October 2020 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

war story: power failure makes CentOS system unbootable
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Sep '22

30 Sep '22

tl;dr / spoiler: change fstab so that /boot/efi is not automatically mounted. See the recommendation at the end of this message. My gateway computer is a little PC running CentOS. It does not come back after a power failure. The reason (as best I can tell) is interesting and I think that I have a fix. My system is UEFI. It boots from a UEFI system partition, known as /boot/efi to Linux. If this gets corrupted, it won't boot. It is a VFAT partition. On my gateway (a Zotac Zbox RI321, a cute little box with two ethernet ports), the UEFI firmware apparently won't boot if the dirty bit is set in the system partition. CentOS normally runs with /boot/efi mounted. So when the system isn't shut down cleanly, the dirty bit will be on. Consequence: the system is not going to boot after a power failure. Odd observation 1: if I put a live Fedora 25 USB stick in the system and try to boot in this otherwise-unbootable state, CentOS boots from the main disk. So this really looks like a firmware bug/quirk. Odd observation 2: fsck doesn't seem to automatically fix the system partition. Once CentOS 7 booted, I dismounted /boot/efi and did an fsck on it. $ sudo fsck /dev/sda1 fsck from util-linux 2.23.2 fsck.fat 3.0.20 (12 Jun 2013) 0x25: Dirty bit is set. Fs was not properly unmounted and some data may be corrupt. 1) Remove dirty bit 2) No action ? 1 Leaving filesystem unchanged. /dev/sda1: 16 files, 2420/51145 clusters Googling got me to <https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=50917> In particular, this advice seemed quite good: ==== recommendation ==== Two other changes I recommend for UEFI systems, to each OS's /etc/fstab. - For the /boot/efi mountpoint, add the mount options x-systemd.automount,noauto - Change fs_passno (last column) to a 1 or 2; the canonical fstab instructions suggest 2, but systemd treats 1 and 2 as the same. The first change means the EFI System partition will not be automatically read-write mounted at boot time; it's a bad idea this is the default because it puts the ESP at risk especially if ther are crashes, FAT has no journal and will therefore always be marked dirty in such a case; no other UEFI OS mounts the ESP by default. Second, if anything tries to access /boot/efi (read or write), systemd will automatically mount it, and because of the fs_passno 1 or 2, it will fsck it first and that fixes and clears the dirty bit in case it's set. Right now without these changes, it's just a matter of having the right number and bad timing of crashes to render the EFI System partition corrupt.

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YAD-Zenity-GTK on Pi - assistance needed
by Giles Orr 30 Jan '21

30 Jan '21

YAD ("Yet Another Dialog") is a fork of Zenity - essentially a way to display GTK+ dialogues from shell scripts. I've chosen YAD because it supports a couple things Zenity doesn't have, namely form buttons and tabs. I've created an ugly but functional interface that's meant to go on a 3.5" touch screen on a Raspberry Pi. But here's the problem: by the time it gets on a screen that small, the buttons are too small to reliably poke with a finger. So I want to increase the font size. All that was needed to fix that on my Fedora desktop was: # file: ~/.configs/gtk-3.0/settings.ini [Settings] gtk-font-name = Sans 32 And voila, 'yad' appears with a super-huge font. However - this behaviour isn't replicated on the Pi. It's an old(ish) Debian stretch install on an old Pi B (not Pi 2 B, just "Pi B"). I'm pretty sure that ~/.configs/gtk-3.0/settings.ini is the right file, because when I mis-configured it, 'yad' complained loudly. But it ignores the font setting that works fine on another host. I tried 'yad --font' which throws up what amounts to a GTK font selection dialogue, and "Sans 32" is a valid font on the Pi. Anyone got any ideas on this? -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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dsl modem ideas for bell?
by Karen Lewellen 17 Jan '21

17 Jan '21

Hi folks, Hope you all are finding ways to feel creative. Wondering if anyone might have a suggestion providing a solution. Bell is my dsl provider, they also provide my land line and satellites service as well, but that is not the issue really. Because I still use analog phone service, its tied to some of my adaptive technology, my dsl modem / rooter combination provided by Bell is a tw or two wire model...or at least it was until this weekend. Honestly I am not a major user of data, but I do often need to connect more than one Ethernet setup, and require that someone using wireless be able to do this with little fanfare. Largely because none of bell's software works for my setup. anyway, the problem is that bell has replaced my beloved modem with one that causes my landline to click, as in makes a constant clicking noise whenever the modem is connected, which is all the time. What I am seeking is hopefully an older, but still to be found prospect, with several Ethernet ports the ability to connect wirelessly, yet being a tw model. My old one had stream in the title if that rings a..bell. I have literary had 5 technicians here since Saturday, with three of them messing up my Internet on top of not addressing the issue. Any bell modem ideas come to mind? why on earth by the way, must I only use bell equipment in the first place? Kare the ranter.

