March 2024 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Debian Live Linux -- Overlay Filesystem -- Where Allocated ??
by Steve Petrie 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

Greetings To The GTALUG Community: I'm trying to discover where an overlay filesystem is mapped, for a Debian live boot from a USB stick. After perusing a dog's breakfast of output from various linux commands, I am appealing to GTALUG members for guidance. * * * * * * I boot live Debian 11 linux from a USB memory stick. This provides an overlay filesystem: ... user@debian:~$ df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on udev 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev tmpfs 1.6G 1.6M 1.6G 1% /run /dev/sdb1 3.5G 3.5G 0 100% /run/live/medium /dev/loop0 2.9G 2.9G 0 100% /run/live/rootfs/filesystem.squashfs tmpfs 7.8G 1.6G 6.3G 20% /run/live/overlay overlay 7.8G 1.6G 6.3G 20% / tmpfs 7.8G 0 7.8G 0% /dev/shm tmpfs 5.0M 4.0K 5.0M 1% /run/lock tmpfs 7.8G 8.0K 7.8G 1% /tmp tmpfs 1.6G 1.7M 1.6G 1% /run/user/1000 /dev/sdc1 59G 1.7G 57G 3% /media/user/245B-74A8 /dev/sda2 1.8T 767G 958G 45% /media/user/32ec11e8-082c-4ca5-b751-dc2852f9d5e2 user@debian:~$ ... * * * * * * I believe that the overlay filesystem provides the root directory for linux. Files under GNOME shows under Other Locations > Computer a root directory: ... user@debian:/$ ls -aAl total 0 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 17 2022 bin -> usr/bin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 144 Dec 17 2022 boot drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 3580 Mar 20 17:58 dev drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 640 Mar 20 14:32 etc drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60 Mar 20 08:14 home lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 17 2022 initrd.img -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 31 Dec 17 2022 initrd.img.old -> boot/initrd.img-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 7 Dec 17 2022 lib -> usr/lib lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 17 2022 lib32 -> usr/lib32 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Dec 17 2022 lib64 -> usr/lib64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Dec 17 2022 libx32 -> usr/libx32 drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 60 Mar 20 08:17 media drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 mnt drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 opt dr-xr-xr-x 266 root root 0 Mar 20 08:14 proc drwx------ 1 root root 60 Dec 17 2022 root drwxr-xr-x 31 root root 800 Mar 20 08:17 run lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Dec 17 2022 sbin -> usr/sbin drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 3 Dec 17 2022 srv dr-xr-xr-x 13 root root 0 Mar 20 08:14 sys drwxrwxrwt 17 root root 400 Mar 20 18:49 tmp drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 80 Dec 17 2022 usr drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 140 Dec 17 2022 var lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Dec 17 2022 vmlinuz -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-20-amd64 lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 28 Dec 17 2022 vmlinuz.old -> boot/vmlinuz-5.10.0-20-amd64 user@debian:/$ ... When I right-click on the word Computer in the title bar of the Files window, and select Properties, it shows: ... Name / Type Folder (inode/directory) Contents 297,003 items, totaling 10.9 GB (some contents unreadable) The space allocation graphic shows: 1.7 GB used 6.7 GB available Filesystem type overlay Open in Disks ... * * * * * * I have tried using many linux commands to find out where the overlay filesystem is mapped: ... df -h ls -l /dev/disk/by-id gdisk (/dev/sda) gdisk (/dev/sdb) gdisk (/dev/sdc) cfdisk /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sda cfdisk /dev/sdc sfdisk -J /dev/sda sfdisk -J /dev/sdb sfdisk -J /dev/sdc user@debian:/$ cd /dev user@debian:/dev$ ls -aAl sfdisk -T --label (dos, gpt) blkid lsblk lsblk parted -l mount sgdisk ... Output from all these commands is in the attached text file: ASP -- commands - looking for overlay filesystem device - 20240320.txt * * * * * * Suggestions from GTALUG members would be greatly appreciated !! Steve Petrie Etobicoke (Toronto), Ontario, Canada apetrie(a)aspetrie.net 416-233-6116

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Pi Day; Raspberry Pi virtual Meet-Up tonight
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 14 Mar '24

14 Mar '24

Pi Day (3.14) is no longer just a silly math undergrad joke. Even piza companies observe it. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi_Day> <https://www.todotoronto.com/posts/these-pizza-shops-are-offering-3-14-deals…> The Toronto Raspberry Pi meetup group is restarting tonight. <https://www.meetup.com/Raspberry-Pi/events/dhwnzrygcfbsb/> A new Raspberry Pi OS release is out.

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amazing but expensive Windows notebook (will run Linux)
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 12 Mar '24

12 Mar '24

Two left at the moment <https://forums.redflagdeals.com/ebay-canada-lenovo-15-off-coupon-2680997/#p…> The notebook: ThinkPad P16 with most nice features. The price ~$1400 + tax Too rich for me. But I can drool. Although this is sold through ebay, the vendor is Lenovo itself.

