June 2022 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

tomorrow's meeting
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 14 Jun '22

14 Jun '22

What would a Linux open house look like today? with Evan Leibovitch, Gordon Chilcott See <https://gtalug.org/>

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free computer: Foxconn R20-D2, a small form-factor desktop
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 09 Jun '22

09 Jun '22

Foxconn is a big OEM -- they make a lot of Apple products, for example. This is one of the few things with their own brand. Here's where I bought it (almost 12 years ago): <https://www.newegg.com/foxconn-r20-d2/p/N82E16856119024> You can see specifications and a picture there. - almost 12 years old - Atom D510 CPU (slow; 64-bit; one core; two threads) <https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/43098/intel-atom-proce…> - NM10 chipset <https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/47610/intel-nm10-expre…> - old-fashioned BIOS (no UEFI support) - 3.3G RAM (cannot be expanded) - 1.5G HDD - DVD writer - gigabit ethernet - PS/2 mouse and keyboard connectors (but you can use USB too) - currently running CentOS 7 - one empty PCI slot (half-height, I think) (could hold a video card) Serious limitations: - USB 2 is the only USB supported (could add a USB 3 PCI card) - only video output is VGA (probably supports up to 2048 x 1536 @ 60Hz) - fan is noisy (always was -- isn't a sign of failure) - no Windows license Pick it up near York Mills subway station.

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Serializing download in Firefox?
by William Park 08 Jun '22

08 Jun '22

What add-on do you use to serialize downloads in Firefox? Right now, I'm using KGet (download manager in KDE) with queue of 1. But, if there is Firefox add-on, then it's one less window.

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Router Mystery
by Jim Ruxton 07 Jun '22

07 Jun '22

I'm trying to solve an issue I've been having with my Teksavvy DSL router. For some reason over a couple of weeks my connection degenerated to the point where I may have had connection to the internet for about half a day. I called Teksavvy and got connected to Bell who said the line looked ok from their end. They said it was probably the router. I doubted it but Teksavvy sent me a loaner router. And voila my connection was immediately better. Before buying a new router , after a couple of days with the loaner I connected the old router and now it's working fine again with the old router. I had tried resetting and disconnecting and connecting the old router many times before getting the loaner and it didn't make a difference. The appearance, which makes no sense is that connecting the loaner router temporarily fixed my connection issue to the point I could use my old router again. Can anyone make any sense of this? Jim

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Re: [GTALUG] trip report: upgrading to Fedora 36
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 04 Jun '22

04 Jun '22

| From: Michael Galea via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> | | On 2022-06-01 10:31, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: | > I just upgraded several systems to from Fedora 34 or 35 to Fedora 36 over | > the last week. This process is mostly uneventful. Here are some notes. | .. | | > | > - one system's grub could not see any new kernels so I could only boot | > with the last f35 kernel. I fixed this by doing a clean re-install. | > | I'm hoping you mean a re-install of grub and not Fedora. I wouldn't call an OS | reinstall "mostly uneventful".. No, it was a complete re-install, preserving /home. I agree, this was an event. The correct fix was probably to clean out /etc/efi and re-install the latest kernel. But I didn't know that. I'm not happy that: 1) Fedora changed what they put in ESP without a clear announcement and explanation 2) out of space on the ESP caused silent failure (On the first UNIX system I used, we could hear when a filesystem was full because log messages were printed on the console, a DecWriter LA30. The RK05 disk held just under 2.5 megabytes. <http://gunkies.org/wiki/RK05_disk_drive>. I may misremember some details.)

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trip report: upgrading to Fedora 36
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 01 Jun '22

01 Jun '22

I just upgraded several systems to from Fedora 34 or 35 to Fedora 36 over the last week. This process is mostly uneventful. Here are some notes. There are two ways to upgrade: - use the GNOME "software" GUI and tell it to just do it. - use the "dnf" technique <https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/dnf-system-upgrade/> I like the dnf technique because I can see what's going on (and perhaps see what is going wrong, if anything). Superstition. The "software" program has worked fine when I've used it. Another superstition: after step 1 in the dnf technique, I like to do sudo dnf autoremove This removes leaf packages that were installed due to dependencies but are no longer used. Theory: those orphans may have no upgrade path; it is better to ditch them that to try to upgrade them. I did run into three problems: - one system's grub could not see any new kernels so I could only boot with the last f35 kernel. I fixed this by doing a clean re-install. Here's what I think went wrong (only a theory): + the latest kernel and a rescue kernel + initrd are installed in the ESP (/boot/efi). This is new. I didn't see it documented. + this requires more free space in the ESP than my system had + kernel installation silently failed! Even when I tried to fix things by installing kernels after the upgrade It looks like some others have hit this: <https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/f36-kernel-wont-install-due-to-running-out-…> <https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2071034> Make sure that you have enough free space in /boot/efi. 300MiB should be plenty -- those files currently take 130MiB on my system. - On some systems, I use kernel driver modules from RPMFusion. In particular, the NVidia proprietary driver and the broadcom-wl driver. After update, they didn't work. The fix: sudo depmod It is listed as the first Common Bug on rpmfusion.org <https://rpmfusion.org/CommonBugs#System-upgrade%20and%20kmod(-nvidia)%20iss…> - after the upgrade, some WiFi passwords were forgotten and needed to be re-entered. If you upgraded using WiFi, that connection's password was retained. I didn't do careful observations so I may be wrong.

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