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security threats of Open Source
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 25 Nov '20

25 Nov '20

<https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-spots-malicious-npm-package-stealin…> This article list six cases of malware contributed to npm (the repo for sharing node.js and JavaScript source). How many undetected cases exist? I've alway pretended that Linux distros vet their code. I'm not sure how true that is. Probably the greatest protection is the time delay between contribution and distribution. I wonder what can be done about this problem. I've said so at our meetings a few times too. Of course the problem is worse with closed source: it is impossible to audit the source. But closed source might have fewer contributors and more supervision. Of course much closed soure is built on top of open source and thuse all its weakness

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Freedom and Graphene
by Evan Leibovitch 13 Nov '20

13 Nov '20

Hi all, It's 2020 and a long time since Shaw bought Wind Mobile and renamed it to Freedom. So I wonder if it's worth another look. Prices are as always aggressive but questions remain about speed and coverage. The reason I want a new phone plan is because I'm experimenting with a new phone on which I've just installed GrapheneOS; more than just another Android ROM, it's touted as being one of the most privacy-focused phones one can have. Google-free, of course, beyond what's in AOSP, and two different app stores to replace Google Play. Does anyone here have experience with either Freedom Mobile or GrapheneOS? Any answers are much appreciated. If there's interest I'll be happy to talk about my experiences with GrapheneOS at a future GTALUG meeting. Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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Group knowledge base
by William Park 02 Nov '20

02 Nov '20

How do you or your company maintain group "knowledge base"? I guess, wiki for internal stuffs. I'm using Words/Excel files. A chapter (Word) or worksheet (Excel) for different subject or project. You can insert screenshots, tables, etc. Screenshot of installation or picture of DIP switches is way simpler than trying to explaining it in words. You can cut/paste from original documentation. But, I'm curious what others are using. -- William Park <opengeometry(a)yahoo.ca>

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Virtual console 1 frozen..
by Michael Galea 30 Oct '20

30 Oct '20

Ctrl-Alt-F1 used to reach a login prompt on the console, but my debian testing based box simply shows the booting process up to the "/dev/sdb1: clean, ..... " message, and is unresponsive. All of the other virtual consoles work as expected, but I would still like to solve the problem. I have inspected journalctl logging during/after the last boot and nothing stands out. Can anyone suggest anything? Thanks -- Michael Galea

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Re: [GTALUG] Right to Repair Article in NYT
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 30 Oct '20

30 Oct '20

| From: ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> | what is the diff between male and female bovine excrement? :) Male cattle are bulls (or steers, if castrated). Female cattle are cows (or heifers, if young). OT: "mankind" includes females. "Cows" is often used in a way that includes males. The distinction in the case of excrement is just a matter of idiomatic English. "Cowshit" is just not a common expression. I've never heard "steershit" or "heifershit". No such distinction is made in the equine or porcine cases. Chickens are another interesting case. Female chickens are chickens. Males are roosters (or capons). I will leave the application to excrement as a exercise for the reader. Cows are normally smaller than bulls. In literal terms, they have less excrement per individual. At least in dairy herds (what I have experience with), there are way more cows than bulls (for obvious reasons) so the balance of excrement tips the other way. Cattle excrement may vary depending on the situations in which it appears. Partly this is diet and partly it is due to post-evacuation mechanical factors. - grazing - feedlot - in stalls in a barn - loose in a barn. - on the bottom of your shoes Bulls are usually kept in stalls (if at all). This is to control their propensity to fight and to breed in ways not controlled by the herdsman / herdswoman. This has an effect on the excrement.

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Re: [GTALUG] OT: Right to Repair Article in NYT
by o1bigtenor 28 Oct '20

28 Oct '20

On Wed, Oct 28, 2020 at 7:05 AM ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > > On Wed, 28 Oct 2020 07:52:04 -0400 > Seneca Cunningham via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > > > On Oct 28, 2020, at 07:42, ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > > > so, okay, this is hectically off topic, but as a non bovine expert > > > with a vague interest in all things excremental... I gots to know: > > > what is the diff between male and female bovine excrement? :) Well - - - - it is usually considered rude to use the word bullshit. The phrase is the very very proper way of saying the same thing! I have a few more phrases in similar vein. Regards

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Re: [GTALUG] Right to Repair Article in NYT
by Seneca Cunningham 28 Oct '20

28 Oct '20

> On Oct 28, 2020, at 07:42, ac via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > so, okay, this is hectically off topic, but as a non bovine expert with > a vague interest in all things excremental... I gots to know: > > what is the diff between male and female bovine excrement? :) > To continue the OTness, based upon what I’ve learnt from the Toronto Zoo’s daily Facebook live videos over the past few months, there could be some subtle differences in hormone levels. They use it to run tests on some of the less cooperative species, and feed the animals edible glitter so that the keepers can identify whose excrement it is.

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