not), their preference is only their preference. The rest of us use what we choose, and it is foolish to attempt to impose one's will on others. (Not least when one has no idea why. ;-) Erik
Re: cups
On 20.07.17 19:51, Pol Hallen wrote: > From client I print (ie: a 300Kb of pdf), in log cups server I see that file > size about 4/5Mb (why?), so the printer before print it I've to wait also 15 > minutes :-/ Is the file for the printer postscript? That is always bigger than the pdf equivalent, even before you get to the fancy compression of images that Gene mentions. A printer with a slow processor can take many minutes to process large volumes of postscript. I have a small HP 3-in-1 laserprinter, and it can be slow. I don't remember how PCL5 compares to postscript for speed. > This happens only with a client with debian testing (and latest update of > cups) before this updates no problem. That may be "why", but the file format will elucidate "how", which is the technically revealing bit. Erik
Can "PulseAudio Volume Control" devs be redeemed?
After two days of trying to google ways to get audio on the hdmi output on a shiny new Udoo X86 running debian 9.0.0, sheer gritted-teeth determination, smacking the walls of the GUI rat's maze lucked onto the deeply concealed interface. On the LXDE desktop, the "Sound & Video" -> "PulseAudio Volume Control" menu item has only 3 widely spaced tabs, underutilising the chosen window width, and the "Output Ports" tab offered no management or configuration possibilities. But there are two tiny dark triangles in the corners. Clicking on the RH one leads to an unnecessarily hidden tab, "Input Devices", and clicking again reveals "Configuration". There, in a "Profile" selection box, it is possible to select "Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output". Once selected, it even seems to be the power-on default. (Much to my surprise, given the user-hostile perversity of the devious GUI design, deliberately made unnecessarily narrow, so that two vital tabs could be hidden from the user, without the most tenuous rational reason for doing so.) Granted, the purpose of a GUI is to put access to necessary functions at the end of deep maze rat runs - but invisible secret tabs with double blind access?! I do believe that some of these devs are being paid by Microsoft to paralyse linux. (If not, we know that they were born arse-backwards, and have never turned around.) There is no rational explanation for failing to make all 5 tabs visible. Erik (Who in 30 years of s/w development never let a team member produce crap like that.)
Re: Can "PulseAudio Volume Control" devs be redeemed?
On 22.07.17 14:23, Joel Rees wrote: > On Sat, Jul 22, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Erik Christiansen > > > > There is no rational explanation for failing to make all 5 tabs visible. > > > > Erik > > (Who in 30 years of s/w development never let a team member produce crap > > like that.) > > > > I think there are two things going on here. > > One is that many devs get huge displays to make it easier to code, and > then forget what the ordinary-sized displays are like. So they get careless > about the constraints imposed by ordinary-sized screens. Uhuh, I always tried to give my s/w team members big screens too, but my screen is also over two feet wide. The "PulseAudio Volume Control" dev's perversity here is in forcing two vital tabs off the dialogue window for no valid reason, when there is over another half yard of display width to spare! > Another is that many devs are trying to support tablets without > designing a separate UI for them. So they cram too much in. That does not wash. The output config could then be included in the "Output Ports" tab, where it belongs in the first place. Further, the "PulseAudio Volume Control" is so damn narrow that it could fit twice on a tablet, _and_ it wastes 25% of the tab width. The two omitted tabs can be accommodated with ease. As there is no plausible reason for obfuscating the two tabs, it is only arrant disregard for the user which leads to the current abomination. Erik
Re: Can "PulseAudio Volume Control" devs be redeemed?
On 22.07.17 09:36, Curt wrote: > On 2017-07-22, Ric Moore wrote: > > On 07/22/2017 12:51 AM, Erik Christiansen wrote: > > > >> There is no rational explanation for failing to make all 5 tabs visible. > > > > No idea what your problem is, I have always been able to see the tabs. Ric > > > > Me neither. I've got all five. Ordinary display size here. > > I've read that the HDMI output on the Udoo depends on the S/PDIF control and > installing pulseaudio mutes it. Maybe that has something to do with "The > Mysterious Case of the Hidden Tabs." Aha, if the "PulseAudio Volume Control" window is manually widened, the suppressed tabs become visible. Is it then the Debian 9.0.0 distro-smiths who have set too small a window size in their LXDE menu item invocation? It is cruel that so small an error causes such a reduction in usability. Erik
Re: Can "PulseAudio Volume Control" devs be redeemed?
On 22.07.17 13:47, Ansgar Burchardt wrote: > Erik Christiansen writes: > > Aha, if the "PulseAudio Volume Control" window is manually widened, the > > suppressed tabs become visible. Is it then the Debian 9.0.0 distro-smiths > > who have set too small a window size in their LXDE menu item invocation? > > It seems to remember what size it was last started with. So if a user > decides to make it small and hide stuff, it will remember the user's > wishes. > > Now, the problem is that users don't know what they want, act > irrational, will never remember what they did earlier (how often does > one hear "I did nothing, but everything broke"?) and blame everything on > the software developer. Not to forget some even come up with conspiracy > theories how Microsoft paid people to make the application window > smaller ;-) Firstly, if the window had ever been larger, the 5 tabs would have shown at least once. They did not at any stage. The word "Configure" would have been a beacon as I struggled to find configure options. Secondly, this user did not know that a desktop menu item could be resized. Until the possibility was raised on list, I considered them inviolate. Thirdly, I've had Debian 9.0.0 installed for 2 -3 days now, and with a monitor nearly a yard wide, I have in that time only enlarged a couple of uxterms, and set "huge" text size, to better enjoy the wireless keyboard at range. There has not been any cause for contemplating making any window smaller. What we need to do is examine whether the Debian 9.0.0 distro-smith last had it shrunken, and it is therefore in that condition in the distro. If we knew what config file contains the menu gumpf, that could perhaps be revealed, and minimise the need for speculation and supposition. Erik
