July 2022 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

GPG key signing
by Stef Dunlap 13 Nov '22

13 Nov '22

Hello! This is my first post to this mailing list. :) With the pandemic, what have folks been doing for key signing? Have folks tried doing it remotely, are people meeting 1:1, or are folks just not getting their keys signed? Thanks, Stef D (she/her)

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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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Visiting GTA in 2 weeks and looking to say hi
by Zenko Klapko Jr. 18 Jul '22

18 Jul '22

LUG as a must see on a trip? Yes. A casual meetup for dinner/beers, talking about Linux, and the scene in the GTA. Not sure what the group's current process during COVID-19 is so feel free to say virtual meetup. I'm also interested in geeky destinations to visit while I'm in the area. I'm staying in Mississauga (2022-08-01 to 2022-08-15) and will have a car. I ran the Charleston, SC, USA Linux Users Group for about a decade. Also ran Makelab Charleston for ~year. Then life happens - moving, family things, etc. Less time for personal projects but still use it as #1 choice for work and at home. I still feel inspired by the philosophy and community -- both highlight positivity in humanity. Cheers! -- “It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” ― James Baldwin

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Davinci Resolve for Linux
by Evan Leibovitch 18 Jul '22

18 Jul '22

Hi all. Is anyone using this? Iḿ trying to make it work (current Ubuntu, new AMD GPU) but it won´t recognize the graphics card. Any suggestions? Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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Did this week's meeting even get announced here?
by Lennart Sorensen 15 Jul '22

15 Jul '22

Is the announcement list being moderated again and messages left behind? I don't recall seeing any messages this week about the meeting that I think happened 3 days ago. My procmail log also agrees it didn't see any such emails. -- Len Sorensen

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Fedora 36's gnome display of notebook battery status
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 07 Jul '22

07 Jul '22

I like the battery status displayed as a percentage. This is not the default. Not a mainstream option It used to be something you could get through the GNOME "Tweaks" program. (That's a great tool for a few nice options.) In Fedora 36, Tweaks no longer has that option. Instead you can use the shell command gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface show-battery-percentage true That sure seems like a dumb change!

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option pricing quirks on Dell's XPS 13 plus laptop
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 05 Jul '22

05 Jul '22

I just got an ad for this. The XPS line from Dell is quite nice but also quite expensive. To use marketing terms, "XPS" is the top "prosumer" line from Dell. The top non-flashy line is "Precision". My main laptop is an older XPS 15 that I bought used. You can configure an XPS 13 plus here: <https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/xps-13-plus-laptop/spd/x…> - Ubuntu Linux 20.04 is an option! - Note: "Ubuntu Linux", not "Ubuntu". This seems to be against Ubuntu branding strategy (unless that changed) - Ubuntu Linux reduces the price from Win 11 home by $130 -- an astonishingly large difference since Win 11 home probably costs Dell almost nothing. (Windows 11 Pro costs $110 more than Windows 11 Home.) - these days, most notebooks have soldered RAM so you cannot upgrade the RAM after purchase. So (1) you have to buy with as much RAM as you think that you will ever need, and (2) RAM can be priced rather high. When I bought my XPS 15 three years ago, I replaced the 8G of RAM with 32G for well under $200: I love socketed memory. - if you choose 32G of RAM, you cannot chose an i5 processor, you must choose one of the two i7 options. This is not a technical requirement: the i5 chip can handle up to 64G of RAM (not an option) - 16G costs $150 more than 8G. You can only choose 8G with an i5. This has no basis in technical requirements. - 32G costs $100 more than 16G. You can only choose 32G with an i7-128OP This has no basis in technical requirements. But it adds to the cost of 32G since the processor upgrade from i7-1260P is $175. - you can choose Ubuntu Linux only if you have chosen i5. So you can only have 8G or 16G of RAM with Ubuntu Linux. These are not technical requirements of Ubuntu Linux. This seems odd since Linux models are aimed at developers. - Oddly, when you flip between Ubuntu Win 11 Home and either Linux or Win 11 pro, the i5 option's legend changes but there is no difference in the processor. - All display choice are very good but some are great. OLED! UltraHD! All but OLED are 500 nit! Being a bottom feeder, I'm not going to buy any of these. They start at $1669.

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inexpensive mini-PC with four 2.5G ethernet interfaces
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 03 Jul '22

03 Jul '22

These should make good routers. This deal will last until 2:00AM Saturday. After that, the price will probably be a bit higher. Beware: AliExpress. I've ordered one but I cannot vouch for it. <https://forums.redflagdeals.com/aliexpress-com-mini-pc-fanless-bare-bones-f…>

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