June 2021 - 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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Kurzweil Reading Edge
by Mike Kallies 01 Jul '21

01 Jul '21

Hey Everyone, These came up recently on the list and coincidentally there's a great Youtuber (Techmoan) who just did a piece on the devices, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0jECuwrn_U It's approached as a gadget guy, so no deep dives, but he demos it and gets into a bit of the history and the warts of the aging machines. Interestingly he adds that he's planning future videos on "more recent takes on the same concept" Cool stuff. Mike

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ThinkPad P15 -- crap?
by William Park 28 Jun '21

28 Jun '21

Hi guys, I'm using ThinkPad P15 Gen 1 at work. The keyboard, touchpad, and trackpoint are not what I expected. They feel cheap. My old T450 is better. Is it just me? Or, has anyone notice this also? --WP

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[GTALUG-Announce] Meeting on Tuesday, July 13 at 07:30 PM
by hi＠gtalug.org 25 Jun '21

25 Jun '21

https://gtalug.org/meeting/2021-07/ # Lightning talks and Round Table This is GTALUG's version of an un-conference, a loosely structured short talks emphasizing the informal exchange of information and ideas between participants, rather than following a conventionally structured GTALUG meetings. If you already have a topic in mind please send an email to speakers(a)gtalug.org to be added to the list of scheduled talks. We're going to use Zoom for this meeting: Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83162263149?pwd=NXRkWUlEbVJydUN6V1BRN0JFTEcyZz09 Meeting ID: 831 6226 3149 Passcode: 719772 One tap mobile +16473744685,,83162263149#,,,,*719772# Canada +16475580588,,83162263149#,,,,*719772# Canada` Find your local numberhttps://us02web.zoom.us/u/klYT1laDI ## Schedule * 7:30 pm - Meeting and presentation. # Code of Conduct We want a productive happy community that can welcome new ideas, improve every process every year, and foster collaboration between individuals with differing needs, interests and skills. We gain strength from diversity, and actively seek participation from those who enhance it. This code of conduct exists to ensure that diverse groups collaborate to mutual advantage and enjoyment. We will challenge prejudice that could jeopardise the participation of any person in the community. The Code of Conduct governs how we behave in public or in private whenever the Linux community will be judged by our actions. We expect it to be honoured by everyone who represents the community officially or informally, claims affiliation or participates directly. It applies to activities online or offline. We invite anybody to participate. Our community is open. Please read more about the GTALUG Code of Conduct here: https://gtalug.org/about/code-of-conduct/ If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about the GTALUG Code of Conduct please contact the GTALUG Board @ board(a)gtalug.org --- GTALUG Announce mailing list announce(a)gtalug.org https://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/announce

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Rocky Linux (CentOS's replacement) goes GA
by Scott Sullivan 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

Yesterday, Rocky Linux made their rebuild of RHEL 8.4 Generally Available. https://rockylinux.org/news/rocky-linux-8-4-ga-release/ This was following a round of RCs for 8.3 and 8.4. My colleagues and I have been testing it out on both our personal and company work loads. And it's working as expected. For those whom need a quick reminder on the situation. The chain used to look like this. Upstream Sources => Fedora (Cherry picked and Forked ever few years) => CentOS Stream => RHEL => CentOS At the start of the Year, RedHat announced that all effort on CentOS (as a downstream rebuild of RHEL) would cease at the end of 2021. Half a decade earlier then the community was expecting. And that there would be no CentOS to go with RHEL 9 when it eventually comes. This left a huge community of users and developer, whom were never going to become RHEL customers, without their long term stable distro. Moving to CentOS Stream is effectively becoming beta testers for what will become RHEL. Some of original founders of the CentOS project, established Rocky Linux to fill the position CentOS used too, just slightly trailing RHEL. This returns the community to where it was before RedHat stepped in to support the CentOS project. Support that was eventually betrayed, having effectively abandoned the CentOS position in the ecosystem and walked away with the trademarks. This position in the ecosystem is always going to exist, RedHat abdicating it is ultimately unfortunate for RedHat. -- Scott Sullivan

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Foone's Silverado Linux discovery - "Go away, go away now, go away fast"
by Stewart C. Russell 20 Jun '21

20 Jun '21

Popular hardware hacker Foone Turing has found that the Chevy Silverado they're renting runs a dubious version of Linux in the entertainment console, yet it seems to have some control over some in-car systems and talks via the car's wifi (of course). Ongoing slightly sweary thread starts here: foone (@Foone) : I'm renting a recent Chevy Silverado pickup truck and it has a big screen for connecting navigation and controlling bluetooth music and such, and it's apparently linux based. You know how it I know? It has the license files for EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE included, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER 10:21 PM · Jun 18, 2021 — https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1406074736803676163 Definite 'Code Red' from Cabin Pressure material for me ... cheers, Stewart

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MySQL high availability video (March 2021)
by Alex Volkov 16 Jun '21

16 Jun '21

Hello Everyone, Here's the video from our March 2021 meeting, MySQL High Availability Stack: Orchstrator, Proxysql, and Consul with Peter Sylvester https://youtu.be/dYlv-YGtkEE Alex.

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ftp helper app, and how to screenshot on Ubuntu 21.04?
by Stewart C. Russell 13 Jun '21

13 Jun '21

Hi - so browsers don't support ftp:// links any more <https://www.somagnews.com/mozilla-firefox-drops-support-for-ftp/>, and I was wondering what people used as a drop-in app? I'd prefer if it weren't Filezilla, as that thing was a bug-ridden mess of spyware last time I looked at it. Most of the very old computer documentation I use lives on FTP sites, and this change came out of nowhere. Also, my go-to screenshot thingy /*scrot*/ no longer works on Ubuntu 21.04: it gives me this: X Error of failed request: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter) Major opcode of failed request: 14 (X_GetGeometry) Resource id in failed request: 0x0 Serial number of failed request: 8 Current serial number in output stream: 8 My keyboard doesn't have a PrtSc key so I can't use any of the built-in screenshot tools. Is this a Wayland thing? I thought Wayland was supposed to be compatible with X? cheers, Stewart

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Video of our June 2021 meeting -- Intro to NFTs
by Alex Volkov 10 Jun '21

10 Jun '21

Hello Everyone, Here's the video from our yesterday's meeting (June 2021), Nintro to NFTs with Chinmay Patel https://youtu.be/tDVwHfYFI30 Alex.

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Amid a pandemic, a health care algorithm shows promise and peril
by Howard Gibson 09 Jun '21

09 Jun '21

https://www.salon.com/2021/06/09/amid-a-pandemic-a-health-care-algorithm-sh… Here is an interesting article on Salon.com, originally from Undark. This is one hell of a case for Free Software. -- Howard Gibson hgibson(a)eol.ca jhowardgibson(a)gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson

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