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uses and dangers of AI in science
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 12 Mar '24

12 Mar '24

I found this article quite interesting. <https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/producing-more-but-understanding-le…>

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Reminder: General Meeting- Tuesday, March 12
by Alan Heighway 11 Mar '24

11 Mar '24

The Future of LUGs and the Open Source Community. It’s AI, Baby! <https://gtalug.org/meeting/2024-03/> with Marcel Gagné <https://gtalug.org/> 12 March, 2024 at 07:30 PM Join GTALUG and our guest this month, Marcel Gagné, to discuss the current state of Linux User Groups and AI. We're going to use Big BLue Button for this meeting: https://blue.lpi.org/b/eva-zjc-gjy-kgl *Time:* March 12th, 2024 19:30 AM Eastern Time *Join us on Big Blue Button:* https://blue.lpi.org/b/eva-zjc-gjy-kgl. *A*lan *H*eighway <http://heighway.ca/> heighway.ca VA3WAH / VA3YKZ [image: Please consider the environment before printing]

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Monthly meeting on Tuesday March 12
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 10 Mar '24

10 Mar '24

Scraped from <https://gtalug.org/>: The Future of LUGs and the Open Source Community. It’s AI, Baby! with Marcel Gagné 12 March, 2024 at 07:30 PM Join GTALUG and our guest this month, Marcel Gagné, to discuss the current state of Linux User Groups and AI. Time: March 12th, 2024 19:30 AM Eastern Time Join us on Big Blue Button: https://blue.lpi.org/b/eva-zjc-gjy-kgl. Location

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Grrr: CRA vs evince
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 06 Mar '24

06 Mar '24

Background / Public Service Announcement: This year, the CRA has started requiring taxpayers to file returns for joint accounts (I think joint accounts for spouses are not included). These are called "bare trusts" and one needs to - register with the CRA to get a trust number (kind of like a SIN) - file a T3 tax return (but there will be no tax) - file a T3 Schedule 15 form for each beneficial owner. The deadline for filing for 2023 is the end of this month. Linux-related: The fillable form for Schedule 15 is in an Adobe-proprietary variant PDF. evince doesn't understand it but Firefox does. <https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/t3sch15/t3sch15-fil…> Evince displays it as ================================================================== Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document. You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visiting http://www.adobe.com/go/reader_download. For more assistance with Adobe Reader visit http://www.adobe.com/go/acrreader. Windows is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other ================================================================== On the other hand, the T3 tax return fillable PDF works fine with evince. <https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/cra-arc/formspubs/pbg/t3ret/t3ret-fill-23…> I think that the CRA should ensure that its forms are not in a proprietary format. Today I learned that Adobe Reader again supports Linux. I'm pretty sure it will be horrible: large, not really native to my distro, closed source.

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Unplanned use...
by Colin McGregor 05 Mar '24

05 Mar '24

Ran across an alternate use for a product that MIGHT be of some interest here. The product is the STOLTHET wood cutting board from IKEA, which you would normally use for chopping up fruit, veggies, etc.. The reason I mention this is not as a cutting board but because the top is big enough to support many types of LCD monitors and the cutting board has 2.5" tall legs, so one could store a small digital camera, small USB hubs, etc. under the monitor. Also of note, IKEA has a 1 liter storage box that fits well under the cutting board if you want to store stuff like pens/pencils/markers/etc.... Just a though on freeing up a little bit of desk space.... Colin.

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.local question
by D. Hugh Redelmeier 03 Mar '24

03 Mar '24

I used to give all my machines permanent IP addresses and added entries in my domain for them. (I have /24 globally routable IP addresses.) I then got lazy and let most be assigned dynamically. But not servers. Now I'm even more lazy. I'm starting to use .local. So machines declare their hostname and mDNS / bonjour gets to resolve name.local. Neat. Tonight I'm creating an experimental NextCloud server. Let's say it's hostname is nc. - ping nc.local works - ssh nc.local works - host nc.local works - Firefox and even links cannot see nc.local. Why is that? Firefox is set to use the default DNS, not Firefox's own. If I give Firefox the actual IP address, Apache balks because it cares about the DNS name used. But that's further than nc.local got. I guess Firefox doesn't do mDNS. Why would that be? Or am I making a wrong guess? Clearly I could give to computer a real DNS name, but I'm kind of stubborn and want to understand what's going on.

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Windows in Boxes was Re: preliminary adventures with RDP / Remmina / Flatpak
by Michael Hill 03 Mar '24

03 Mar '24

So The Day Job has required that I upgrade to Windows 11 in order to RDP because Windows 10 isn't secure. I purchased an upgrade license from my installed Windows 10, secure in the belief that one of the strategies in this Tom's Hardware article would allow me to circumvent the TPM requirement (it didn't). https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/bypass-windows-11-tpm-requirement I then launched a fresh Boxes install from the Win 11 iso using these instructions: https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/how-to-win11-in-gnome-boxes.html It is now possible to choose UEFI instead of BIOS in Boxes, so the only thing I needed to add to the configuration was the TPM line. When it got to my license code, however, my upgrade code wouldn't work for a fresh install. I started a new Win 10 install to be run parallel with my currently-working copy. I used the ctrl.blog VM configuration in the hope that Windows Update would consider my new machine eligible. On Fri, Feb 2, 2024 at 3:19 PM D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> wrote: > > | From: Michael Hill via talk <talk(a)gtalug.org> > | About seven years ago I needed to start using it full time, so I > | bought a Windows 10 Pro license and an SSD. > > Yeah. It is a matter of pride/stubbornness that I don't want to buy a > second Windows license for the machine. I already involuntarily paid for > one. > > | My understanding is your ThinkPad should store the Windows license key > | that came with it in a folder in Linux. I've seen mine but I haven't > | tried using it. > > At one point, licenses were stored (partly) in the firmware. To get a fresh license code from my laptop for the second copy of Win 10, I ran: cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM The license code worked. Running Windows Update gave me 6 or 7 updates to install. After a number of restarts, not all of the updates were installed successfully and Windows 11 has not appeared as an update option. Hopefully there is more to this story but I won't burden the list with it. Mike

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